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I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will
put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as a flock in the midst of their pasture; they
shall be noisy with people. The breaker is gone up before them; they have broken forth
and passed on to the gate [the Caucasus], and have gone out of it; AND THEIR KING
HAS PASSED ON BEFORE THEM, and the LORD at their head (Micah 2:12-13).

Setting Up the Kingdom

Throughout the entire period of the activity of the Babylonian Succession of Empires, YEHO-
VAH God was setting up His Kingdom. Therefore, Isaiah could say --

His government will expand, and peace will be endless for the throne of David and his
kingdom, to establish it and to sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and
forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this (Isaiah 9:7)

According to this statement of the prophet Isaiah, the setting up of the Kingdom of YEHO-
VAH was not accomplished in a short period of time for, following its organization at Mount Sinai, we
find that it was a process covering centuries of time. Down through the ages the Kingdom has been
growing and expanding under the direction and leadership of YEHOVAH God. How totally foolish,
then, for people to say that this Kingdom is to suddenly come into existence after the Babylonian Suc-
cession has disappeared and the Messiah has appeared on the scene! We must realize that Yeshua is
coming to take over the rulership of AN EXISTING KINGDOM!

New Testament scholars point out that, with over a hundred references in the Gospels, the
Kingdom of YEHOVAH -- or YEHOVAH's rule -- was a central theme in the preaching of Yeshua. A
recurrent thread is evident in parables in which he instructs his disciples that the Kingdom of YEHO-
VAH is both a present reality and something that grows and develops over time.

In the parable of the sower, for example, Yeshua likens the Kingdom of YEHOVAH to a
farmer planting his field. Inevitably, along with the wheat (true Christians) grow weeds (false brethren).
When asked whether the impostors should be rooted out, Yeshua replies: "But he said, 'No, because if
you pull up the weeds, you might uproot some of the wheat at the same time. Let them both grow to-
gether until the harvest; and at harvest-time I will tell the reapers to collect the weeds first and tie them in
bundles to be burned, but to gather the wheat into my barn'" (Matthew 13:29-30, JNT). Yeshua is here
indicating that just as a crop takes time to grow in the field, the Kingdom of YEHOVAH is developing.
At the end of time, at the return of Yeshua and his Father YEHOVAH, the true believers will be sepa-
rated from the false.

This concept of YEHOVAH's Kingdom as developing through the ages is also suggested in the
parable of the mustard seed, where Yeshua tells his disciples: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mus-
tard seed which a man takes and sows in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it grows up it
is larger than any garden plant and becomes a tree, so that the birds flying about come and nest in its
branches" (Matthew 13:31-32, JNT).
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