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THY KINGDOM CAME - INTRODUCTION
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And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.”
Genesis 3:15
The Bible is a book about the restoration of a Paradise Lost. God’s plan, or scheme of redemption, was in His mind before the world was created. The Apostle Paul said, “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.” (Eph. 1:4). The paradise of Eden was a picture of the relationship that God desired to have with His people. It was a place where life had no end. Life was sustained by the “tree of life”, and God had open fellowship with his creation. In the last book of the Bible, The Revelation, God once again holds out that picture of sustained life as a reward to those who would remain faithful. “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.” and again “and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.” (Rev. 22:14, 19).
God created man as a free moral agent. He gave him the ability to choose between right and wrong. Free will gave man the ability to sin and be separated from God, but it also gave him the ability to choose to serve and love God with a “willing” heart. A race of robots could not bring God the glory He so richly deserved, for they would have not had a will to do otherwise.
In light of the passage above from Eph. 1:4, it seems reasonable to believe that God understood that man would chose to sin and be separated from Him. That is why the Holy Spirit caused Paul to pen the words, “chose us in Him”, “before the foundation of the world.” Jesus, the solution to the sin problem, was in the mind of God before the world was spoken into existence.
A battle between the “seed” of Adam and the “seed” of satan began outside the gate of Eden and you can trace that battle through out the entire Bible. Satan would do everything within his power to break that seed line, but the end of the battle was foretold from the beginning. “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”( Gen. 3:15). Satan’s wound would be a head wound, a mortal wound, but Christ’s wound would be on the heel, He would recover victorious. As the last of the last days was drawing near Paul wrote to the Romans, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” (Rom. 16:20). The victory of God’s people in the coming of the Kingdom resulted not only in the destruction of the Jewish nation, but ended the power of sin and satan in the lives of Christians.
You can trace the seed of Adam and the attempts of satan to break that seed line through out the entire Bible. The first attempt was when Cane killed his brother Abel, but God was there to preserve that seed line. “Adam had relations with his wife again; and she gave birth to a son, and named him Seth, for, she said, “God has appointed me another offspring in place of Abel, for Cain killed him.” (Gen. 4:25).
Noah was also in the seed line and because of his obedience to God, the line was preserved. The flood that destroyed a world of sin, lifted Noah and his family above it all and rested them safely upon the mountains of Ararat. From this new beginning the preserved seed line would continue.
With Abraham God begins to take that seed and build a nation.
1 “Now the LORD said to Abram,
“Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father’s house,
To the land which I will show you;
2 And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing;
3 And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” Gen. 12:1-3
The promise to Abraham actually contained three promises. The seed promise that He would make of Abraham’s seed a great nation, (Gen. 12:1-3), listed above. The Land promise stated that they would physically inhabit the area known as the promised land, (Gen. 15:18, 17:8), an area of some 60,000 square miles. The land stretched from the Euphrates river to the land of Egypt. It is better known as the land of Canaan. Then the third promise that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through Abraham's seed line, (Gen. 12:3, 22:18). This promise included you and me.
While our focus is on tracing the “seed” promise, it is important to note that the nation of Israel did receive all that God promised them. Solomon ruled over this land area, (I Kings 4:21). Joshua said that God had fulfilled all of His promises to Israel, (Joshua 21:43-45). While some still hold that this promise has not been fulfilled, the scripture says otherwise.
The Seed promise is renewed to Isaac, (Gen. 26:3-4). It is passed on to Jacob, (Gen. 28:13-14). Another challenge to the continuation of the line comes during Jacob's life, but because God was at work the seed is preserved. The story of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers, that led to his position as the second in command over the food supply of Egypt, was God’s means of saving the seed line, (Gen. 50:20). Jacob's son Judah saved Joseph’s life by suggesting they not kill him, but sell him into slavery. Judah would be the son of Jacob through whom Jesus would come.
The story of Moses is much more than a baby being saved when all babies his age were being destroyed. It is a story of God working to preserve the seed, through whom His Son would come. Moses would eventually, in the power of God, lead God’s people out of slavery, and the seed line was once again preserved. Here in the desert God would give the ten commandments and the other principles of law to govern the nation He was building. This law was also designed to preserve His people and the seed to come, for if they would obey it they would not have the sickness, death and plagues of the nations around them. “And He said, “If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the LORD, am your healer.”( Ex. 15:26).
The period of the Judges would follow and these wise men would judge and lead God’s people for many years. As Israel began to look at the nations around them they began to clamor for a King to rule over them. God allowed them their wish and Samuel appoint Saul to be the first King over Israel. David, the shepherd King, would be the successor to Saul. His leadership in battles with the enemies of God would gain him great favor with the people. David desired to build a temple for the God He served, but God would give that work to David’s son Solomon the successor to the throne.
After the reign of Solomon the nation of Israel would be split between his two sons. Jereboam would rule over the ten northern tribes that would become known as Israel or the northern kingdom, and Rehoboam would rule over the remaining two tribes of the south that would be called Judah or the Southern Kingdom. The ten northern tribes would eventually be conquered and become so mingled with the nations around them that they would loose their very identity. The southern kingdom would meet a similar end and go into Babylonian captivity, but they would retain their identity and would preserve the seed line once again.
The southern kingdom would spend many years in captivity, but through the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah God would speak of a time when He would bring forth a leader from the sprout or stem of that once magnificent tree.
1 Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse,
And a branch from his roots will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him,
The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and strength,
The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
3 And He will delight in the fear of the LORD,
And He will not judge by what His eyes see,
Nor make a decision by what His ears hear;
4 But with righteousness He will judge the poor,
And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth;
And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,
And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.
5 Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins,
And faithfulness the belt about His waist..........”
“Then in that day
The nations will resort to the root of Jesse,
Who will stand as a signal for the peoples;
And His resting place will be glorious.” Isa. 11:1-5, 10.
Matthew quoted Micah when he tells where this child, this root of Jesse, would be born.
2 “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Too little to be among the clans of Judah,
From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.
His goings forth are from long ago,
From the days of eternity.”
3 Therefore He will give them up until the time
When she who is in labor has borne a child.
Then the remainder of His brethren
Will return to the sons of Israel.
4 And He will arise and shepherd His flock
In the strength of the LORD,
In the majesty of the name of the LORD His God.
And they will remain,
Because at that time He will be great
To the ends of the earth”. Micah 5:1-4 quoted in Matthew 2:5-6
Satan has battled long and hard to prevent the promised seed from coming, and he is not through yet. Soon after the birth of Jesus, the fulfillment of this seed promise, an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph and tells him to flee to Egypt. Because Joseph heeding the Word of the Lord, the seed was spared while King Herod, fearing for the loss of his throne, slaughted the male children in Bethlehem.
In one last attempt to destroy the seed of the promise, satan will have Jesus, by the will of the Jewish nation and the hands of the Romans, crucified - killed on a cross. Finally, satan thinks he has accomplished his goal. Little does he know that the God that has stood in his way for thousands of years, will once again preserve the seed. I think Peter says it best, “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know 23 this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. 24 “But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power, (Acts 2: 22,23).
What satan viewed as victory, God viewed as a means to accomplish His predetermined plan. One not worthy of death died for those who were worthy of death. The price of redemption was paid in full. This story of love would be the means by which God would have the love and devotion of a people, who in their free will would decided to serve Him and Love Him, because He first loved them. (I John 4:19).
We have now come full circle. We were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world Paul said in (Eph. 1:4), now Peter says it was all a part of a “predetermined plan”, (Acts 2:23). Everything we have looked at in this introduction is to bring us to a study of the Kingdom of God. I want you to look closely at the following verses from the Book of Daniel. The vantage point of Daniel in these verses is looking at the ascension of Jesus, not standing on the ground looking up as the disciples did, but rather his is a view from heaven.
13 “I kept looking in the night visions,
And behold, with the clouds of heaven
One like a Son of Man was coming,
And He came up to the Ancient of Days
And was presented before Him.
14 “And to Him was given dominion,
Glory and a kingdom,
That all the peoples, nations and men of every language
Might serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away;
And His kingdom is one
Which will not be destroyed.” Daniel 7:13-14
Our study from here forward will be a study of this King and His Kingdom. The Kingdom’s establishment, it’s work and purpose is the central message that God has for His people today. We not only serve a risen savior, but be serve a reigning King. When was the Kingdom established? What is the Kingdom like? How are servants of the King to act. What part does the Holy Spirit play in the Kingdom? Where does the Church fit in? These questions and so many more will be the focus of our study. As always, all you need to bring with you is an open Bible and an open mind.
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