What is the kingdom? When is it coming? Where is it? These are all very valid questions to ask the Lord concerning His Kingdom.

We’re going to start with the New Testament / New Covenant revelation of the Kingdom, and then move on to the Kingdom in the Old Testament. The Lord has a lot to say about His Kingdom.

Also, I’ll be using interchanging terms “Kingdom of God” and “Kingdom of Heaven.” Some see these as different. In my studies, it seems to me to be talking of the same thing, especially in parallel passages in the Gospels.

The Kingdom is At Hand

We’ll start with John the Baptist. In Matthew 3 we see him preaching this:

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matthew 3:2 (ESV)

John tells us to “change our minds because the Kingdom of Heaven is closer than we thought. It’s right here, as close as your own hand.” Remember, repentance is literally changing the way you think; that’s the true meaning. It takes a change in the normal thought patterns and belief systems to truly understand what John is saying to us.

Well, maybe John was off his rocker, so let’s look at what Jesus says to us in the next chapter of Matthew.

Jesus literally starts his ministry, picking up where John left off.

“From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”” Matthew 4:17 (ESV)

Jesus uses the exact same words as John, legitimizing John’s ministry, that he’s not crazy, that this message was a message straight from God Himself.

“Change your mind because the Kingdom of Heaven is closer than we thought. It’s right here, as close as your own hand.”

Notice he uses the phrase “kingdom of heaven.” In the analogous passage in Mark 1, it says:

“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”” Mark 1:14-15 (ESV)

Mark changes “Kingdom of Heaven” into “Kingdom of God,” so that’s one of the reasons I see these terms as interchangeable.

But that’s a side point.

The Kingdom is at Hand

The real point is this: The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

It’s not some far off thing. It’s not some place that’s only accessible when we die. And, by the way, we don’t trust in death to enter the Kingdom. We trust in Jesus to enter the Kingdom.

The Kingdom is here right now. It’s right now around you and within you. To show you I’m not making this up, let’s see what Jesus told the religious leaders of the day, after they asked when the Kingdom of God would come.

“The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”” Luke 17:20-21 (ESV)

That can also read, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

Also notice, when they asked Jesus a “when” question, He answered them with a “where” question. 

Why is this? Because their focus was on a physical Kingdom, and Jesus was talking about a spiritual Kingdom.

The Spiritual Kingdom

To demonstrate this Spiritual Kingdom, we’re going to look at a spiritual dream that a good friend of mine had. Yes, we can get spiritual intel from spiritual dreams, and it’s a legitimate way that the Lord talks to people.

This dream is famous, and it’s found in the book of the Prophet Daniel, chapter 2. OK, so Daniel isn’t a personal friend — yet! — but he feels like a friend, because I’ve so enjoyed reading and studying the book of Daniel over my lifetime.

If you remember, King Nebuchadnezzar of the Babylonians had a spiritual dream, and he wanted all of his wise men to tell him the dream without him having to explain it to them. If they didn’t do it, they’d all die, including Daniel and his 3 friends. Well, when Daniel hears about this whole drama, he goes straight to the Lord in prayer as well as asks his 3 friends to pray too. That night, the Lord gave Daniel a vision of the dream along with the interpretation, and he is understandably overjoyed, because this was a matter of life and death.

Let’s pick up the story now at this point. Daniel comes in to King Nebuchadnezzar and reveals the dream and interpretation. Starting with Daniel chapter 2, verse 27:

“Daniel answered the king and said, “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these: 

To you, O king, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this, and he who reveals mysteries made known to you what is to be. But as for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your mind. 

“You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. 

“This was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation. You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all–you are the head of gold. Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay. 

And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”” Daniel 2:27-45 (ESV)

Ok, so you have a statue made up of various metals and materials, representing the different major ruling civilizations in that area of the world. From other places in the book of Daniel as well as history, we know that these kingdoms were:

The Babylonians, Medes & Persians, Greeks, Romans

Then, in the midst of Roman rule, a different Kingdom comes in, one that’s from Heaven. This Heavenly Kingdom breaks in pieces the other kingdoms, becomes a mountain and fills the whole earth.

Does anyone recall someone from Heaven that came in during Roman rule declaring a different Kingdom was at hand? Yes! It is Jesus!

Jesus was basically declaring that He was the stone that struck the statue. He was the one bringing the Heavenly Kingdom to earth, which literally changed everything.

And, you know, us humans are good at building things. Since Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was a spiritual dream, the statue was a spiritual statue. Man builds spiritual statues or spiritual constructs, partly because we’re trying to make sense of the world, and partly because we’re trying to rule and reign. That’s the job God gave mankind in the Garden of Eden, and it’s the job role that mankind continues to try to do, most of the time apart from God.

But our human-made spiritual constructs are no match for the true Heavenly spiritual construct brought down by Jesus Christ Himself. His stone pulverizes everything that we try to build for ourselves. I mean, just look at the people attempting to build the Tower of Babel to make a name for themselves. This was no ordinary tower; it had spiritual qualities. And the Lord had to come down and do something about it, because it was an evil construct, both physically and spiritually. He had to confuse the language of mankind to keep natural barriers from repeating the folly of the pre-flood world.

Here’s the major point of this section: Jesus brought the spiritual Kingdom of Heaven with him to earth when He came as a flesh and blood human. And this Kingdom has never left; it has only grown. And it’s here, right now.

Are you beginning to see the kingdom of God in a new way? I hope so! I pray you are seeing that the Kingdom of God is closer than you ever thought possible! We are going to continue our exploration into the Kingdom of God next week and see just how close it really is.