Jesus rule is not just “pie in the sky” heavenly things. It is also down to earth every day things also, and the massive changes in history also. As has been demonstrated, all of God’s rule and authority has been handed to Jesus, Mtt 28:18. So what is this power, and to what ends does it work?
Paul gives a good summary in speech to the scholars at the Areopagus in Athens
The Areopagus could be called the ancient “University of Athens.”
“Now all the Athenians and the strangers living there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.”
Acts 17:21
Paul soon in his speech gets to the point:
“The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands,”
Acts 17:24
The images of the so-called “gods” are pointless and worse are deceptive. Of the true God Paul says,
“neither is he served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things.”
Acts 17:25
The true and living God does NOT need us. Rather we need Him. Then Paul makes a biological point about men.
“He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, …”
Acts 17:26a
Biologically we are ALL of the same descent. Further, God,
“… having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings,” Acts 17:26b
God determines the “seasons” of nations, that is to say their rising and their falling. It God who overrules the kingdom of men.
“He changes the times and the seasons; he removes kings, and sets up kings; …”
Dan 2:21a
“7 At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it; 8 if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to them.”
Jer 18:7-8
On the other hand, God may decide to build up a nation. However,
“9 At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; 10 if they do that which is evil in my sight, that they not obey my voice, then I will repent of the good, with which I said I would benefit them.”
Jer 18:9-10
Some of this incredibly far ahead of time.
Some where around 1800 BC, God told Abram that his descendants would be slaves for four hundred years, and then He would give them the land of Canaan, because,
“In the fourth generation they will come here again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.”
Gen 17:16
Further, it not just about God’s own people.
God rules the nations.
“Yahweh is King forever and ever!
The nations will perish out of his land.”
Psa 10:16
Scriptures are from the World English Bible (WEB), a copyright free revision of the original ASV American Standard Version 1901