The Kingdom of God

For many years I knew about the Kingdom of God, of course, and I knew it very well, just as all of us know it. I didn’t have a revelation about it, though.

Now, in His mercy, Holy Spirit gave me the revelation.

The first two people who were made after the image and likeness of God were never born, of course, because they were made out of God. They were directly under God’s command, they had to obey Him, but from the start they disobeyed His command and thus they died from His Kingdom, His rule—exactly as God told them it would happen.

This was the precise opposite of rebirth. Out from under the Kingdom of light where God reigns, into the kingdom of darkness where the devil reigns. (Colossians 1:13)

About four thousand years passed, during which God ordained for Himself the nation of Israel, with their Law and temple and sacrifices, to keep them until the time of the promised Anointed One, who again would proclaim the kingdom of God on earth.

Then Jesus came: “The true light was coming into the world, which was lighting the whole world.” Every man.

What then was the purpose of Jesus’ coming?

We have many answers: to annul the works of the devil, to deliver people from sin, to make it possible for people to go to heaven, and so on — all of which are true, but all are included in the main purpose, namely, to proclaim the Kingdom of God.

Through the years Jesus was teaching His disciples on earth, He spoke over and over again about the coming kingdom, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. Reading through the four gospels, one sees that the kingdom teaching was Jesus’ main subject.

Over and over He taught them by parables about the kingdom, how the kingdom would be. He told them precisely on what spiritual Law, what spiritual principle, the kingdom would operate: the Law of Sowing and Reaping. (Mark 4:26)

He also gave the new constitution of the coming Kingdom, namely the Law of Love:

A new commandment I give you, that you love one another. By this shall all know that you are My disciples, if you have love one to another. John 13:34–35

How I love Jesus! Of course, the disciples were not yet born again, so they couldn’t keep that command. Sinners can’t do that kind of love. It was meant for born-again people, the new species.

Jesus used that time to teach His disciples all about this kingdom which He was to make possible for them, by His death and resurrection.

He proclaimed a new spiritual kingdom.

He told them that none could enter or even see the kingdom of God, except they be born again. (John 3:3–5) Man needed to again be born back from the spiritual death into which Adam and Eve were born, back to under the rule of God.

Jesus Himself is the Door through which it would be made possible for human beings to get back into the kingdom of God, by rebirth. (John 10)

It means for me to be in His kingdom, and His kingdom to be in me. (Luke 17:21; John 15:5) What grace!

Because the issue is the kingdom, Jesus said: “This gospel of the kingdom shall first be proclaimed throughout the entire world for a witness to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14)

That is why He also said: “Seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33)

Of course, at the time of His teaching, nobody could enter the kingdom, because it was still before the cross, but Jesus wanted them to hunger and thirst for this kingdom. He wanted them to seek righteousness; they had to be hungry to grasp the kingdom as soon as He would make it possible for them to enter.

Jesus taught them the prayer: “Our Father… Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”

That was all made possible by His death, for then the kingdom did come.

None of the disciples or bystanders around that cross knew with what Jesus was busy. They knew He was being crucified, but they didn’t know that He was paying the price for their sins.

After His body was laid in the tomb they didn’t know what agony He endured in hell, to make it possible for them to enter into the kingdom of God.

They didn’t know that His agonies were the birth pains by which He gave birth to a new race of born-again people, to again have them under His supreme rule, in His kingdom.

After His resurrection when He blew on them and said: “Receive ye the Holy Spirit” they had no clue that therewith they were born again into this new kingdom. (Colossians 1:13; John 20:22)

After that, every person who was born again was born into the kingdom of God. Even so, the mind of man is so filled with trash from the kingdom of darkness from which he comes, that he knows nothing else!

Therefore we have to grow as newborn babies, step by step, renewing our minds with the Word of God, to make it possible for us to really live the kingdom principles where God’s will is done in earth — that is, my earthly body — even as it is in heaven. This was what the prayer meant.

Nobody that I know of is there yet, neither am I, because of ignorance. We just don’t know what Jesus really did through death, hell and resurrection.

Isn’t this the reason why Jesus says: “Seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness—and the rest will be added unto you”?

I am now born again into the kingdom of God. It is no longer a hope, it is a done fact. I just have to know it! Now I have to seek His righteousness, His rule, I have to seek how His kingdom operates, I need to desire to be there where His will works in me even as in heaven.

Of course all else will then be added unto me, because it will be as in heaven. There is no sickness in heaven, no poverty, no sin.

Most of our lack—spirit, soul and body—comes from not knowing what Jesus did on the cross and through hell, up to His resurrection.

Of course, all books on earth would not be enough to really describe it all, but it can help us a million just to look and “hear” the basics.

Jesus came to fulfil the Law. He was the Word of God, so He was the Law as well as the prophets, everything written in the Old Testament—Jesus was the substance of the letter of all the Old Testament.

Remember, if I send you a letter saying I’m preparing you a nice plate of food — rice, baked potatoes, nice baked mutton, green beans and every nice thing — then you have the letter, which is truth, but you still don’t have the substance, till I give you the plate of food. Then the letter is fulfilled; then you no longer have need of the letter.

Everything Jesus taught His disciples through His earth walk was for the future, for when He would fulfil what He came to do. The disciples were not saved yet, they were not Christians, they knew nothing about it even.

It was not possible for them to be in His kingdom before His death and resurrection. He told the Rabbi that nobody could see or enter the kingdom of God, except he be born again — and that was not possible before His resurrection. (John 3:3–5)

When Jesus said He came that we might have life and abundance, He knew we would have it right after His resurrection. It is not for us to cry after today! It is for us to rejoice and praise Him because we now do have life and abundance!

When He told them “if you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you will ask whatever you want and will receive it” (John 15:7), He knew they would receive every answer to every prayer ever prayed from the beginning of the human race, to the last prayer that would ever be prayed, with His death and resurrection. So now we have it all!

“God, who spared not even His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how would He not—with Him—also give us all things?” (Romans 8:32) This happened with His death!

What is excluded here? What did He not give us with Christ? What can we ask today that He has not already given us when He gave up His Son to die?

Now we are crying to God and fasting—I did that for many years—for all those things that God already had given me two thousand years ago with Christ. Just because I didn’t know what God in Christ did on the cross and through hell.

He fulfilled, finished, all things up to that day on the cross. Not only that which we are calling the Old Testament, but everything up to that day, also the four gospels. The New Testament started only in His blood—not before.

Everything Jesus taught and spoke before His death, He fulfilled by His death.

Of course, that doesn’t include the prophecies about the second coming of Jesus in both Old and New Testaments; those still have to be fulfilled.

The four gospels were an interim between the old and the new, a time of teaching and preparing His disciples for the kingdom which was coming after His resurrection.

When Jesus told His followers how to pray: “Our Father…” He made them hungry for God to be their Father, and that could not be possible before His resurrection, for they could not have been born out of God before Jesus’ resurrection. Not before!

It is not for us to hunger and pray for, and desire, for God’s kingdom to come, or for His will to be done in us. It is a done thing! We no longer pray for the kingdom to come! Jesus opened the door into the kingdom of God by His death. He was the firstborn out of death into this glorious kingdom. He is the Head of the body, so by rebirth every member of the body follows into the kingdom.

Now I am praying for years and years, getting more and more discouraged, losing more and more trust in the Word of God, because He told His disciples that “everything they ask in My Name, I will do for them.” And we ask and pray and He doesn’t do it for us!

Everybody I know has problems with that. Then we feel guilty and blame ourselves as failures because our prayers mean nothing! We don’t know that He gave everything with Jesus!

He already did it for us with His death! We just don’t think!

This very morning while I was meditating on these verses, Holy Spirit whispered in my heart: “Where was Jesus when He spoke that to His followers?” He was still before the cross! It was not for us for now! We are now after the cross, after He did everything that He promised to His followers while walking with them those dusty roads. He already did it for them, and He did it for us.

Everything Jesus promised for His disciples before His death, I do have now as a born-again child of God!

It is not necessary for Him to do it again; He answered every prayer. We only have to know it!

This is why Paul says: “For I have decided to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2)

He decided to know nothing before the cross, only the now Jesus Christ, after He was crucified.

Jesus is now, for ME, now and here!

It is not necessary for Him to do it again today. I just don’t think about it — that everything was changed with the death of Jesus Christ. All the old things till then have passed away and with His resurrection everything did become new. I can’t today carry the old things into my life again!

Because of our church traditions we are still praying the only way we know how, as we inherited from the Roman church and on through all the following churches, in total ignorance and unbelief, because we don’t ask Holy Spirit to show us what happened on the cross and through hell.

We pray as if Jesus did not succeed in what He came to do! As if it all still has to be done someday!

Every promise of Jesus to His followers was already fulfilled with His death.

A promise is something you don’t yet have; a promise is always in the future. But now it is no longer promises, it is done facts. We no longer ask; we praise and thank as Jesus did at the grave of Lazarus: “I thank You, Father, that you already answered me.”

Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new!

We only need to know with revelation knowledge what Jesus did for us — far above everything we ever can pray or think. We needn’t beg, we need to accept!

While I was busy meditating on these things, Holy Spirit opened to me an amazing truth.

The Bible says: “that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but may have everlasting life.” “Whoever believes on Him, shall not be put to shame.” (Romans 10:11)

Now we know that everybody believes in Jesus. Muslims believe in Jesus, Hindus believe in Jesus, followers of Buddha believe in Jesus, all the forefather-spirit-worshippers in South Africa believe in Jesus. They all believe that He was born and lived on earth, did miracles and later died. It is well-known history.

The devil also believes it! Yet we know that none of these people are saved because they believe in Jesus. Jesus says that none can enter the kingdom of God — nor even see it — except he be born again. So, regular believing is not enough.

What and how do we need to believe on Jesus to be saved?

Because if you shall confess the word with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and shall believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth one confesses unto salvation. Romans 10:8–9

We believe on the resurrected Jesus! We don’t only believe on the Man who walked the earth and was crucified; we believe that God raised Him from the dead! The moment somebody believes that, it no longer makes of Jesus a common man, but the Son of God!

Then it makes of Him the Christ! The Messiah of the Jews, the Anointed One!

“Inasmuch as God appointed a day in which He will judge the inhabited earth in righteousness by a Man whom He had ordained: having given assurance unto all, in that He had raised Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:31)

“And if Christ had not been raised, then is our preaching void, and our faith also is void. If we have in this life only hoped in Christ we are of all men pitiable. But now, Jesus was raised!” (1 Corinthians 15:14, 19)

What then does His resurrection mean to ME?

Look — when Jesus was on the cross, God made Him sin. (2 Corinthians 5:21) But I was sin! I was sickness! I was poverty and misery. Jesus became me; He took my punishment on Himself. Because He became ME — sin, sickness, poverty and misery — He had to die and go to hell, for that was MY penalty.

“The punishment to bring peace to me, was laid on Him, and by His stripes healing came for me.”

Then Jesus was in hell, as ME, and He burnt up all of my sin, sickness, poverty and misery, till all was burnt to ashes. He couldn’t have risen before He burnt it all.

He couldn’t have arisen before all of my sicknesses were healed! He couldn’t have left some sins or sickness or poverty on me. He just couldn’t have been raised as long as there was any sin, sickness, poverty or misery left on me!

The fact that He was raised means that I no longer have any sin, sickness or poverty.

And He was raised! We believe it with all of our hearts! We know it!

Therefore I no longer have any illness — if I still did have some sickness left, Jesus couldn’t have been raised!

What then? Now the poison, which is deceit — remember when that fight happened through Jesus’ death? The fight between the seed of the snake and the Seed of the woman, Jesus, that God spoke of in Genesis 3:15? While bruising the snake’s head, the snake bit Him in the heel. Now that poison in the body is deceit, lies, traditions of the elders. (Hebrews 2:14)

That poison now comes and brings some symptom on a person’s body. Although this is deceit, the person immediately “takes” it for himself by believing it — one believes that which one feels — and then he claims it for himself by confessing it, instead of confessing the resurrection of Jesus Christ!

With the heart we believe, and with the mouth we confess — and then we have it! (Romans 10:8–10)

Exactly the same thing that happened with Eve. We blame Adam for not doing what God told him to. God told him: “This is your earth, subdue it and rule over it.”

The very moment that snake started his talks with Eve, Adam had to cast him away and tell him never to return to his planet. Adam had the power and the right and the command!

But he didn’t do it; he allowed the snake to speak.

Eve still had no sin while the snake was talking. He couldn’t himself put sin on her; she had to do it herself! The snake did the convincing, but only when Eve chose for herself to eat, sin came into her.

Same with Adam. He was there with his wife when she ate — and he didn’t stop her — and she also gave to her husband with her and he ate, and only when he, of his own choice, ate the fruit, he became sin.

Same now with us. When deceit comes with some symptom — a parasite that is not part of your clean resurrected spirit — remember, the fact that Jesus arose from the dead means that you no longer have any sickness.

What are you doing with that symptom? Immediately you believe it and “take” it for yourself by believing and confessing it. Then you have it!

It is not even part of you, because you are clean — or else Jesus couldn’t have risen — and this illness is like some spiritual tick biting on your clean spirit and then it manifests in your body. It is not part of you! You are clean!

Instead of you taking your stand and casting these symptoms away from you in the Mighty Name of Jesus Christ and simply refusing it, you are talking about “my cancer” or “my diabetes” — or whatever. It is not yours! Jesus was raised! It is the devil’s! It has no right on you!

Many times it becomes a hereditary illness — the sins of the fathers on the children and grandchildren. Not God doing it, or “God allowing” it, but a person’s own choice.

As Eve had chosen, as Adam had chosen, and it became a hereditary sin-infection to all of the human race.

Same with sin. You look at that beautiful other woman, and instead of chasing the thoughts out as you would chase hell itself, you allow yourself to enjoy and cuddle the thoughts — the tick bites on your spirit and crashes your life. The choice is yours! And then you very conveniently have “the old devil” to blame. It is not the devil, it is you, yourself. Own it and repent!

And this is truth! You can argue left and right, but Jesus couldn’t have been raised except all sin, sickness and poverty was totally wiped out.

Because one accepts sin, sickness, poverty or any misery in your own belief, is the reason why you have it!

Listen carefully: if you don’t want it any longer, start chasing it out with force and just keep it up until it is gone. Of course it will leave! Everything depends on how important it is to YOU. Whether you allow it or not. If you are happy to have it, well, good luck!

Just remember one can’t caress a snake to death!

Most people trying it give up after the first half-hearted try. Many are simply too lazy to even start doing it. Others are ashamed to do it — they would rather keep their sin and sickness. Many even brag about their illnesses!

If only you can understand: it is not your sickness! The fact that Jesus arose from the dead means that you are cleansed from all sin and sickness. You need not keep it.

So, don’t keep it! Resist it as you would resist hell itself! “Resist the devil and he will flee from you!” After that he is a fugitive. He doesn’t want to be found by you; he runs away even when you get near!

But if you don’t resist the devil or his poison, he will totally consume your life.

We take the devil as a troublesome yet convenient and useful family member! This is why we live with all these miseries. We need the devil to blame for all our own mistakes and sins and lusts and our ignorance.

“But each is tempted, being drawn away by his own lust and enticed. Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin: and the sin full-grown brings forth death.” (James 1:14–15)

We have no idea of what Jesus did through the cross, through hell, and through resurrection!

Jesus did rise! Just think of that wonderful and glad greeting with which His followers greeted one another after His resurrection: “He really was raised!”

Thus, all the world “believes” in Jesus as a man of whom history tells, but we, the born-again people, believe in His resurrection! That is why we are saved! If He was not raised from the dead, nobody could have been saved. (1 Corinthians 15)

We are not saved because Jesus lived on earth as a man, but because He was risen from death and hell!

Isn’t Jesus just so awesome and sweet!

Letta Pretorius