Defining the Kingdom – Part 2

This Kingdom of Heaven will initially reign for 1000 years after Christ’s second coming and then after the events that occur after that 1000 years will go into eternity and will never be destroyed. The we defined the Body of Christ which consists of every called out believer in the last 2000 years. These are those who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His taking on flesh and suffering Death and burial for our sin and then rising from the dead. All those who believe by faith are the Body of Christ.

But we saw that the three entities, the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Body of Christ are not all the same thing.

Then we pointed out the importance of seeing this so we can see correctly understand the Bible.

We looked at the image of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision, which God gave the prophet Daniel the interpretation of, and we saw that this image represented all the main Gentile Kingdoms of history back to the Babylonian empire. That was king Nebuchadnezzar’s own kingdom.

At the second coming of Jesus Christ, who we saw was the stone cut out without hands, He would smash the images feet made of a mixture of iron and clay and every detail of all those Gentile kingdoms would collapse and cease to exist.

The feet represent the Gentile kingdom that’ll be in place at Christ’s return.

Not one tiny scrap of these kingdoms will remain, and they’ll be gone forever. They’ll be replaced with this incredible Kingdom of Heaven, Christ’s Kingdom on earth.

It’s interesting to note how each of these Gentile kingdoms depicted in Nebuchadnezzar’s image, as powerful as they were, are losing quality and value as they’re each established.

Nebuchadnezzar’s own kingdom, the Babylonian empire, was gold. It was strong but od solid gold quality.

The Medio Persian empire was silver, still high quality but just that bit less of a kingdom than the Babylonians.

By the time the Greeks come along the quality of government has dropped substantially to brass or bronze.

Then the Roman empire is iron, a huge downward scale form gold.

Finally, the revived Roman empire that will be the empire and world government on the earth when Christ returns is a mixture of clay and iron. That’s a very unstable mix and it shows the incredibly poor quality of government that’ll be in existence then.

The world is quickly moving to that quality of government as we speak.

Now, I know that a lot of what we say in these studies is repetition.

Somebody once said in a quote “Repetition of the same thought or physical action develops into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an automatic reflex.”

If we repeatedly hear these concepts of God through His Word one day they’ll suddenly just open up.

After all Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God as Paul tells us in Romans 10:17.

 

So, we begin with Daniel who’s writing down his own vision concerning the end time.

He’s seen a vision from God also but, unlike Nebuchadnezzar’s that came as an image of a fearful man, Daniels vision came in the form of four animals.

We’re in Daniel 7 verses 13 and 14,

Daniel 7:13-14

I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man (That’s, of course, God the Son, Jesus Christ of the New Testament.), Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days (Which is a reference to God the Father.), And they brought Him near before Him. 

Then to Him was given dominion and glory …,

 

Now, let’s have a look at what we’ve got so far.

Who was first given dominion over this planet?

Adam!

Adam was given dominion over everything on the planet. Everything that lived and moved was under Adam’s dominion. But he lost that dominion because of his rebellion against when he ate of the tree.

All the things wondrous things that Adam had under his dominion far exceed what we can imagine today. Just one thing was forbidden amongst all that incredible beauty and provision, “Don’t eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Just one thing. What a picture of humanity right down through our history to today.

Of all the wonderful things we have to choose from to do, the incredible choices we have, we always desire that which is forbidden to us more.

Now, here we are about 6000 or more years later, and another Adam comes on the scene. This is the One that apostle Paul calls the Last Adam in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 45 or the Second Man in verse 47 of the same passage.

The Last Adam’s going to take back what the first Adam lost. That’s why we use the same word – “dominion.”

Let’s continue reading these verses, verse 14,

Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him.

In other words, His Kingdom’s going to cover the whole globe – not just Israel – not just the Middle East. This’s literal and we need to read it for what it says.

 

Israel will always be the apple of God’s eye, His favoured nation. It’ll be the head of the nations.

But that control’s going to be over the whole planet. It’s going to literally be heaven on earth, beyond description. Even the animals won’t prey on other animals anymore and even the fiercest of animals will be tame and peaceful and will enjoy close relationships with humans.

Isaiah 11:6 gives us a small glimpse of what it’ll be like,

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them. 

So does Satan is bound up. There’s no more sin, or death, or sickness. As we said, it’s Heaven on earth or an earthly heaven if you like..

So, let’s finish verse 14.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed. 

 

Now as we see here and as we saw at the close of the last episode, the Old Testament doesn’t put a time frame on this Kingdom, but the Book of Revelation does. One thousand years. But hold on, this verse here, verse 14 of Daniel 7, says His Kingdom’s going to reign forever.

What’s going to happen?

Well, there are some events that’ll take place at the end of those 1000 years but the Kingdom itself won’t stop. It’s not going to cease. It’s going to continue through those events and after they’ve taken place it’ll just slide on into eternity. It’ll pass into timelessness where time itself will be no more.

 

What’ll happen when the thousand years are over and the Kingdom goes into eternity, will everything somehow come together and be sort of mixed in together as one?

It doesn’t seem like that’ll happen if we look at Revelation 21 verse 1,

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.

This speaks of an entirely new universe. It’s not a renovation as will likely be the case at Christ’s second coming. That renovation will last for 1000 years. You see we’re still in the time dimension, not eternity.

The new universe is a complete renewal not a renovation and it’ll be able to hold up and remain perfect for eternity.

It’s worth adding a quick word here about eternity. Eternity’s not a long time. As soon as we use that word “time” it’s not eternity. Eternity is completely outside of our time dimension altogether. God Himself is Eternal meaning He’s outside of the time dimension that we as humans on this earth live in today. To us everything relates to a timeline.

Ecclesiastes chapter 3 tells us, there’s a time for everything. Let’s quickly look just 3 verses, verses 1 to 3 there,

To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: 

A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted; 

A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up; 

A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance; 

As great as the human imagination is it’s completely unable to really grasp what living outside of time really looks like. We can’t understand any dimension outside of matter, energy, time, and space yet we know scientifically that other dimensions do exist.

 

Remember that our focus here is to understand that there’s going to be an earthly Kingdom setup that’ll be ruled from Mount Zion in Jerusalem from the ancient throne of David by The Lord Jesus Christ.

We’ll go back now to the book of Isaiah, to chapter 2 verses 1 and 2,

The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 

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; And all nations shall flow to it. 

 

First, notice the words “Now it shall come to pass…”

This means that it’s GOING to happen. There’re no maybes about it. It’s going to happen because God said it’s going to happen.

It’ll happen after human history has finally run its course.

 

Now verse 2 goes on to say that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains.

We saw in the last episode that a kingdom in the Old Testament is described as a mountain. So, this kingdom is going to be established as the overriding, the top, kingdom that’ll be over all other kingdoms.

The verse continues with, “And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it.”

The hills are the smaller kingdoms or the other nations of the world. This kingdom with its capital in Jerusalem where the King of Kings will be ruling and reigning will be a place where all the nations will flow into.

In other words, it’s going to be the hub of all of planet earth’s activity.

Let’s jump to Isaiah chapter 9.

Have look at the language. It’s very self-explanatory, even though it’s written 700 years before Christ and 2,700 years before our day today. That’s a long time ago and yet the accuracy is astounding.

 

Isaiah 9 verses 6 and 7. We’ll read the whole and then break it down “Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little,” That’s the way that spiritual truth was taught, slowly and patiently according to Isaiah 28:13.

So, let’s read it first and we all know the verse,

For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. 

So, let’s break it down,

 

“For unto us (that’s of course the Nation of Israel,) a child is born, (Now, that’s a reference to Christ’s birth at Bethlehem.) unto us a son is given:…” At the beginning of His earthly ministry before His rejection by Israel, “He came unto his own and His own received Him not,” says the Gospel of John in chapter 1 verse 11.

Who were His own? Israel. He was given for their benefit.

Now back to our text in verse 6.

“…and the government…” What’s the purpose of government? Control of the masses. No human centred government has been or ever will be able to get the right mix of control and justice, but this One will.

We continue,

“…and the government will be upon his shoulder: (Whose shoulder? The Son that’s given, in the first part of the verse. The Son Who is given is Jesus of Nazareth.)

and his name (When He comes to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords.) shall be called Wonderful Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

See, He’s totally and completely God. Now to break down verse 7,

 

“Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end,…” In other words, His government’s going to be totally in control of planet earth as well as, the rest of the universe, and “There’ll be no end to that government.” As we’ve already said, it’s going to slip on into eternity.

Now, look where The King’s going to rule this government from.

“…upon the throne of David,…” Where was David’s throne? Mount Zion in Jerusalem. And that’s exactly where Christ is going to set up His rule and reign when He returns. He’s going to rule from Mt. Zion in Jerusalem.

“To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever…” Now, the word judgment as it’s used in this context is not meting out punishment. The word judgment means “righteous rule.”

When we see the word judgment in this kind of setting, it’s not the sentencing of people to punishment. It’s a righteous, Godly rule. We’ll see the punishment type of justice in a moment.

“The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.”

This is what everything’s moving forward to – the return of Christ and the setting up of His Kingdom.

Now, all this doesn’t have so much to do with you and me as members of the Body of Christ, but this is the promise made to Israel. They’re the ones that’re looking forward to this glorious Kingdom.

Let’s go a little further into the Old Testament to Zechariah 14 and there we’ll see what’s going to happen before the coming of this glorious heaven on earth Kingdom.

 

Zechariah 14:1,

Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, And your spoil will be divided in your midst. 

Now, the majority of those who read these verses don’t really know what they mean. But the day of the Lord always refers to the Tribulation.

That’s those final seven years, from Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy in Daniel 9 verse 24, where it’s going to be the most horrible period of time the world ‘s ever experienced. It’s called the day of the Lord, and the order of that day will be Judgment, Wrath and Punishment.

“your spoil will be divided in your midst”. In other words, Israel is going to be overrun by her enemies.

By the way we’ll be looking at Daniel’s 70 week prophecy soon.

 

Zechariah 14:2,

For I (God) will gather (by His sovereign control) all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; The city shall be taken, The houses rifled, And the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. 

Now, let’s compare Scripture with Scripture. This is line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little.

We look to Matthew 24 where it’s the Lord Jesus Himself speaking.

But let’s don’t lose our train of thought from Zechariah, because we’ll be back there in a moment.

Matthew 24 is all about the Tribulation. Everything Jesus speaks of here is going to take place once that final seven years that we know of as the Tribulation begins.

So, we read verse 7, and again, this is Jesus Himself speaking.

 

Matthew 24:7

 

Mat 24:7

“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.”

Now, this all sounds familiar doesn’t it? But we’re not there yet. Even though we’re seeing a lot of this, it isn’t this prophecy being fulfilled yet.

It’s going to be far, far worse than anything we’re seeing today. Even though all that’s happening in this world today lets the person with wisdom know that we’re coming closer and closer.

It’s interesting to me personally that almost all the great bible scholars and teachers who’ve influenced my own Christian journey made statements that the state of the world led them to believe that this time we’re speaking of here was due to start.

Many, if not most of them, believed that the great snatching up of the Church, the Rapture, would take place before they had to face death.

Most of those blokes are now dead.

I have an answer for that and the only way I could have understood this is because of old age.

To explain, we saw last episode in the representation of the Gentile kingdoms in the image of king Nebuchadnezzar that each kingdom lost quality and value as they took over from the previous one. Today, with the revived Roman empire beginning to emerge we see a very fragile, weak, and ineffective government system.

This is depicted in the image by the feet of a mixture of clay and iron, two compounds that just don’t mix.

Now as these government systems of today continue to grow more and more ineffective and get weaker almost by the day, those who grew up in a generation earlier are very aware of the fast paced downhill deep dive of the current government systems.

You see we have a foot in two camps if you could put it that way.

We saw a government and a world system that was stronger than today, even though what we saw was much weaker than the generation before us.

So, as we make these comparisons between our early years and today we see a huge gulf, a massive downward slide from the system we grew up in.

The speed of that slide is quite astounding.

I believe this comparison is why many of those old scholars believed they’d see the rapture and not have to taste death.

For myself, I’m also truly astounded at the collapse of wisdom and justice within government, the news media and all those in authority over us.

However, when I look at the descriptions from the Bible of the state the world will be in after the Church has been taken from this earth, I realise that even what we’re seeing today is nowhere near as bad as it’ll soon get.

In this I dearly hope I’m wrong. I hope that The Lord calls us out before this podcast is published.

 

Matthew 24:8

All these are the beginning of sorrows. 

All these (these disasters and catastrophes) are the (What?) beginning of sorrows.

Now, some translations use the word “travail”. Some use the words “birth pains”, because it’s a reference to the woman approaching childbirth or delivery.

The world or the earth is approaching the delivery from the curse. And the only way God can bring it about is to bring in this utter devastation upon Christ-rejecting mankind.

So, all of these things that we’re seeing today are just the beginning.

Once it does start, it’ll be like the woman approaching delivery.

 

Matthew 24:9

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.”

It’s vital to remember that Jesus is speaking to the apostles who’re representative of the Nation of Israel. He says that they shall deliver you (That’s the Jewish people.) up to be afflicted and shall kill you. (That should sound familiar to anyone having even a little knowledge of history. It’s Hitler and the Nazis all over again, only much worse.)

And you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. Notice the term? Hated by all nations for my Name’s sake.

There won’t be a single nation on earth that’ll come to Israel’s defence like many nations have today.

Even America, Great Britain, and we ourselves in Australia will turn against Israel.

All the nations of the world will turn against them.

Then it goes on like this until finally, in verse 21, Jesus steps into the midst of all these prophetic events.

 

Matthew 24:21,

For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. 

Remember this is Jesus speaking and He’s speaking to the Jewish Nation.

In other words, when He’s speaking there in 28-29 AD, He’s saying that this is going to be the most horrible seven-year period in all of human history.

Currently this self-assured, sophisticated world just laughs at the thought of it.

But you and I should be as certain as it’s possible to be because God’s Word said it.

Do we believe God and His Word?

Do we believe God doesn’t and can’t lie?

If we do then we know that these things are shortly going to take place.

If we don’t believe God and His Word, then we should just continue to skip our way merrily through this wonderful life and believe it’ll all come good when the right political party gets in or something else we can’t define will happen and all will be good.

 

Now, let’s go back to Zechariah 14 verse 2. This prophecy is what Jesus was referring to,

For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; The city shall be taken, The houses rifled, And the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. 

 

God says in this prophecy, “For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; (For war, not for peace, there’s no United nations road map to peace or a bunch of grandstanding politicians getting involved for their own self interests.

This is for a total destruction of the Jewish people.

The city shall be taken, The houses rifled, (or ransacked), And the women ravished, (Or raped. It’s going to worse than anything any of us have seen or heard of, much worse than the Nazi holocaust.

 

Half of the city shall go into captivity, (That’s Jerusalem, remember.) “But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city.”

In other words, it’s going to be complete mayhem for the city of Jerusalem.

 

Then verse 3, before the city and the Jews are totally destroyed, we read, and it’s Zechariah 14:3,

Then the LORD will go forth And fight against those nations, As He fights in the day of battle. 

The first word in the verse, “Then” refers to a precise moment.

We don’t know the day, the month, or the year, but God does.

At that very moment the Deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, Israel’s Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, arrives.

Israel’s help won’t come from the north or south or east or west, their help will come from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

“Then the LORD will go forth And fight against those nations.”

When all the nations of the world have come to the Middle East for the sole purpose of destroying and removing the Jewish people, God Himself intervenes.

He’s going to come in what we call the Second Coming, and it’s going to be with wrath and destruction.

He’s going to come “as when he fought in the day of battle.” This refers to when the Lord fought for, Israel against the Egyptians, in Exodus 14:25 and afterwards against the Canaanites, when they entered the land of Canaan under Joshua.

 

Here’s how The Lord arrives. Zechariah 14:4,

And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, Which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, From east to west, Making a very large valley; Half of the mountain shall move toward the north And half of it toward the south. 

In other words, He’s going to return bodily, physically, visibly; just like He left from the Mount of Olives in Acts chapter 1.

He’ll come back in that day to stand on the Mount of Olives again. That’s in Jerusalem today.

Then the Mount of Olives itself will be split in two from east and to west. That’ll form a great river valley that’ll go from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea and there’ll be a huge valley; as half of the mountain moves toward the north, and half to the south.

These truly are events that are far beyond our human ability to even imagine let alone explain the mechanics of it all.

It’ll be by the power of God. and if we believe in Him there’s no problem in being sure that it’ll all happen as He said.

 

Then you pick it up in verse 8. After this valley is formed, going right through the middle of the Mount of Olives headed out to the Dead Sea, it will create a great river of supernaturally fresh water. It’s going to be so supernaturally fresh that it will clean up the Dead Sea. All right now verse 8.

 

Zechariah 14:8-9

And in that day it shall be—That living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, Half of them toward the eastern sea And half of them toward the western sea; In both summer and winter it shall occur. 

And the LORD shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be “The LORD is one,” And His name one. 

 

And in that day it shall be. This is when Christ returns to Jerusalem. living waters shall flow from Jerusalem itself via these supernaturally created valleys.

Half of this supernatural, pure living water will flow from Jerusalem out to the Mediterranean and half to the Dead Sea.

In both summer and winter, it shall occur.

Now, the final result of all this is that the LORD shall be king over all the earth. Not just Israel. Not just Jerusalem.

He’s going to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords over the whole planet. The passage reads, In that day it shall be “The LORD is one,”

So, this is the whole, prophetic picture of the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

Now let’s jump up to Acts chapter 1 for a moment.

This is where Jesus and the Eleven are now meeting at the end of His time on earth, and He’s ready to ascend back to Glory. Look at verse 6,

Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 

Now, what Kingdom did they have in their mind?

Solomons Kingdom. That’s when the nation of Israel was at it’s greatest.

Was Israel then ready to have that kind of a kingdom again?

Well, look at Jesus’ answer in Acts 1:7,

And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 

See, Jesus didn’t say it wasn’t going to happen, He just said it’s not for you to know when. But it will come.

Now, look at verses 9 to 11, and the setting is they’re standing on the Mount of Olives talking about things relating to this coming kingdom,

Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.” 

 

So, this is the apostles watching as Jesus was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

Now look what the angels told them.

It’s exactly what we’ve just seen in Zechariah.

Why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

Jesus will come again in His glorified, resurrected body and His feet will touch down on the Mount of Olives from where He left all those centuries ago.

Until the next episode my friends, where we’ll look at the next important entity in the picture of the Kingdom which is the Body of Christ, The Church, may God open His Word to you and you to His Word.