"FEAR NOT, DAUGHTER OF ZION; BEHOLD, YOUR KING IS COMING, SEATED ON A DONKEY'S COLT."

“Ahab incited the wrath of the Eternal God of Israel more than any king who had lived before him. During Ahab's reign, Hiel the Bethelite rebuilt Jericho. As he put down its foundations, he buried his firstborn, Abiram, beneath them. As he raised its gates, he buried his youngest son, Segub, beneath them, thinking this would ward off evil. This all happened just as the Eternal One said it would through the message he gave through Joshua, Nun's son.” (1 Kings 16:33b-34)

Joshua 6:26, “May the Eternal curse anyone who ever rebuilds this city, this Jericho! If he lays new foundations, it will be over the grave of his firstborn; if he raises new gates, it will be to contain the corpse of his youngest!'

It was clearly a dark time with Ahab ruling. The result of his evil leadership is that justice and peace were not in the land. It was not a place of stability but of turmoil and wrongly ordered power.

Power became corrupted at the beginning when man sinned in the garden. God spoke to Eve after she ate the apple from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, “thy desire [shall be] to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”

Ruling in this case is an oppressive leadership that is based upon power, control and manipulation. It is where one takes advantage and takes what they want at the expense of the weaker party. We see this worldly ordered power rise up in some countries where the people suffer excruciating pain and even end up leaving all they have and know to get away from it.

Godly leadership on the other hand is life giving and full of love, justice and mercy. Proverbs 29:2,4 says, “When the righteous increase (when the godly are in authority), the people rejoice, But when a wicked man rules, people groan... The king gives stability to the land by justice, But a man who takes bribes overthrows it.”

During Solomon's reign, the people did what was right in the eyes of God and kept their focus on His purposes. Under Kingdom ordered power, there was peace, justice, order and godly wisdom in the land.

Bible commentary notes that “in the ancient patriarchal system, the king is seen as the father of the country, so the entire nation is his household. He sees to the protection, nourishment, and advancement of his people, just as a father cares for his children.”[1]

Paul tries to paint this picture of godly kingdom leadership in families in Ephesians 5:23-28,

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”

In this divine romance, is a picture of Christ as King nourishing and caring for His church. Paul notes in Ephesians 5:32, “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

Song of Songs 3:11 speaks, “O go out, young women of Zion, and see King Solomon wearing the crown with which his mother has crowned him on his wedding day, on the day his heart overflows with joy.”

Christ is King. He is so much greater than any other king.

Deuteronomy 10:17

For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.

Psalm 89:27

And I will appoint him to be my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth.

As much as a good king's rule can bring justice and peace to the land, how much more the Kingdom of God under the greatest of Kings.

Isaiah proclaims in Isaiah 2:16-17, “By contrast, the Eternal, the Commander of heavenly armies, will be high and mighty because He judges fairly. The holy God will be shown to be so because He does what is right. At that time, Jerusalem will become a pasture where lambs graze, and foreigners will eat in the ruins where the wealthy once dined.”

His throne is above all. In Isaiah 6:1-3, he saw a vision of Jesus as King on His throne ruling over all as His kingdom spanned the whole earth. He wrote, “In the same year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a grand throne way up high with a flowing cape that filled the whole temple. Bright flaming creatures waiting on Him. Each had six wings: two covering its face, two covering its feet, and two for flying. Like some fiery choir, they would call back and forth continually.

'Holy, holy, holy is the Eternal, the Commander of heavenly armies! The earth is filled with His glorious presence.'”

Isaiah paints a picture of His kingdom in the last days in Isaiah 2:2-4, “There will come a time in the last days when the mountain where the Eternal's house stands will become the highest, most magnificent -grander than any of the mountains around it. And all the nations of the world will run there, wanting to see it, feel it, fully experience it. Many people of all languages, colors, and creeds will come.

Come! Let's go to the Eternal's mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, so that we might learn from Him how best to be, to go along in life as he would have us go. After all, the law will pur out from Zion, the word of the Eternal, from Jerusalem. God will decide what's fair among nations and settle disputes among all sorts of people.

Meanwhile, they will hammer their swords into sickles, reshape their spears into pruning hooks. One nation will not attack another. They will not practice war anymore.”

When He returns, He is coming to reign as King and fully bring His kingdom. Revelation 19:15 says, “From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, "KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS."

 

And Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6:15 about Jesus coming as King.  He tells Timothy, "that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will bring about at the proper time-- He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen"

 

 

 

 

1.  The Voice Reader Bible.