Your Kingdom Come

Matthew 6:9-13 (KJV, eSword ed.)
9  After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10  Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11  Give us this day our daily bread. 12  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

We all know this passage as the Lord's prayer and have recited it numerous times as a responsive congregational prayer. Jesus did not give it as a prayer to be prayed over and over in vain repetition, in fact this was what he was teaching against when he gave this instruction to his disciples. This was given as an example of how to pray, not for a rote formula.

How does a preterist understand the parts of this teaching on prayer? I was asked this and this is my response.

I was asked:To be more specific, do you think that His kingdom has already come? Should we continue pray for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven? Should we seek for our daily bread? Would there be no temptation and have we been delivered from evil?

My answer in short is Yes.
 
In long my answer is; has His Kingdom come? Yes, and it is increasing to fill the whole earth as both Daniel and Isaiah foresaw. The Kingdom of Messiah is in the state of coming and has been since his birth.

Reading in Daniel 2 we find the reference to the vision of Nebuchadnezzar of the statue and Daniels interpretation of it, with the stone broken from the mountain.

Daniel 2:34.35  (KJV, eSword ed.)
34 Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon its feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them in pieces. 35 Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away, so that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
Daniel 2:44 And in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.

This is the Messianic kingdom. Everyone who holds to any eschatological view accepts this truth. Daniel tells us when this kingdom is set up by God, it is during the times of the kings that the statue represents.

The Jews understood that this time frame was during what we call the first century and were waiting for the Messiah to destroy and supplant the Roman Empire, the kingdom represented by the ten toes of iron mixed with clay.

Isaiah tells us more about the Messianic kingdom and the birth of the Messiah King.

Isaiah 9:6.7
6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.

Here we find that the child born, the son that is given has the government of the Messianic kingdom upon his shoulders. It continues to increase with no end.

Taking both Daniel and Isaiah together we see that the Messianic kingdom starts during the end of the Roman Empire and keeps increasing until it fills the whole earth.

I see that we are in this period of the increasing kingdom. We continue the work of Messiah by taking the kingdom gospel to all peoples of the earth, working for the kingdom to fill the whole earth, as part of our work of reconciling all men to God through Christ Jesus.

As to your other questions, yes of course. It should be our firm desire that God's will is done here as it is done in Heaven. We should always look to Him as our source and supplier of our daily food, giving him thanks and praise for his many blessings.

And yes we still need to be delivered from temptation.

I know that some think that in the Messianic Kingdom age there will be no sinning taking place, no sinners, no evil. But that is not what the Revelation declares.

The last parts of the Revelation describes the kingdom as a great city, the New Jerusalem. We know this is not an actual physical city of 1500 miles square and high, because it is written that this is the bride of Christ, so it is representative of the kingdom people. After the description of the city we find this statement.

Revelation 22:14.15
14 "Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15 Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

The city of the New Jerusalem as the kingdom has those who are in Messiah, have washed their robes entering the city, while outside are sinners. Saints and sinners alive in the same age.

So yes, we need to be saved from the temptation of evil of the world in this present Messianic Kingdom Age.