In approximately A.D. 30, Jesus' church was established in the city of Jerusalem, on Sunday...on the day of Pentecost*.

On this day of Pentecost:

• God poured out his Spirit on the apostles (Acts 2:1-13).
• Peter preached a gospel sermon, telling of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ (Acts 2:14-36).
• Peter told the thousands at the feast what they must do (repent and be baptized) to have their sins forgiven and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and that this promise was to all that God calls (Acts 2:38-40).
• Those who accepted were baptized and the Lord added them to His church (Acts 2:41-47).

*Note: The day of Pentecost is called the Feast of Weeks in the Old Testament (the word Pentecost is from the Greek word "pentekoste" meaning "fiftieth." It was on the Sunday that was 50 days after the Passover feast -- see Leviticus 23:15-16. Jesus rose from the dead on the Sunday, the first day of the week, following the Passover Feast (see Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:1-2, Luke 24:1-2, 7, 13, 21-22, John 20:1).

Prophecies of Jesus' Kingdom/Church:

Following are some prophecies of the establishment of Jesus' kingdom or church and the promises that Jesus made:

I.  Isaiah 2:1-4 tells us where this Kingdom or House of the Lord would be established:

The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem*. Now it will come about that In the last days, the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that He may teach us concerning His ways, and that we may walk in His paths." For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war. Isaiah 2:1-4 (NAS)

* Note: Jerusalem is a city located in Judah.

II.  Daniel chapter 2 describes several kingdoms, including the coming Kingdom of Christ, which would crush the other kingdoms:

The Statue and the Stone That Crushed It - Daniel 2:31-35:

"You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome. "The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, ³³ its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

³⁴ "You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and crushed them. ³⁵"Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

Daniel Interprets the Dream of the Statue-Daniel 2:36-42:

³⁶"This was the dream; now we shall tell its interpretation before the king. ³⁷"You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength, and the glory; ³⁸ and wherever the sons of men dwell, or the beasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, He has given them into your hand and has caused you to rule over them all. You are the head of gold₍₁₎. ³⁹"And after you there will arise another kingdom inferior to you₍₂₎, then another third kingdom of bronze₍₃₎, which will rule over all the earth.  ⁴⁰ "Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron₍₄₎; inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things, so, like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in pieces. ⁴¹"And in that you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with common clay. ⁴². "And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle. ⁴³"And in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery.

Daniel Interprets the Stone that Destroys the Statue- Daniel 2:44-47:

⁴⁴"And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed₍₅₎, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever. ⁴⁵"Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will take place in the future; so the dream is true, and its interpretation is trustworthy."  ⁴⁶ Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and did homage to Daniel, and gave orders to present to him an offering and fragrant incense. ⁴⁷The king answered Daniel and said, "Surely your God is a God of gods and a Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, since you have been able to reveal this mystery." (NAS)

⁽¹⁾ The Babylonian Empire was built primarily by the efforts of Hammurabi (1728-1686 BC) and Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC). The Empire declined with the fall of Nebuchadnezzar, fell to a lower level under Belshazzer, and came to ruin when Xerxes, the Persian King, destroyed it in 478 B.C.

⁽²⁾ The Empire of the Medes and Persians (the Medo-Persian Period) began with a man called Deioces son of Phraortes" (around 715 B.C.) who founded the Median kingdom and its capital city at Ecbatana (modern Hamadan), it was probably not before 625 B.C. that Cyaxares, grandson of Deioces, succeeded in uniting into a kingdom the many Iranian-speaking Median tribes. In 614 he captured Ashur, and in 612, in alliance with Nabopolassar of Babylon, his forces stormed Nineveh, putting an end to the Assyrian empire. The victors divided the Assyrian provinces among themselves, with the Median king taking over a large part of Iran, northern Assyria, and parts of Armenia. By the victory in 550 of the Persian chief Cyrus II the Great over his suzerain, Astyages of Media, the Medes were made subject to the Persians. The first prominent leader of the Persians was the warrior chief Hakhamanish, or Achaemenes, who lived about 681 B.C. The Persians were dominated by the Medes until the accession to the Persian throne in 550 B.C. of Cyrus the Great. He overthrew the Median rulers, conquered the kingdom of Lydia in 546 B.C. and that of Babylonia in 539 B.C. and established the Persian Empire as the preeminent power of the world. Darius I, who ascended the throne in 521 B.C., pushed the Persian borders as far eastward as the Indus River. From 499 to 493 B.C. he engaged in crushing a revolt of the Ionian Greeks living under Persian rule in Asia, and then launched a punitive campaign against the European Greeks for supporting the rebels. His forces were disastrously defeated by the Greeks at the historic Battle of Marathon in 490B.C.. Darius died while preparing a new expedition against the Greeks; his son and successor, Xerxes I, attempted to fulfill his plan but met defeat in the great sea engagement the Battle of Salamís in 480 B.C. and in two successive land battles in the following year. The forays of Xerxes were the last notable attempt at expansion of the Persian Empire. Many revolts took place in the next century; the final blow was struck by Alexander the Great, who added the Persian Empire to his own Mediterranean realm by defeating the troops of Darius III in a series of battles between 334 and 331B.C..

⁽³⁾ The Greek Empire. Greek history is thought to have begun somewhere in the 12th century B.C. The first Greek Olympiad was held in 776 B.C. The golden age of Greece was an era of great statesmen, philosophers and dramatists in the 5th century B.C. Alexander the Great assumed command of the Greek army in 336 B.C. and conquered lands to the east that had formerly been under the rule of Persia, Babylon, Assyria and Egypt. Alexander the Great had conquered most of the known world by 331 B.C. Alexander died in 323 B.C. and his empire was divided among his four generals.

⁽⁴⁾ Roman Empire: The history of Rome began in 753 B.C. As late as 390 BC, when Greece and Persia were great powers in the world, Rome was still very weak. However, during the 4th and 3d centuries BC, the Romans became masters of central and southern Italy. Roman armies entered Greece, where they were both conquerors and conquered: they defeated the Greek armies, but they were overawed by Greek culture and brought back to Rome a taste for fine art and literature. In 202 B.C. at the Battle of Zama, Rome defeated Carthage. During the next two centuries the Roman Empire expanded rapidly, gobbling up many of the territories once ruled by Alexander the Great, including Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. In 60 B.C. a triumvirate (three-man executive board) consisting of Gaius Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Marcus Licinius Crassus led Rome. In 44 B.C. Caesar was murdered by a group of senators. The empire he had founded, with its autocratic tendencies, lasted long after his death. Imperial Rome lasted from 44 B.C. until AD 476. During the first 3 centuries of imperial Rome, 50 emperors occupied the throne, and 37 of them died violent deaths. Rome's fall would come at the hands of barbarian invaders. During the 2nd century AD Goths looted Greece and Asia Minor. During the 3rd century AD the Parthians reached Antioch. By the 5th century AD the barbarians roamed at will through the western part of the Roman Empire. Rome fell to Alaric I in 410 AD, and after a reprieve of a few decades, in 476 the Goths deposed the last Roman emperor of the west.

⁽⁵⁾ Christ establishes His church; the Kingdom that would last forever. During the time of the Roman Empire, Jesus came to this earth (0 AD), died on a Roman cross and rose again (approx. 30 AD) and then established His church in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost (See Acts 2).

The stone that was cut out of the mountain is Jesus Christ.

 

Ephesians 2:19-20 "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone," (NAS)

III.  The prophet Joel also talks about that same day.

The similarities between the prophecy (made in approx. 800 BC) and the fulfillment of the prophecy are noted in colors below:

Joel 2:28-32 says: "And it will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. "And even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. "And I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, Blood, fire, and columns of smoke. "The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. "And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the LORD will be delivered; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape, as the LORD has said, even among the survivors whom the LORD calls." (NAS)

Acts 2:16-21 says: "but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel: 'And it shall be in the last days,' God says, 'That I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all mankind; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; Even upon My bondslaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit And they shall prophesy. 'And I will grant wonders in the sky above, and signs on the earth beneath, Blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. 'The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come. 'And it shall be, that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.' Acts 2:38-39 says: And Peter said to them, "Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. "For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself."  (NAS)

IV.  The Prophecies of Jesus:

Jesus promised that His kingdom would come with power, while some of them were still alive:

Matthew 16:18, 28 "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it..."Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." (NAS)

Mark 9:1 And He was saying to them, "Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power." (NAS)

Right before Jesus ascended into heaven, He told the Apostles to wait in Jerusalem to receive this power:

Acts 1:4-8 "And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, "Which," He said, "you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." (NAS)

The apostles waited just a few short days, then saw the kingdom come with the power of the Holy Spirit (see Acts 2).

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