# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1860_S345
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Clöter, One Flock under One Shepherd, etc. 345

the kingdom of God. For that, indeed, is the basic idea running through the whole book from beginning to end: that the kingdom of God is not yet present, but is only going to come. We stand, rather, still only in the age of the world-empires, and, as we learn from Daniel, there are four such world-empires: the Babylonian, the Persian, the Greek, and the Roman. This Roman world-empire, it is true, already met its end in 476, but recovered from its deadly wound in Charlemagne in 800, until it came to an end in 1806, and has since then continued only in its ten toes, that is, ten individual kingdoms, until at last these too are broken in pieces, so that the kingdom of God may take its place as the fifth world-empire. "Understand" — so the peasants of Reutin and the surrounding country are admonished — "that the kingdom in which we live is only the fourth, not yet the fifth kingdom; do not think that the fifth kingdom, the kingdom of Christ, is hidden away somewhere beside it, or outside it, or within it, or even up above the stars, but that it will enter in after this Roman kingdom exactly as the Roman once followed upon the Greek, and the Greek upon the Persian, and the Persian upon the Babylonian world-empire" (p. 20). The children of God are, as yet, only under the dominion of the world-empires; they are, since David's throne was broken, in the Babylonian captivity, where indeed, as once Daniel had great influence upon the Persian king, so now too the captives have the greatest influence upon their conquerors; but it is nevertheless still only a captivity under the world-empire. "Whoever knows this" — runs another admonition — "let him wait quietly, be he king or subject, until the Roman empire has entirely passed away; it is folly to want to begin building on this empire oneself. Rather it is needful to prepare one's soul and cleanse oneself from one's sins by the medicine of 1 John 1:7–9" (p. 21). Above all, however, it is necessary to pursue this doctrine of the coming kingdom of God with real diligence. For "this revelation which Daniel gives us is just as important as the revelation at Sinai through Moses, and must, in our time, be impressed upon the children in school just as much as the Ten Commandments" (p. 66).

Only in this way, moreover, will the right work among the heathen first become possible. "For as the so-called Christian nations now are, they are not fit to bring Christianity to the other nations. And as the heathen now are, one can, indeed, provisionally make them acquainted with the Law of God and the Savior of sinners; but the kingdom of God cannot yet be preached to them — for that a thousand years of preparation are needed" (p. 119). For how does it come about that Christendom has, since the seventh and eighth centuries, scarcely experienced any further increase? that missions, too, make comparatively so little progress? "Answer: because Christendom itself is no longer, or not yet, clear about its own calling. It is to preach the kingdom of God. Instead of that, one still preaches far too much of an earthly churchliness, and is