Thank you for joining us in this ongoing study on the Kingdom of God. For the introduction to this study, read the blog here. Follow this link to find the workbook for this study. Follow each of these links to see Week 1, Week 2, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, and Week 7. Visit the YouTube Channel for teaching videos.

I highly recommend completing the worksheets for a week before reading the blog or watching the teaching video – listen to what God has to teach you through His Word.

It can certainly be a daunting task to take a journey through ALL of Scripture. When I set out to dig up everything I could find that the Bible had to say about God as King and what the “Kingdom of God” truly meant, I began to climb a mountain larger than I ever imagined. When I moved into the prophets, I literally sat down and read through every book of prophecy taking note of what I found, and, as you can tell in the homework, there was a lot. I started in Isaiah, the longest book of prophecy, and it took me a week just to find every reference to “king” and “kingdom” – that’s not to study it in-depth, just to find these references and document them! There is a LOT.

So, if you’ve been trudging along with me, I want to encourage you – there is a lot to dig out here, but if you have been faithful to work through what you are finding you are doing the good work.

We have learned how God established his kingdom through his chosen people – the Israelites. We saw Him choose a people, rescue them from slavery, provide for them a land, and establish His law over them. And then we saw those people reject Him as king. They demanded, instead, a new king. God gave them that, too. He raised up a man who was everything God warned them an earthly king would be – arrogant, selfish, hard-headed, and, overall unprepared to rule in wisdom. He then raised up a man who would set the standard for what godly leadership could look like – a man not at all perfect, but humble, strong, and willing to submit to God in even the most difficult circumstances. And then, after the example we have from that man, David, we see how, as a whole, men are entirely unequipped to handle the weight of the crown over God’s people.

During the time of the kings, while men were consistently misleading God’s people, God continued to raise up those who would speak His truth to His kingdom. These prophets warned the now two kingdoms, Israel and Judah, about the impending consequences of their continued rejection of Him, but they also offered hope to those who would return to Israel, what was known as “the remnant” – the faithful who would come back into Jerusalem, the city of God, and its surrounding regions.

And this brings us to Isaiah. Isaiah was a prophet to the kingdom of Judah – which refers to the lineage of kings that came specifically from David. He received his call as a prophet “in the year King Uzziah died” (Isaiah 6:1). The death of a monarch brings a time of uncertainty to a people – what will the next king be like? How will this affect our lives? In the history of the kingdom of Judah, it has been about two hundred years since the kingdom split and they have seen nine kings on the throne. If they’ve been keeping track of what’s happening in the kingdom of Israel, they’ve seen, over the same time period, 18 kings on that throne. In fact, the kingdom of Israel is just about to take on their final king and in just a few years, they will be conquered and the kingdom of Judah will stand on its own for another two hundred years. This is a time of great uncertainty for anyone living in God’s established kingdom.

If ever there was a time for God to remind His people of who their rightful king was, now was the time. And so, in the year King Uzziah dies, Isaiah has a vision. His vision is of “the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple” (Isaiah 6:1). That train, to me, is a key detail. It shows a magnitude of glory that is unparalleled by any human throne. The hem of the garment of our God in Heaven fills the temple. He is so vast, we can hardly even imagine this. And the vision Isaiah sees causes him to tremble to his core and feel his great unworthiness.

Now, earlier in the Old Testament, tucked in the book of Esther (which, chronologically, takes place ­after Isaiah’s time), we see that in other kingdoms of the world, even the queen could not enter the presence of the king without being summoned. In the presence of the king there is constantly fear that at one wrong word, the king’s whim could end your life. It would be presumed that to enter the courts of such a king one would need to be fully prepared to be pleasing to the king.

In Isaiah’s vision we see quite the opposite. Isaiah, upon feeling his complete unworthiness to even be in the presence of the Holy King, is wrecked, but the servants of the king – the other worldly beings declaring his holiness – do not banish him or take him to the gallows. Rather, taking a burning coal, they touch his lips to cleanse him and make him worthy. This cleansing prepares Isaiah for the task laid before him – to speak the words of God to a people living in utter rebellion.

This king not only accepts his people into His court, but He takes on the task of making them worthy to be in His presence. He also makes them worthy of the tasks He sets before them. He is a king of compassion who desires to be close to His people and is willing to do the work to make that happen – if only they would choose Him.

We see, through the remainder of Isaiah’s message and the other prophets, the result for those who do not choose Him – who continue to live in rebellion, stubbornness, and arrogance – those subjects will meet destruction. And so it is the task of those on earth to decide – will they accept this King who dwells on the throne, or will they continue to reject him in unrepenting rebellion?

But wait, one might say, why is God on a throne if He has relinquished His kingdom into the hands of man? Let us remember, a key aspect to the entire message of the Bible is this – God is always king over Heaven. He remains ever on His throne. The question is, how will His dominion transfer to Earth?

Throughout Isaiah, especially, we see a continued message that God is not done with His plan for an earthly kingdom. He has one more king He intends to send. In Isaiah 9, we see that this king will not only be established on the Davidic throne – as promised by God to David, that He would always have a descendant on the throne – but this king would be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” A king who is a counselor, known for His peace? It’s no wonder the people of Israel were anxiously awaiting his arrival.

In Isaiah 40:9-11 God is described as one who comes with “might” but also one who will “tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms.” When we read this description, it can become quite apparent what God saw in David when He called him a man after His own heart. David was a man who was mighty in battle, victorious over a multitude of enemies, yet had his humble beginnings as a shepherd who took seriously the task of protecting his sheep. First, he protected his sheep; then he protected his people. God is the same. He carries a tender heart of compassion and care for His people that also brings Him to show His might in protecting them. This is the kind of leadership He has always offered to His people. This is the leadership to which He is calling them back through the words of the prophet.

In Isaiah 53, we read another description of this coming king, one that underlines what we learned in Isaiah’s vision – this king would do anything to make his people worthy. The overall description of the coming rescuer in this chapter is completely contrary to what we imagine from a king. As discussed in both the anointing of Saul and the anointing of David, man often looks for the strongest, the tallest, the most powerful. The description in Isaiah 53 is of a “man of sorrows,” with no form, majesty, or beauty, broken and crushed. Yet, verse 11 says, “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.” This servant, the king God is sending, is the very one who makes us worthy, just as the servants in the king’s throne room of Isaiah’s vision made him worthy. God knows His subjects will continue to fail – so this king that is coming will rescue them from their failure. His righteousness will take on the burden of all they have done in rebellion and He will make them righteous. God, our king, is willing to do the work, including the choice to “crush” his own Son, the suffering servant He will send, to bring us close and take on the weight of the guilt His people have incurred.

This is not a king who cowers in fear at the prospect of pain and suffering, but one will literally allow the anguish of his soul to rescue His people.

And when we say “His people” Isaiah has given us a new definition for this term. In Isaiah 49:6, we have one of my favorites, where God says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” It is too light a thing to rescue ONLY Israel – ONLY the sons and tribes of Jacob. The nations are now summoned by the light of God’s glory – salvation – from guilt, from unrighteousness, from the consequences of rebellion – is reaching to the end of the earth. When God restores His people and sends His servant to rescue them, He will not only re-establish His kingdom among the people of Israel, but to the end of the earth. That’s a BIG DEAL to those of us outside of the Jewish community, because that’s us! We are living at the end of the earth. We are the nations to whom this light would spread. I can never get enough of this truth. It reaches down to the depths of my soul to understand that God has always intended to include the whole of the earth in His kingdom. That I can, am, and will be accepted into God’s kingdom is a truth too great for me to bear.

And what is this kingdom into which we are welcomed? We see this described in Isaiah, as well. In Isaiah 32:9-18, we see an interesting word play from the prophet to compare life in the here and now to the life that is yet to come. It is a call to the “women who are at ease” and “complacent.” He tells them of a time that is coming when everything will be upended. These lives of ease and complacency they have built for themselves will come crashing down. Their pleasant fields will become pasture land for wild flocks. This life is not ever guaranteed to be easy. We will find pockets of peace – these may last for weeks, months, years, but this life on Earth will ever be shaky ground. Those at ease one moment will find themselves beating their breasts the next. This is what Isaiah tells the women is coming. But he does not leave them without hope.

“Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever. My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places” (v. 16-17). The lives of “ease” and “complacency” they have built will not endure. But the prophet twists these, so that the Hebrew word he uses for “complacent” has a slight tweak in its root to become the word translated “trust” and “secure.” And the word translated “at ease” in verse 9 becomes translated “quiet” in verse 18. What He’s saying is, “You think you’re at ease now. But after the destruction that is to come, my Spirit will settle on you, and then you will know true security, true quiet.” These will be a permanent state for His people, as the effect of righteousness. And before we get too caught up on the idea that we must be righteous to earn this true security, trust, and lives of quietness, let us recall what we learned earlier – our righteousness comes from the anguish of the servant. God makes us righteous when we choose to follow Him and enter into His kingdom. There, the effect of righteousness will be peace.

The summary of this kingdom of peace is found in Isaiah 11:6-9. After his servant, the root from the stump of Jesse, comes forth to judge the earth with righteousness, there will come a kingdom in which the wolf dwells with the lamb and the leopard with the young goat. The cow and bear alike will graze in the fields and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. Children will play with snakes and not meet harm, “for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” This is a picture that in a time of chaos and turmoil allows the soul to breathe. Peace is coming. It may be hard to find in the here and now, but it is coming. The Prince of Peace is on the throne. The seed of His kingdom was planted when He came to Earth, as we will study soon, but the fruit of that seed is still being established. While we wait, we have a hope for the future that is worth living for now.

This is a picture of what is called “the now and the not yet.” We will study this more in-depth in the future, but I want to touch on this now because it greatly affects how we interpret the prophets. Many prophecies given to the kingdoms of Israel and Judah had intrinsic in them both ideas and visions that were going to come true “now” – when they returned from exile, and also when the king finally came – and those that were “not yet” – a future that would come when God’s ultimate dominion over the face of the earth was established. As those living after the time of Christ, we have had the privilege of seeing the fulfillment of the “now,” but we wait in eager anticipation alongside the people of Israel for the “not yet.” These visions of an eternal kingdom of peace are the “not yet” that we are living for in the “now.”

Now, Isaiah may have been the longest prophet, but he was by no means the only man to speak to God’s people about the coming kingdom. In Hosea, one of the earliest prophets, chronologically, and one of very few who specifically spoke to the northern kingdom of Israel – remember, the one who was a hot mess with one king after another in a long succession of greed and murder – God reminded them of their history, of the fact that He didn’t even want them to have a human king, and now that they’ve gotten what they wanted, how is that working out for them? He asks them in Hosea 13:10-11 – “Where now is your king, to save you in all your cities?” Remember one of the main reasons they said they wanted a king? So they would have someone to fight for them? Who, then, God is asking, is fighting for them now? I thought that was the king’s job . . .

The people have certainly made a bad decision. God tells them, though, in Hosea 3:4-5, that He is basically going to give them a “time-out” – a detox from these monarchs and also from any semblance of the religion they have pieced together from the worship of their God and the worship of other gods. He is taking it all away – their kings and princes; the sacrifice He demanded and the pillars they have put in place for other gods; the ephod for His priests and the household gods. In fact, repeatedly throughout the lists of kings we find in Kings & Chronicles, we see as a repeated strike against the kings is their failure to remove the “high places.” These high places were places they would go to worship other gods. The people, without a solid king to lead them in the ways of the God who called them out of Egypt, have continued to do what was right in their own eyes, including incorporating pagan worship into their daily lives.

And after that time-out, he promises, the children of Israel will indeed return home and then they will seek the Lord their God. When they have been stripped and laid bare, they will long for the comfort of the king they rejected.

In Jeremiah, a prophet to Judah, after the fall of Israel, God tells them that when they follow the law of God their king they will usher in an era of “kings and princes who sit on the throne of David” (Jer 17:24-25). This is specifically linked to their adherence to the Sabbath. Now, if we fast forward a little to the New Testament, we will see a people so engrossed in the law, they are entirely weighed down by rules. This adherence to the Sabbath has become a wearisome burden invoked by the religious leaders of the day, taken to the far extreme. When we look at this prophecy in Jeremiah, is it any wonder that they have become this way? They have seen the centuries of failure and they are trying desperately to do it better. They have, however, done so in a way that forgets why they do what they do and whom they are truly serving. This obedience to the law was not meant to enslave them. It was meant to set them apart as citizens of the kingdom of God.

In fact, in Ezekiel 37:24-28, we see a more clear picture of what God had envisioned for His kingdom and His people. It’s not a picture of a people terrified of falling out of line and out of favor, but a shepherd who has placed loving boundaries for His flock. The people under this shepherd are following the rules because they understand they have a sovereign over them for their protection. He tells of how His people will follow His rules, they will be returned to their land, they will have a king over them and they will live in perpetual peace. Do these things sound familiar? These are exactly the ways God chose to show His people from the very beginning what His kingdom was meant to be. He is telling the people that a time will come when everything He had intended for His kingdom will come to pass!

That kingdom, according to Zephaniah 3:11-13, will be inhabited not by the proud, haughty members of the previous kingdom, the ones who think they know best, doing what is right in their own eyes, but by “a people humble and lowly” – those able to submit themselves to their king. What is remarkable about this kingdom in which dwell only the humble is that in Zechariah 9:9, we see the king that is coming to His people is also coming in humility – “humble and mounted on a donkey.” As we will soon see, this kingdom God is establishing, though defined by the same indications of an earthly kingdom, is entirely opposite from what the human mind fathoms as a strong kingdom. What is coming, what we will see when this king arrives, humble, mounted on a donkey, is that He is ushering in an upside down kingdom – turning on its head anything the people would expect.

Thus, I want to end on a note that points us toward what the coming king will expect of His people. No longer will it be enough for the people to simply come before their king with sacrifices. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” This. This is what the citizen of the kingdom of God is to look like. He is to be fair and just in his daily dealings, but with kindness, and humility before God. Not the arrogance that comes from being able to point to a perfectly lived life, according to the rules and sacrifices. We go back to what He has said since David – man looks at the outward appearance, the outer acts of religion, but the Lord looks at the heart. The citizen of God’s kingdom is humble in heart, submitted entirely to the will of His king. The citizen of God’s kingdom reflects the heart of their king – a heart bent on the intermingling of justice and kindness.

Let us hold this truth tightly as we head into the era of the coming King. Jesus will point to this same kingdom – the one defined by justice, kindness, and humility.

At the time of posting, we are entering into the week of Thanksgiving, as we continue the work of digging into Scripture, let us also take on the simple, yet good, work of offering gratitude to the Lord for all we have been given. Next week, we will come together again as we discuss the arrival of the promised King! I greatly look forward to that and for now wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. Even in this year of turmoil, we can all find reasons to lift our thanks to our Creator. God bless!

Find the companion teaching video for this week’s lesson here.

For the introduction to this study, read the blog here. Follow this link to find the workbook for this study. Follow each of these links to see Week 1, Week 2, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, and Week 7. Visit the YouTube Channel for teaching videos.