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All rights reserved. This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. This book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain or profit. The use of short quotations or occasional page copying for personal or group study is permitted and encouraged.

Scripture quotations marked ASV are taken from the AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION® of the Bible, Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible, Public domain.

Materials from The House of His Choosing, by Jim Wies, copyright 1999, Destiny Image. Used by permission of Destiny Image Publishers, 167 Walnut Bottom Road, Shippensburg, PA 17257 www.destinyimage.com.

ISBN 978-1-621660-79-8

XPPUBLISHING.COM

ENDORSEMENTS

A shift is happening. Books like The Advancing Kingdom are clearing out the nonsense of unbelief and fear. Finally leaders like Jonathan Welton and Jim Wies are shouting the good news from the mountaintops. The Kingdom of God is here. The whole world needs to hear this message. I am so blessed to join my voice in the shout of this victory.

∼ Harold Eberle

worldcastministries.com

Author of Victorious Eschatology

God is at work in our world. He always has been, but we tend to expect Him to be at work in some particular way that fits in with our preconceived ideas and theologies. In this inspiring volume, Jonathan Welton and Jim Wies lift the veil to reveal the true nature of God’s Kingdom. It is not just some utopian future or heaven when we die. God’s Kingdom is here now! It is God’s new world and new way of living, which is emerging amongst us as we open our hearts to believe and our eyes to see. And it is an advancing Kingdom - growing every day. As you read this book, let the veil lift from your eyes too!

∼ Rev. Dr. Martin Trench,

Lead Pastor of Gateway Church, Edmonton Alberta,

Co-author of Victorious Eschatology

This book was a very enjoyable read for me and it is my pleasure to highly recommend it. The Lord is releasing a stream of anointed books designed to counter what I call “toxic eschatology”. The Advancing Kingdom is surely one of those books and I found it to be substantive and convincing as Jim Wies and Jonathan Welton invite us to believe that there are no limits on how much of the Kingdom we can contend for NOW. Read it and have your spirit stoked with hope.

∼ Johnny Enlow

Author of The 7 Mountain Prophecy

and The 7 Mountain Mantle

I highly recommend Jim Wies’ & Jonathan Welton’s new book, The Advancing Kingdom! Jim is a unique and tremendous gift to the body of Christ! He is both a highly anointed and accurate prophetic minister and a very discerning and diligent Bible scholar. His and Jonathan’s insights to the Kingdom of God are both biblically sound and prophetically illuminating. Their powerful book, The Advancing Kingdom, is on the cutting edge of what the Holy Spirit is saying and doing! Get it and grow and go into the advancing Kingdom!

∼ Dr. Michael Maiden

Pastor/apostolic leader of Church For The Nations

Author of Turn the World Upside Down

Jonathan Welton is a fresh new voice in the Body of Christ that is being used by God to unlock hidden truths of the Kingdom. His revelation on end-time eschatology and the Advancing Kingdom of God is a breath of fresh air to all who are hungry and want to walk in the fullness of their destiny.

The truth of the matter is that much of the church has been living in fear, tormented by a gross misrepresentation of end time eschatology. Jonathan Welton and Jim Wies have done an incredible job of debunking and unmasking the doctrinal error which the church has embraced as biblical truth. In this generation, as we begin to understand our identity and place in human history through proper biblical context and truth, we will be liberated to move forward with fresh Kingdom power and authority to slay the intimidating spirit of Goliath that has brought paralysis upon many.

This book, The Advancing Kingdom, is a powerful tool that will bring transformation in your life. As you read it, be prepared to be liberated into an amazing freedom of Kingdom Power and Authority.

∼ Jeff Jansen

Author of Glory Rising and The Furious Sound of Glory

Founder of Global Fire Ministries International,

& Kingdom Life Institute

Global Connect & Global Fire Churches

Jonathan and Jim have given us a first class introduction to a “Kingdom Alignment” that will lead to our “Kingdom Assignment”. Jesus must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.

My greatest joy of reading The Advancing Kingdom is a clear revelation of God’s plan for the future that inspires faith and does not instill fear. Unleashing heaven on earth will take place as the end time army of God fills the earth with His Glory.

This book is an absolute must read!

∼ Leif Hetland

President - Global Mission Awareness

Author of Seeing Through Heaven’s Eyes

In The Advancing Kingdom, Jim Wies and Jonathan Welton give hope and exciting anticipation regarding the posture and function of the Body of Christ in the coming days. Read it and enjoy the encouragement and empowerment you receive from it. It will build your faith for sure.

∼ Patricia King

Founder, XPmedia and XPministries

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface by Jim

Preface by Jonathan

Introduction

Chapter ONE - The Kingdom Predicted

Chapter TWO - Characteristics of the Kingdom

Chapter THREE - The Inauguration of the Kingdom

Chapter FOUR - The Ever-Increasing Kingdom

Chapter FIVE - The Transcendent Nature of the Kingdom

Chapter SIX -The Kingdom Hijacked

Chapter SEVEN -Three Future Events

Chapter EIGHT - Finishing the Apostolic Mission

PREFACE BY JIM WIES

There was a time when I felt all alone in my bewilderment about what I saw as a schizophrenic view of the Kingdom of God from much of the Church. Among many there was a prophetic sense of the current nearness and “nowness” of the Kingdom, while at the same time holding the popularized eschatological view of the prophetic Scriptures that indicated the Kingdom of God is a distant hope for a future age, but not a current reality.

As a young Christian I had been taught in Sunday School and from the pulpit the standard dispensationalist view that included an imminent expectation of a pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture. There was even a stage in my young adulthood where I abandoned any serious plans for my future, as I thought Jesus’ return was certainly going to happen before I crossed my twenty-fifth birthday. But now (thirty+years later), after deliberately ignoring the subject for close to twenty years of ministry, the Lord challenged me that it was time for me to thoroughly study and find out for myself the truth about His Kingdom and its relationship to the end of the age.

As I progressed on this journey I discovered I was not alone, after all. In fact, the position I now hold has been a prevailing view of theologians throughout much of the 2,000 year history of the church. But it was when I discovered the work of Jonathan Welton on the subject, that I felt the greatest confidence that what I have learned and have to say, though certainly controversial, needs to be said. I’ve become convinced that the Body of Christ needs a major adjustment in what has become virtually fundamental presuppositions in much of the Body of Christ affecting their perspective of the presence of the Kingdom of God and it’s relevance for today. So I was pleased when Jonathan agreed to collaborate with me in the writing of this book and for the addition of it to his trilogy of books on the subject. Our desire is that it will contribute to a needed shift in much of the Body of Christ toward a victorious, triumphant view of this present age.

I trust that it will bless you and inspire you in your labors for the advancing of His Kingdom. “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” 1 Timothy 1:17

∼ Jim Wies

PREFACE BY JONATHAN WELTON

After writing Raptureless; An Optimistic Guide to the End of the World, I realized the great need for a book like The Advancing Kingdom. Raptureless dismantles the misunderstandings that have been taught about the supposed future of the world. Yet for most readers, once the lies are removed, they are paralyzed with the question, “What do I do now?” That is why The Advancing Kingdom was needed.

When Jim Wies emailed me an early copy of The Advancing Kingdom, I was ecstatic! Even in its early form, it carried my heartbeat for the book that I planned to write. I was glad to add my input and write several chapters to round out the work.

This has also triggered the idea that we will be making a book series. The Advancing Kingdom will lay the groundwork of understanding the Church, the Kingdom and our current mission. Raptureless then removes lies about the future and restores an optimistic view of the Kingdom. Thirdly will be a book regarding the Book of Revelation. We may write more than three books in this series, but this is what we have in view at the moment.

Thank you for taking the time to invest in your understanding of the Kingdom.

Bless you

∼ Jonathan Welton

Best-selling author & Director of The Welton Academy

INTRODUCTION

Changing Our Perspective of the Game

As the story goes, there was once a young boy who had never seen a baseball game before. He was curious about a local game, but didn’t have money for a ticket. Around one side of the stadium was a high wooden fence, and to his delight, the boy discovered a knothole in the fence. He peeked through to see what the game was all about.

As he watched, he became a bit disillusioned at what he saw. There were two men standing in a field who would occasionally move forward, then back, and then they would run off to an area he couldn’t see, and two new men would come out. Bleachers full of people were watching them do this. He was beginning to think baseball wasn’t such a great sport until a buddy came along, and together they climbed up a nearby tree.

The view from high in the tree branches was quite a different perspective than the one through the knothole. Now he saw all the action. He realized he had been viewing a very limited part of the game. He realized things looked quite different from above the knothole.

We, as Christians, have often been in the same position as the boy looking through the knothole. We have a limited view of God and His Kingdom. For centuries we have viewed His Kingdom and His Kingdom agency, the Church, from the limited perspective of our own experiences and the traditions of people. With such a narrow perspective, it is no wonder most people think there has to be something more to this than what we are currently seeing. And there is! But to get the proper view, we must step back and rise above the knothole in order to see the bigger perspective.

This book is an attempt to gain a fresh perspective on the Kingdom of God by rising above what we have seen in the Church so far and taking a look at what it could be and will be. God has in mind a glorious end-time expression of the Church within the bigger picture of a full expression of His Kingdom on Earth as it is in heaven—a Church full of apostolic power, prophetic revelation, and unprecedented love of the brethren. Although this is contrary to the prevailing eschatological views of much of today’s Church, a thorough examination of the Scriptures will give us a much bigger view of the “ball game” than most of us have been seeing. God promised David He would raise up the House of David and a descendant would rule there forever.

As Acts 15:15-18 states:

Just as it is written: “After this I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up; so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the Lord who does all these things.” Known to God from eternity are all His works.

This tabernacle, the House of David, is the government of God being restored by Jesus Christ, the Son of David. This restoration was inaugurated at His coming, and it is now beginning to be enforced, not just within the Church but through the Church into every sector of society.

To make such a statement, we must recognize that we are at a place of major transition and restoration in the Church. Acts 3:20-21 states that Jesus is being retained in heaven “until the times of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.” We are currently in the unfolding stages of those “times of restoration.”

CHAPTER ONE

THE KINGDOM PREDICTED

Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills….

—Isaiah 2:2

The House of David

The apostles were baffled. This thing they called the “church” was expanding in a way they had not foreseen. They had just received the reports from Paul and Barnabas of Gentiles coming to God by faith and receiving the Holy Spirit, just as they had. Then “senior apostle” James remembered the prophecy.

His statement is recorded in Acts 15:13-18.

“And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, “Men and brethren, listen to me: Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written: ‘After this I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up; So that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the Lord who does all these things.’ Known to God from eternity are all His works.”

This was James’ revelation: The tabernacle of David, known of and planned by God from eternity past, was now beginning to be rebuilt. But what exactly was this House that God said He Himself would rebuild in the last days? To understand its meaning, let’s look to its origin, with King David.