Within You

A series on Isaiah 9:6 – The Child of Prophecy
 – King of Kings
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Daniel 2:24-49 

[Jesus was a child of prophecy. The Christmas story in the Bible was predicted in many Old Testament prophecies but the centerpiece of these is Isaiah 9:6. It was written nearly six hundred years before Jesus’ birth. In this series we’re going to look at the meaning and implications of this amazing prophecy.]

  

In 1961 a movie titled “King of Kings” was released. It was an epic production about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. 

The person of Jesus came alive on the screen showing “the power, the passion, the greatness and the glory” of the King of kings. But there were many great and powerful kings before Jesus.

 

King Nebuchadnezzar was the second king of the Babylonian Empire. Early in his reign he had dreams that disturbed him so much that he was unable to sleep. His magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers couldn’t tell him what he had dreamed, let alone its interpretation. The king became furious and ordered the execution of the wise men which included Daniel, a Jewish exile in Babylon.

 

But the Lord revealed both the dreams and the interpretation of them to Daniel. Once he learned this, he went before Nebuchadnezzar and told him that his dreams were about the future. He explained that no man could do what the king was asking, but that the God in heaven had revealed it to him.

 

Daniel described what the king had seen in his dreams as an enormous statue of a man that was awe inspiring. Its head was gold, its chest and arms were silver, its belly and thighs were bronze, its legs were iron, and its feet were iron and clay.

 

Continuing, Daniel related that the king had also seen in his dreams a rock that was cut from a mountain, but not by human hands. And the rock smashed the statue to pieces which were then blown away like dust in the wind. Following this, the rock became a great mountain that filled the whole earth.

 

After describing the king’s dreams, Daniel interpreted them. The statue represented four successive kingdoms. The head of gold was Nebuchadnezzar. But after his kingdom comes to an end another kingdom will take his place, then a third and finally a fourth kingdom. Each kingdom will replace the one before it.

 

Finally, Daniel explained what the rock represented. The one that was cut from the mountain and had crushed the statue.

 

⁴⁴ “During the reigns of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed or conquered. It will crush all these kingdoms into nothingness, and it will stand forever.           NLT

 

For centuries, the Jews had been expecting a Messiah who would fulfill this prophecy of the rock by building a political kingdom. As Isaiah 9:6 states, “The government will rest on His shoulders”. But that wasn’t what Jesus did. Instead, he came to build an eternal kingdom… the Kingdom of God.

 

In Luke 17 we read that on one occasion the Pharisees asked Jesus when the Kingdom of God would come. Here is his answer.

 

^20b Jesus replied, “The Kingdom of God can’t be detected by visible signs. ²¹ You won’t be able to say, ‘Here it is!’ or ‘It’s over there!’ For the Kingdom of God is already among you.”   NIV

 

In this verse the Living Bible translates “among you” as “within you”. Think about that for a minute. This means that as a believer in Christ that the King of king’s lives within you wherever you go and whatever you do. Paul put it like this.

 

²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.      NIV

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

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