The word "church"� occurs 109 times in the New Testament, and the meaning of the word is "to hear the call of God, to come out from the world and follow Jesus."�

The word "kingdom"� occurs 149 times in the New Testament and the meaning of the word is "dominion,"� "power,"� "rulership," �"a fixed and established authority."� The two words are not at all alike in their root meaning or in their application. One of the greatest blunders among Christian teachers is to perpetually confound the Church and the kingdom as being one and the same thing, when everywhere in the Scripture they are very different, both in word and application and history.

If Bible students would notice the difference between the kingdom and the Church, it would throw a world of light on the subject of the second coming of Christ, and would make many things plain to those who are confused on that subject.

Let us notice a few differences between the Church and the kingdom.

1. The Church, in comparison with the world, is always small, but the kingdom is referred to all through Scripture as being very large. Jesus said, "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."� (Matt. 7:14.) The little flock is the Church, it was a little flock in the days of Jesus and in the days of the Apostles, and down to the present day the true, spiritual Church is still a little flock compared with the nations, and will remain a little flock till Jesus comes. But at the coming of the Lord this little flock, the true Church, will all be appointed the officers and judges over the vast kingdom. They are to take the kingdom, and to judge the world, and to serve as the nobility in Christ's empire. So many read in the Scriptures about the nations serving God, and about the kings of the earth bowing down to Him, and about all kings submitting to Him, and they very ignorantly think that those Scriptures apply to the Christian Church Age, when in reality every such passage in the Bible will be found, upon examination, to apply to the time of the kingdom when God should judge the nations and not to the time of the struggling Church.

2. The Church is always represented in the New Testament as being poor, as, for instance, Matthew 6:19 and 19:21, Luke 12:33, Acts 5: 6, James 2: 5, and many other passages, but on the other hand the kingdom is never poor, but always spoken of as being rich, inheriting the wealth of the world, as in Job 27: 13-19, Isaiah 54: 11, 12, and many such passages. In the entire New Testament there is not one single promise of earthly wealth to any Christian in the Gospel Age. Every promise in the Bible concerning riches is in connection with Israel and the kingdom of David or Messiah's kingdom or the kingdom period, but not one single promise of wealth to any Christian in the world. Yet so many Christians will take the promises of riches which belong to the Kingdom Age and try to make them fit in with the Church. It is true there have always been a few real Christians that were rich, but their wealth was a gratuity on the part of God, and there is no promise of wealth made to the Church this side of the coming of Jesus.

3. The Church is always spoken of in the New Testament as being a suffering Church, persecuted, hated, bearing many trials and hardships, and the Apostle said to all believers, "It is through much tribulation that we are to press our way through in order to inherit the kingdom of God."� The Jews killed Jesus, the head and pattern and sample of all other Christians, and the Church is to follow Jesus by taking up its cross daily and bearing all things, enduring all things, and this is to continue down to the second coming of Christ.

On the other hand, the kingdom is exempted from suffering; it is to be an age of triumph, of victory, of dominion, of coming to Zion with songs and everlasting joy, of treading every adversary under foot, a time of laughter and gladness, when all trial is brought to an end. Scores of Scriptures could be quoted to prove these two points. The Church Age is the age of the cross, the Kingdom Age is the age for the crown. In the Church Age the world judges the saints, but in the Kingdom Age St. Paul tells us that the saints will judge the world, and yet thousands of Christians are constantly confounding these two separate things.

4. The Church is here as an actual fact in the present time and always spoken of in the Scriptures as being in the present tense, but on the other hand the kingdom is everywhere spoken of as being about to come, or near at hand, or in the future. Jesus says, "Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom,"� but He does not say that anyone must be born again in order to see the Church. Wicked men have seen the Church ever since the day of Pentecost, but no one will rise in the first resurrection and see Jesus bringing His kingdom down upon this earth except those who have been born again in the present life. St. Paul speaks of all being prepared to meet Christ "at His appearing and kingdom,"� proving that the kingdom will come with His appearing. We are not taught to pray, "Thy Church come,"� for that is now, but we are taught to pray, "Thy kingdom come."�

5. The Church is gathered out from the world, a few here and a few there, according as the people are willing to repent and receive Christ, and there is not a Christian nation or a Christian city in the whole world, and never has been, and there is not a single town in the world where they are all real Christians, and Jesus affirms that throughout the Church Age there will be divisions in families, some for Christ and some against Christ. On the other hand, the kingdom will include all nations, for it is a kingdom promise that a nation shall be born in a day, and Daniel speaks several times of the kingdom promise that shall extend under the whole Heaven, and the saints shall have the kingdom, and all nations and tongues and peoples shall be in the kingdom, and David often speaks of the same thing; and St. John speaks of the time when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of Christ, but every such passage in the Bible is in connection with the kingdom and never in connection with the Church or the Church Age.

6. The very word Church in the original signifies a company that are called out from the world, by the voice of God, to live a separate life from the great crowd that go the broad way to ruin. But on the other hand the kingdom is to come with almighty conquering power, and Daniel says it will be like a great stone or a meteor falling from Heaven and grinding to powder the kingdoms of the world, crushing out all opposition, all wicked rulers, all false doctrine or crookedness, and filling the world with righteousness as waters fill the sea. We enter the Church by repentance and saving faith in Christ, but the kingdom will come with the resurrection of the dead saints, and the clothing of immortality, and the authority of scepters and crowns. The Church is to come out from the world, but on the other hand the kingdom is to conquer, subjugate and govern, which are two distinct things and belonging to two distinct dispensations.

7. The Church has ordinances and sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper and the Gospel ministry, which have always characterized the true Church. But when the kingdom comes there will be no more sacraments, no more Church, ordinances, and no more Gospel preachers in the sense we have them now. Every time we have the Lord's Supper the Scripture says, "As oft as ye do this, ye do shew forth the Lord's death till He come,"� proving that the Lord's Supper points back to Calvary with one hand and points on to the second coming of Christ with the other hand. And when Jesus brings the kingdom we shall eat and drink with Him, but the Church ordinances, as such, will have terminated.

Jesus tells us that many shall come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom, proving that the kingdom is in the future and will not come until the resurrection of the saints. In the Kingdom Age, we are told in several places, that the overcoming saints shall shepherdize the nations or rule over them, so that the work now done by the Gospel preachers will be carried forward in a much higher form by the glorified saints who will be the rulers and the shepherdizers of the nations that will live on the earth in the next age, and those who are not killed in the great tribulation.

The Church Age is like the Israelites passing through the wilderness with no certain city, but pilgrims and strangers, with many trials and hardships, but the Kingdom Age is like the Israelites in the days of David and Solomon, in their own land with complete dominion over every adversary. The Church Age is a period of faith, but the Kingdom Age is a period of open manifestations, when the sons of God, as Paul tells us, will be openly manifested. So it will help you in your reading of the Bible to note the various differences between those things which apply to the Church in the present age, and those things which apply to the kingdom in the coming age.