Andrea L. Sims Ph.D. “Unfolding the Kingdom” - A Series

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“Unfolding the Kingdom” - A Series 

Andrea L. Sims Ph.D.

Part I:  Unfolding “A Place for Us”

An Introduction

Have we not had a “wilderness experience” as we have walked with Yah through the years? Even before we knew Him, He knew us; even when we came to awareness of Him through the new birth; even as we are discovering the Narrow Way. 

Did not Yah draw His people out of Egypt to take them to “The Promised Land”? Is The Kingdom our “Promised Land”? Have we not been called to “come out of her my people? Is not this call our recognition of an on-going “wilderness experience” that is an increasingly trying time?

Are not the ups and downs of life’s journey a mirror (to see) and an echo (to hear) what we find in the Scriptures concerning the first Exodus? 

Has not our longing for a “place for us” kept us moving forward, either literally or figuratively? Remember what Mashiach said: 

“In my father’s house are many mansions:

if it were not so, I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you,

I will come again and receive you unto myself,

that where I am, there ye may be also.” 

John 14:2-3

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Is not our ever-growing dependence on Yah becoming more obvious to us? 

Did not Yah tell the sojourners in the wilderness that their experiences along the Way were all trials and testings—to prove their own hearts—so they would know who are his and who are not?

Did not Yah say there would be “a second time” for the qodeshiym to be called out?

Could we be in that time now? Just as events in the Revelation are more than likely not linear but rather layered, could not these things be layers also?

Did not Yah’s people in the wilderness move when the Cloud moved, and stop when the Cloud stopped? Is our Shabbat time a reflection of the Cloud stopping—preparing us for The Kingdom?

You see, I have many questions as I begin this series on The Kingdom. And I keep hearing what I heard several years ago: Nothing is as it seems.” Nothing like what we have been taught or thought we knew or had all tied up in a neat little bow and placed in our nice little boxes called Christianity. 

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My story of “the farm” 

In 2013, my then husband and I went looking for acreage with a house so that we could settle down and provide a place of gathering for our growing tribe. After a couple of months of searching the area between Dallas, Texas and the Red River, we chose a 12-acre parcel. Before our offer was accepted, I picked up a flat rock as a keepsake to hold until we knew for sure. This is the reference I wrote on it in permanent marker:

“Moreover I (Yah) will appoint a place for my people Yashar’el,

And will plant them,

That they may dwell in a place of their own,

And move no more . . .”

(2 Samuel 7:10)

Once we moved in, I got busy right away planting a garden, purchasing some chickens, two miniature goats, and a couple of puppies. I dreamed of getting an orchid started the next year and hosting family outings around a fire pit that was only in my mind, at the time. So many plans; so many dreams, so much hope for a place I could really feel at home, finally. But it did not last. About 7 months into it, I discovered that my husband of twenty-seven years had been living a double life. My world came to a screeching halt. The more that was revealed, the quieter I became—sitting at my desk that overlooked the land, burying myself in a publishing project I was working on, wondering what it all meant, trying to hear what Yah would say, holding myself back from falling apart. It was not easy to think about another failure; it was not easy to see a new way forward in that season of my life. After about three months of waiting, watching, listening, I got up from my desk and packed up my stuff and left the farm. A divorce followed. Then a year and a half later, the suicide. As I write this, my heart is pounding and my eyes are tearing . . . even after ten years. With my stuff in storage, I began a pilgrimage from Georgia (staying with one of my grandsons), and from there back to Texas (staying with a dear writer-friend), to Wyoming (to a long-time school friend’s ranch), and finally ending up at my sister’s doorstep in Colorado—where I have remained since 2015. 

So, the bottom line for me is that I am no longer looking for a place, this side of The Kingdom. Instead, I am counting on the words of Messiah in Luke 13:29:

“Luk 13:29  And they shall come from the east,

 and from the west, 

and from the north, 

and from the south, 

and shall sit down in the Kingdom of Elohiym.”

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I’m looking for The Kingdom.

My problem is . . . that I don’t know much about The Kingdom. And when I read what Dr. Stephen Pidgeon wrote on one of his Telegram channels that Messiah’s focus was on The Kingdom, it got my immediate attention! How could I have read the New Testament (called the Besorah in Hebrew, which means “the Good News”) literally hundreds of times over the sixty-plus years and not seen it? I was dumb founded, really. So, I made a note to myself to do a study on it and on the Besorah, which he mentioned during a YouTube teaching. He stated that the heart of the Good News could be better seen in relationship to what the Prophet had to say about the Messiah in Isaiah 61:

“The Ruach (Spirit) Adonai Yahuah is upon me;

Because Yahuah has anointed me (the Messiah, Yahusha)

 to preach the Besorah unto the meek;

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to the captives,

The recovery of sight to the blind,

And the opening of the prison

To them that are bound . . .” 

(check it out! Isaiah 61: 1-11)

So, my study of The Kingdom begins! 

The Hebrew word for Kingdom is mamlakah (mam-law-kaw). It’s a noun and is defined as a dominion, a realm, kingly office, royalty. It can also mean to reign over a royal city. And there are several kinds of kingdoms mentioned in the Scriptures: 

The Kingdom of Yah

The Kingdom of heaven

kingdoms of this world (evil or general)

Satan’s kingdom

kingdoms as nations

His Kingdom

The Kingdom

When studying a word in Scripture, I like to find the first and final mentioned of it. For this study, I searched in the New Testament and found the following in Matthew 3:2.  John the Baptist was preaching in the wilderness saying “Repent ye: for The Kingdom is at hand”. Then in Revelation 12:10, John, the Apostle, recorded this for us: “And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, ‘Now is come yeshu’ah (salvation), and strength, and The Kingdom of our Elohiym, and the power of his Mashiach . . .’.” 

Yes, I’m not only looking for The Kingdom, but I’m longing for it. In Part II of this series of blogs on The Kingdom, I’ll be sharing what I find as I attempt to describe it and discuss what “seeking first The Kingdom" might mean for us. In Part III, I will bring what I find on the Parables of The Kingdom, as that is how Messiah chose to teach us about it. I’m hoping to get a glimpse of the similarities, the differences, the implications, connections, and if Yah permits, revelation.

Please know that I’m learning as I go through this. I’d love your thoughts, so please feel free to leave a comment. May this study bless and keep us until we enter The Kingdom together on that day.

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Scriptures are taken from the Cepher which can be purchased at https://www.cepher.net/ and also found in any app store.