beloved brothers with us. Once again, we'd like to have
you up, Brother Gary, to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. I want to thank everybody for
Your kindness to me, your fellowship. It's been good to see you and
to be with you. I want you to turn first in your
Bibles this morning to the book of 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy. I've tried to talk to you about Christ, that prophet like Moses, and Christ, that priest like
Melchizedek, and this morning I want to talk
to you about Christ, that king like David, like Solomon, like
every king. In chapter 6 of 1 Timothy, the 11th verse begins, But thou, O man of God, flee
these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith,
love, patience, meekness. fight the good fight of faith,
lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast
professed a good profession before many witnesses. I give thee charge
in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Jesus
Christ, who before Pilate witnessed a good confession, that thou
keep his commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the
appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Which in his times he shall show
who is the blessed and only potentate the King of Kings and the Lord
of Lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no
man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see, to
whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen. The third office in that Old
Testament economy whereby they were at the command of God anointed
was that of king. In 1 Samuel chapter 16, we read,
then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst
of the brethren, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from
that day forward. David became king. He became God's anointed king. And in that, he became a type
and a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ because Christ, the anointed,
is truly God's anointed king. He is the sovereign king of the
universe. Nobody can make him so, and we
can only and must acknowledge him to be so. He has from eternity been the
eternal king. That's how he's described in
1st Timothy 1.17, the eternal king. And he is such a king that
this great King David and all other kings have been in submission
to him and have had to call him king. David called him Lord. Solomon, the great wise king,
called him wisdom. He is the wisdom of God. And perhaps one of the greatest
kings that has ever lived on the earth as far as abilities,
as far as splendor, as far as power, was a king by the name
of Nebuchadnezzar. Hold your place and turn in your
Bibles to Daniel chapter 4. Whenever Nebuchadnezzar walked
out on that balcony, viewed his kingdom, saw its splendor and
glory, he said, this is that great Babylon which I have built
myself and for my glory. But the Bible says that God smote
him, that he brought him down, and that the end of a period
of time caused him to confess what we read in these verses. Daniel 4, 34. And at the end
of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven,
and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most
High, the Most High, and I praised and honored him that liveth forever,
whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is
from generation to generation. and all the inhabitants of earth
are reputed as nothing, and he doeth according to his will in
the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth,
and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? If you want to know what kind
of king the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, if you want
to know what kind of king he is, that's the description. He is a sovereign king who does
his will. That means there is no such thing
among men as free will. He does according to his will
in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.
And there is nobody who can question him, stay his hand or say unto
him, what doest thou? In verse 37 he says, Now I, Nebuchadnezzar,
praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works
are truth, and his ways judgment, and those that walk in pride
he is able to abase. He is the King Eternal. And oftentimes we are asked what
we mean by sovereignty or by sovereign grace or all such things
as that. It simply means that He can do
whatever He wants. He can do it when He wants to. He can do it how he wants to. He can do it to whom he wants
to. He is this king who does what
he will in heaven and earth and nobody can stop him. Turn over to the book of Revelation. In the Revelation, we have these
words written to us first in Revelation chapter 19. Beginning in verse 11, this is
the vision that John received of this great king as a conquering
king. And I saw heaven opened And a
white horse, behold, a white horse, and he that sat upon him
was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he does
judge and make war. There's only one that can bear
these names, and they're in capital letters, Faithful and True. His eyes were as a flame of fire,
and on his head were many crowns, and he had a name written that
no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture
dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in
heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen,
white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a
sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations, and
he shall rule them with a rod of iron. And he treadeth the
winepress of the fiercest and wrath of Almighty God. And he
hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of
Kings. and Lord of Lords. There is enough given in just
this one simple paragraph to make us know it is not only the
Christ of God, but it is the Christ of the cross. He has this
vesture that drips with blood, the blood of conquest. He is the King of Kings and Lord
of Lords. Turn back to Revelation 17 and
look at verse 14. These shall make war with the
Lamb, And the Lamb shall overcome them. He's not only a King, but
as the Lamb, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,
as God's Lamb, He is a conquering Lamb. He is the Lamb who is a
Savior King. And He shall overcome them, for
He is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. and they that are with
him are called chosen and faithful. And when you go back to look
at what is said before that verse, you find that all the things
that are signified in the book of Revelation, all the enemies
of God, the beast, the great whore of false religion, all
his enemies, it says the Lamb shall overcome them all. because he's the King of Kings
and Lord of Lords. So the end of it all will be,
regardless of what he is to you or to me, the end shall be to
all that the Lord wins. The King wins. He will either conquer you as
His enemy or He will conquer your heart with His grace and
make you His willing subject. As a matter of fact, when you
read in the Psalms, And the Lord begins to talk about Christ,
about him being a king, about him being a ruler and all that.
And he's showing us that in order for him to have a kingdom and
be a king, he has to have subjects, willing subjects. So he says,
thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. So that makes every unbelieving, every unbelieving person to be
an open rebellion to God's Christ, to God's King. You can say, well, I just haven't
made a decision yet. You can say, well, I just don't
believe in Him. That doesn't change anything. Whether or not you acknowledge
something that's true doesn't make it true or untrue. Whether you believe on Christ
or not doesn't change the fact that God says He is the King. and he has power over you. So that makes believing the gospel
very important. Because contrary to what people
seem to think, the gospel is not some kind of offer to be
refused or to be not refused, to be refused or accepted, a
matter of choice or opinion or something like that. It's a command
from the king. It isn't me standing up here
saying you ought to do this and you ought to do that. It isn't
God up here begging like he's hanging over the stair rails
of heaven pleading and begging. The gospel comes to men clearly
from the Lord Jesus Christ as a command to be obeyed. That's right. Turn over to 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians in verse 8 of
chapter 1. 2 Thessalonians 1 and verse 8. Let's go back a little bit. He says in verse 6, seeing it
as a righteous thing, with God to recompense tribulation to
them that trouble you. In other words, God is just in
dealing with and paying back all of those who cause problems
to his people. And to you who are troubled,
Rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven
with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them
that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. that obey not the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ. That makes believing on Christ,
believing the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, believing the gospel
of the grace of God, the gospel of God concerning His Son, Open
defiance. It isn't about whether someone
has done this evil or that evil. It isn't whether somebody has
broken the law. It's about whether or not we
have obeyed the gospel. Turn over in 1 Peter chapter
4. 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 17. Or let's go back to verse 15. 1 Peter chapter 4, but let none
of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer,
or as a busybody in other men's matters. Yet if any man suffer
as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify
God on this behalf. For the time is come that judgment
must begin at the house of God, and if it first begin at us,
What shall the end be? You say, how could judgment have
been begin at the house of God? Because all of God's people,
all for whom Christ died, their judgment was met by the Lord
Jesus Christ. But he says, what shall the end
be? of them that obey not the gospel
of God. That obey not the gospel of God
because it's the gospel of the King. Look over in Romans chapter
16 and listen to Paul as he preaches and as he He writes here and
he tells us something of the importance of the gospel. In
Romans 16 and verse 25, he's closing out this epistle and
listen to what he says. Now to him that is of power to
establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus
Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept
secret since the world began but now is made manifest and
by the scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment
of the everlasting God made known to all nations for the obedience of faith. For the obedience of faith. You know, we have a lot of strange
ideas about faith. But I can tell you this, where
there is not obedience, with regard to the gospel, there is
no faith. No God-given faith. Those that
have been given the gift of faith by the Spirit of God, they obey
the gospel. They believe and they trust in
Christ alone. They believe that Christ has
finished the whole of salvation on their behalf because God says
it, the king says it in the gospel. It's a matter of submission. Now let me ask you this. When it says in the Bibles, wives
submit yourselves unto your own husbands, does that mean that
there is superiority on one part and inferiority on the other
part? No. It means that it is to be
done simply because the king has said so. We do everything in the obedience
of faith, not to gain salvation, but simply because we listen
and are submitted to the King. When you read over in Romans
9, and he says, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, we're
not to question what God does. He's just told us in these texts
that everything that God does, He does it right. We don't know what is right and
wrong in ourselves. We don't know what is right or
wrong in all of the other matters that we're confronted with, but
we know this, what God does is right. We know it's right because
he says it. We know it's right because he
does it. It's all a matter of being submitted
or brought to submission to all that he says in his word. So turn back. to Romans chapter 10. Now I want you to look at this. This is the king inspiring his
messenger, an apostle, which means one sent forth, An ambassador
sent forth, we as ambassadors, even preachers of the gospel,
we don't have the authority to change what is said or to negotiate
with you on the basis of what we think or feel is right. We
simply bear the message of the King. So here's this man Paul. Saul
of Tarshish, a Jew, loves his people, loves his nation. He says, brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be
saved. I know some people say that it's
just strictly the Israel of God, we ought not to pray for anybody
else, but the Bible says we're to pray for all men. And what Paul wrote in Romans
9, which is the clearest declaration of the sovereignty of God in
grace, it did not in any way hinder his desire to see people
saved. I don't care what they say. Oh,
that'll dampen missionary efforts. He says, brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be
saved. For I bear them record that they
have a zeal of God. They did. As a matter of fact,
they are probably nationally the most zealous people in religion
that there's ever been in this world. It's just one problem. Their zeal is not according to
knowledge. All the zeal that there is in
this world toward God, toward religion, toward anything, if
it is not according to the knowledge of this book, the knowledge of
the truth, the knowledge of the King, it doesn't count. Well, Paul, how do you know that?
How are you so sure they're not saved? How are you so sure that
they don't know Christ? How are you so sure that they
are not in submission to King? They say they've made Him their
Lord. Look at verse three. For they,
being ignorant of God's righteousness, I don't know how in the world
that men read the Bible and somehow do not want to see the importance
of righteousness. There is no gospel. Listen to
me. The King's gospel is never a
gospel except it be wherein the righteousness of God is revealed. That's in the first chapter of
this book. God isn't going to save anybody. The subjects of his kingdom are
not just brought into the kingdom haphazardly. He's going to be
just in everything he does, especially in salvation. For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness. perfect description of religion
as a whole in this world. Some quitting this, some not
drinking, some not smoking, some not doing these things, some
doing these other things and these rituals and ceremonies
and all of it together is amounting to this. They're going about
to establish their own righteousness. And God says they're all our
righteousnesses. Yours, mine, everything we do,
it's like filthy rags. They're going about to establish
their own righteousness, and here's the problem. They've not
submitted themselves. They've not bowed. They've not
owned it to be the only one. They've not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God. They've not bowed to the king,
who even as Melchizedek, whose name was the king of righteousness,
the king of peace. Well, they say, well, I might
accept Jesus one day. You won't accept anything. He's
not up for acceptance. He's already the King. And if
you haven't bowed to Him, if you haven't bowed your knee and
your heart and everything else to Him, you will be lost. You don't have any righteousness.
Because His righteousness is the only righteousness there
is. Look at the next verse. For Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Now you can just try to make
that say whatever you want and it's still going to say the same
thing. the end of the law for righteousness. Which makes me to know that anybody
who is still looking to the law in any way has not believed on the Lord
Jesus Christ because Christ is the end of the law for everyone
that believes. Well, I know that, but I believe
the law is a rule of life. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. Well, I believe
this and I believe that about the law. You see, that's the problem.
You haven't submitted yourself to the righteousness of the King. You're still in rebellion. You're
still figuring it out on your own. You're still going your
own way. You're still following that way that seems right to
a man, but the end thereof is a way of death. We're submitting to the King. You see, no man ever held three
of these offices, all three of them. Some were prophets, some
were kings, some were priests, some were prophet kings, but
there's only one who ever held all three of these offices. There's
only one who these types, and these shadows, and these pictures
was all pointing to He's the one who is the prophet, He's
the one who is the priest, and He is the one who is the king,
and not only the king, but the king of kings. Turn over to Hebrews
chapter 1. Here in Hebrews chapter 1, I
want you to listen to this. The writer of Hebrews is talking
about, as he always does, the superiority of the Lord Jesus
Christ over everything. Over the Old Covenant, over the
priests, over the kings, over everything. He's just superior
to it. And he says in verse eight, but
unto the son, he saith, thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. Whoa. You mean Jesus Christ is God? Afraid so. You can't have God without having
him. You have no mediator. You have
no hope, you have no salvation, you have no nothing, you can't
have some kind of generic God out there, some mystical God,
apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. When the Jehovah Witnesses, when
they come knocking on my door, I say, I've got one question. Is Jesus Christ God? Well, we believe he's a good
fellow, a prophet. No, he's God. Thy throne, O God,
is forever. A scepter of righteousness is
the scepter of thy kingdom. Now you know what a scepter is. It's that little walking stick
or whatever that a king has. It's really
usually solid gold piece that's holding his hand. And on the scepter is usually
inscribed something, you know, the coat of arms, something that
characterizes the king, something he's glorious for, some great conquest or some great feature
about him and his kingdom. What is the scepter of our king's
kingdom? It's a scepter of righteousness. One day there was a queen by
the name of Esther. And I believe she's a picture
and a type of the bride of Christ, of the church. But she had to
go, even though she was married to this king, she had to go,
even as his queen, before him to make an appeal in the matter.
All her people were about to be destroyed by a wicked man
named Haman. And it was a law that nobody
went unannounced to the king, not even the queen. But she said, this is so important,
I'm going to go before him and if I perish, I perish. And when she came in, desired to see the king, showed
up in his presence unannounced. The king held out the scepter
to her, which meant everything was all right for her to come
in. He said, honey, what do you want? Well, maybe not in that
exact words. Come right on in. What do you
want? What do you need? How could she
do that? How could she be accepted like
that? Well, he held out the scepter to her. And the only way that
God will hold out the scepter to you is in the righteousness
of Jesus Christ. In Christ, everybody, in Christ,
His bride, He holds out the righteousness, the scepter of acceptance, the
scepter of welcome, the scepter of His glory, and He says, come
on in. Come on in. Well, I've been a
good fellow all my life. I really have tried to clean
up my life. I know I'm a good woman. I've
done these things for the poor and the needy, and I've raised
my family right, and all that. Forget it. It must be that which perfectly
characterizes the kingdom, which is the righteousness of Jesus
Christ. It's what His kingdom is about. For the kingdom of God is not
meat and drink. It's not in all these external
things, but righteousness. peace and
joy in the Holy Ghost. I love that sequence. I believe
the Spirit of God directly established the order from old eternity. This is the banner that flies
over the kingdom of the King of Kings. My kingdom is righteousness
and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost in that order. Because
of righteousness, the righteousness of Christ, the shed blood of
Christ, the cross death of Christ, the death for sin of Christ,
because of righteousness, peace. He made peace by the blood of
His cross. And because of peace made by
Christ, joy in the Holy Ghost. When I was in religion, in Bible
school as a little boy, they taught us a little song that
said, I've got the joy, joy, joy down in my heart. But I didn't. And I grew up to be a man, and
I didn't. I entered into religion, and
I didn't. I became a pastor, and I didn't. But when the Lord the King was
pleased to reveal Himself and His work in my heart and brought
me to bow in submission to His will and to His righteousness,
I had peace and I had the joy, joy, joy down in my heart. And I've had it ever since. I've
had troubles. I've had trials. And I've been
rejected. By men. I continue to be rejected
by men. I continue to be despised by
people for preaching this gospel. But I can still go to the king
and he holds out the scepter to me. Because my righteousness is his
righteousness. He can't refuse himself. His
righteousness imputed to me is all my hope. It's the hope of
all of his people. And they say that no, he said,
no weapon shall, that's formed against them shall prosper. Why? Because their righteousness is
of me. I won't allow it. You see, this king is renowned
for his conquests. He just is going to beat everybody,
all his enemies. His gospel is going to be to
us either a saver of life and to life or a saver of death,
but he's going to win either way. He's going to magnify His
justice in saving us in Christ, or He's going to magnify His
justice in condemning us to hell. The devil knows he's king. When they brought the Lord Jesus
Christ into have that mock trial, they all gathered, all his enemies
gathered up together, and they asked him, Pilate said, are you
a king? He said, for that purpose, for
that reason, to show myself that as a savior king, came I into
this world. They went and got a purple robe
like a king would wear. They clothed them in it. They
went and they took a crown of thorns and made a mock crown. What are they doing? They're
crucifying him as a king. They smote him and they hit him
and they put in his hand a reed. There's your scepter, scepter,
king. They said, you saved others,
but you can't save yourself. But that was just exactly it. In not saving himself, he was
saving all his people. In what the world called defeat,
he was conquest. Ah, what it must be to meet the
wrath of the king instead of seeing the king in his beauty. He thought it not robbery to
be equal with God, but he made himself of no reputation. He
humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross, and for that reason. for what it accomplished to the
glory of God in the salvation of God's elect for that reason
and that purpose God has highly exalted him. If you think Jesus Christ is
still that man running around in sandals on the shores of Galilee, or trudging
through dusty towns like Jericho. You think he's hanging on the
cross? You see, that's where Catholicism wants him. I went into the big cathedral
in, I believe it's in Isamal, Mexico. First thing I saw when
I walked in the door was this statue of Jesus and He's being
held up in the arms of Mary. He's not in the cross. He's not
on the limp, laying limp in Mary's arms. We don't symbolize the
cross, we don't wear rosaries, we don't do anything like that.
Because our king is seated at the right hand of the majesty
on high and he's there because he by himself purged our sins. and sat down. God highly exalted
him and gave him a name that is above every name, that at
the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and heaven and earth
and hell, everybody is going to bow to this king. I want to bow now. I want to
bow now. Oh, it says in Psalm 24, How
can you read it? Open up your gates. The resurrected
Christ is coming. Open up your gates and receive
the King. Who's the King? The King of glory
is His name. The King of the Lord of hosts
is His name. The Lord Jesus Christ is His
name. Because He successfully saved
His people. and he'll successfully conquer
his enemies and you're going to be one or the other. Oh, to die as a sinner having
rejected the gift of righteousness. That's what Paul calls it in
Romans 5, the gift of righteousness. Oh, what it is to die, to live
and die and not know anything about the righteousness of Christ. Turn over one more place to Matthew
chapter 25. You see, the next time everybody
sees Christ, bodily He'll be seen and they'll know that he's
the king He's the absolute sovereign You know a lot of people are
griping complaining and everything because their king didn't win
the election and Some other people are glad. They're kind of just glad my
man's in power. My man's the king. My man's the
president. None of that's going to matter. But God's people can say truly, my savior, my lord, my master,
my God, He's the King. He's the King of all these kings.
Listen to this. Matthew 25 and verse 31. When the Son of Man shall come
in His glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he
sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered
all nations, or all people, and he shall separate them from one
another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats." You know, God has some sheep. He said, my sheep hear my voice.
This king says that. My sheep hear my voice and they
follow me. And there were some Pharisees standing there about
that time. He said, the reason you don't
believe, you're not of my sheep. I got some sheep. They're already
mine. But he says, as a shepherd divides
his sheep from the goats, and he shall set the sheep on his
right hand, but the goats on his left. Then shall the king
say unto them on his right hand, these sheep, come ye blessed
of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
of the world. You've always been my people,
you've always been in my kingdom, you've always been the objects
of my love and my grace, you've always been that people represented
in the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, all these things. Now come enter into the fullness
of my kingdom. But he says to them On the left
hand, verse 41, the goats, then shall he say unto them on the
left hand, depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire
prepared for the devil and his angels. Verse 46, and these shall
go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal
life. That's the way it will be. When the king came in and saw
that there was a man that had no wedding garment on, the custom was that the king
or the father of the Bride or groom, he provided it for her,
and there was one available to this man, and he looked at this
man and he said, why did you come in here without a wedding
garment? You know, people say they're
gonna, when I stand before God, I'm gonna tell him, I did my
best. It says he opened not his mouth. He was in such awe of the king. There was nothing to be said.
There was no argument to be offered. He didn't have the righteous
garment that the king provided. And he's cast out. It says they'll flee from the
face of him that sits on the throne. It says, he shall show the only
potentate. I have some people, you know
people, they're so in rebellion, they're trying so hard to rebel
this notion that God is a sovereign, that he gives grace in his sovereignty
to whom he will. They said, my Bible doesn't have
sovereignty in it. What do you think a potentate
is? He's going to show who is the
only potentate, king of kings, lord of lords. Either in grace
to you and bring your heart to bow. You say, well, I don't understand
it all. I don't either. But the king
said, believe it. He's teaching me a lot. I know
more than once did, but I don't know anything like I ought to
know. But the only warrant of faith really is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He said it. He said it. I like when I read where it says
about Isaiah saw and see the Lord. He said, in the year King
Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. Well, how did you see him? I
saw him high and lifted up. You ain't seen him unless you've
seen him high and lifted up. This glorious king who in mercy
shows mercy to sinners like we are. Thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. The reason I
know that so many people even in religion and some who profess
grace have not seen the King of Glory, you know, when Isaiah
saw the King of Glory, the next thing he said was, woe is me,
I'm undone. For mine eyes have seen the King. God bless you.