John the Baptist was the last of the prophets to the nation of Israel. His primary message, described in Matthew 3:2, was, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." He came to these people, with this message, for a very important reason.

To repent means to turn around. The best analogy I can think of for this could be from the military command, "About-turn." When a soldier is facing forward and the Sergeant Major on the parade ground says, "About-turn," the soldier turns around instantly with his back toward the direction he was facing and looks toward the direction where his back was facing formerly. That gives us a clear picture of the word repent - to turn around. We have to turn around in our mind. In English and in most languages, the word repent is not translated very clearly, but in the Tamil language it is very clear. In Tamil, repent is translated as "manam thirumbudhal', which means the turning of the mind. An about-turn of the mind is exactly what John the Baptist was preaching to the nation of Israel.

The nation of Israel was promised a whole lot of earthly things. Throughout the Old Covenant, there is no promise that they could partake of the divine nature of God, or have a treasure in heaven, or about a heavenly life on earth, etc. It was all earthly.

In Deuteronomy 28, we see clearly that they were promised material wealth, material prosperity, physical health, a number of children, and blessings on their businesses, crops and cattle. They were promised that they would be very prosperous, they would never be in debt, their earthly enemies will all be destroyed, they would be a great nation, and they would have a land, the land of Canaan, which was called Israel.

All the blessings promised to Israel up to this point in time were earthly, and their face was completely set towards the things of earth, all the time. But John the Baptist came along and said, "turn around now, about-turn from this. Stop facing the things of earth and turn around because now a new kingdom is coming. That is the kingdom of heaven, where earthly needs become secondary, even physical health becomes secondary. Material prosperity becomes unimportant because God provides us with material necessities. Turn around, because now God is going to give you spiritual wealth, that is, heavenly wealth. God is going to give you spiritual children, not necessarily physical children. You will have a spiritual, heavenly land to possess, not an earthly land, primarily." He was telling them to turn around because the kingdom of heaven had not yet come, and was near at hand. It was going to come on the day of Pentecost.

John the Baptist was also the forerunner for Jesus Christ, who was going to open up the way to a new covenant that God was making with man, which would bring people of all nations into a relationship with God as their Father. We read in Matthew 4:12-13 that John was taken prisoner by Herod. When Jesus heard this, He withdrew from Galilee and left Nazareth, where He had grown up and lived for thirty years, and came and stayed at a house in Capernaum, which is beside the sea. Then, from that moment onwards, Jesus began to preach the same message exactly as John the Baptist had preached. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 4:17). John, as it were, had run the first leg of the relay race and handed over the baton to Jesus and He took up the same message - "Repent" When Jesus ascended up to heaven, we read that the apostle Peter took up the baton from Jesus' hand and preached the same message - "Repent" (Acts 2:38). He preached to the people on the day of Pentecost, "Repent and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is the kingdom of God within us." Then, it had finally come.

When John the Baptist and Jesus talked about the kingdom of God, they said that it was going to come, or it was at hand. Jesus once said the kingdom of God is in your midst, referring to the fact that, in Christ Himself, the kingdom of God was already present. But it was not present in the people around Him. That would take place only on the day of the Pentecost, when those 120 disciples waited for baptism in the Holy Spirit. Then the Spirit of God filled them and the kingdom of God came to dwell within them. That is the kingdom they proclaimed - the kingdom of heaven (or the kingdom of God) - where the Holy Spirit dwells within us. It is not an external kingdom of physical healing and material prosperity, as it is, unfortunately, being preached by a lot of Christian preachers today. Plainly put, that is a deception, and is not the kingdom of God.

But what is it, exactly? In Romans 14:17 it says, the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking. It is not something earthly like prosperity or healing - it is not an earthly blessing at all.

According to Romans 14:17, the kingdom of God is righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit:

• Righteousness: The righteousness of God Himself, first imputed to us when we receive Christ as our Savior and Lord, and then imparted to us from within by the Holy Spirit, where the righteousness of God becomes manifested in our life.
• Joy: An inward joy that delivers us completely from discouragement and depression in the Holy Spirit.
• Peace: An inward peace, primarily given by the Holy Spirit, freedom from anxiety, fear, tension, discouragement, gloom, bad moods et cetera and an outward peace with all men, where we refuse to fight with people or anything.

So this is the kingdom of God. It's an inward thing. The kingdom of God is within us. It is the life of Christ coming within, through the Holy Spirit. It is the life of heaven, here on this earth, inside our hearts.

As we look ahead, let us heed the words of John the Baptist: "Stop facing the things of earth and turn around because now a new kingdom is coming, where earthly needs become secondary, even physical health becomes secondary. Material prosperity becomes unimportant because God provides us with material necessities. Turn around -- repent from facing this world -- because now God is going to give you spiritual wealth." 

Let us enter into the kingdom of heaven.