We're going to be looking at
Christ our King in 1 Samuel 8. As we've been going through the
books of the Bible, we've been made to examine different
passages and find Christ. And truly, in the volume of the
book, it is written of Him. In 1 Samuel, there's about Six
characters, I guess you could call them six people primarily
in the scripture. The first one is Hannah at the
very beginning of the. The very beginning of the book,
Hannah is asking for a child asking for a son to be given
unto her. And Eli being the high priest
at that time, he actually accuses her of being drunk because she's
praying and such agony into the Lord desiring a child. He said,
how long will you be, how long are you going to drink? How long
are you going to be drunken? And she says, I'm not, I'm just,
I'm grieved. I'm, I need a child of the Lord. And so Lord harkens
into her and gives her a child and his name is Samuel. And so
Samuel is the last, um, the last of the judges before a King was
anointed in Israel and this whole entire, well, the books called
first Samuel. I mean, so it's obvious that
it's he that is, giving it unto us, Samuel, from his viewpoint
of everything that happens, divinely inspired of the Lord. We see
the life of Saul, who was the first king anointed in Israel. And we see David, David's account
of David and Goliath comes from this wonderful book that the
Lord has given us. And so I didn't want to preach
David and Goliath again, because I just did that a couple Sundays
ago, but... It would have been okay, it's just I don't wanna
sound like I'm repeating the same thing over and over again,
but yet that's what we do, isn't it? We repeat that Christ is
all over and over again and he continually feeds us. The last
person in this chapter that I think would be memorable would be Jonathan.
David and Jonathan had a union together, a covenant that they
made one with another that they would see after their seed after
they passed, whichever one, and that's where the glorious account
in 2 Samuel 9 of Mephibosheth came from. David asked, is there
any left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness
for Jonathan's sake? That was a fulfillment of that covenant.
And so this book had many different accounts in it that would point
us to Christ, that we could see Christ in. But I think what I
want us to look at here in 2 Samuel 8 is Christ our King. And so 2 Samuel 8, I believe
the Lord's given me a message on Christ our King. Now in verse
10, it says, and Samuel told all
the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, this will be the
manner of the king that shall reign over you. He will take
your sons and appoint them for himself, for his chariots and
to be his horsemen. And some shall run before his
chariots And he will appoint him captains over thousands,
and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground,
and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war,
and instruments of his chariots. And Samuel keeps going down through
here and tells the nation Israel, this king that you're asking
for, everything that you're requesting, he's gonna take your sons, he's
gonna take your daughters, he's gonna take a tenth of everything
that you earn, and he's going to, It's not going to be what
you think it's going to be. So the nation Israel has come
to Samuel and said, we no longer want you to be a judge. Samuel's
old and he's. Can you go somebody go let that
person in please? So Samuel is old and he is a
judge of Israel. He is the Lord's priest. He's the Lord's prophet. And
they are saying, we no longer want a judge over us. We want a king over us like the
other nations have. They looked around and they saw
all the nations around them had a king. And they said, we want
a king. We want someone that can physically
fight our battles for us. We want someone who can sit upon
a throne and rule over us and take care of us and give us everything
that we need because you're not doing a very good job. Not only
did they reject Samuel, they rejected God. We see that. And
so this rejection, this rejection of the Lord is what led us here
in his response unto the nation of Israel. So we're in 1 Samuel 8, and we're
seeing that The desire of the children of
Israel is the desires of the flesh, the desires to be given
a king to meet their fleshly desires, their fleshly needs.
It had nothing to do with spirituality. The king's not gonna bring them
closer to God, is he? The king's not gonna point them
to Christ. The king was to fight their battles
for them, to physically help them, to physically lend aid.
Men in today's time have the same mentality about God that
the children of Israel did about the king. Men today believe that
the message going forth is that God wants you to live a wealthy
life and a healthy life, and if you'll do your part and just
get better and better, then the Lord will keep giving you more
and more accordingly. No, every richness of the Lord comes from
what Christ himself did for his people. That's what we hope in.
We don't hope that we're going to Now, we don't wanna be unhealthy,
don't get me wrong, but we're not approaching the Lord saying,
okay, Lord, I'm gonna do my part if you'll make me healthy. I'm
gonna do my part if you make me wealthy. I'm gonna do my part
and let you save me. This is just foolishness. We're
not talking about God, then, are we? We're talking about us
being the king over our salvation. We're talking about us taking
matters into our own hands, just as the nation Israel does right
here. Now, Samuel tells them, if you do this, he's gonna take
your sons from you, He's gonna take your daughters from you.
He's gonna take a 10th of everything that you earn unto himself. And he did just that. Saul was
a man after his own heart, not after the Lord's heart, after
his own heart. David was the king that the Lord
set up on the throne that was a man after God's own heart.
Saul was all about Saul. The way that he looks even, he
was a very, appealing man. His countenance was nice. He
was a tall, he was a big man. He was strong. And the children
of Israel said, we want him to be our king. Now I'm reminded
that whenever Christ was here, the scripture says that he had
no form or comeliness that we should desire him at all. Men
by nature do not want Christ the king. They want a Saul to
be their king. They want someone that appeases
their flesh. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
come to save our flesh. He came to save our soul from
hell. He came to save us from our sin, to save us from ourself,
and He successfully did that. He didn't try, He did it. He's
successful in it. That's why we see Him as Christ
our King, is He conquered death, hell, and the grave. He conquered
the things which we could not. And so let's look here in 1 Samuel
8 and verse 19. And verse 19 says, nevertheless,
the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said,
nay, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be
like all the nations and that our king may judge us and go
out before us and fight our battles. And Samuel heard all the words
of the people and he rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord.
And the Lord said unto Samuel, hearken unto their voice and
make them a king. And Samuel said unto the men
of Israel, go ye every man into his city. Now, we see the king
anointed, as I've already mentioned, is Saul. You'll find that in
the next chapter. For the sake of time, we're not
gonna continue to read on, but Saul was the one that was the
king, and he had a glorious countenance as far as manners concerned.
He was a handsome man. He was big. He was somebody that
you would say, he's a man's man, if you wanna put it that way.
And so, the children of Israel look at this man and say, that's
who we want. We desire this man. We desire
this man. What did the children of Israel
say about Christ? Whenever he came, we will not have this man
to reign over us. We will not have this man to
rule. He's not big enough to fight our battles. He's not setting
up an earthly kingdom like we want him to, to take care of
our problems. That's what the children of Israel
really thought Christ was going to do. And it was a misinterpretation
of prophecy is what it was. They believed that Christ was
gonna come and he was going to set up an earthly throne. and
he was gonna rule and he was gonna reign on the earth as David
did, conquering all their enemies, and they would have dominion
over the earth. The Lord Jesus Christ did not come to save the
flesh, as we've already said, he came to save the spirit. So
they rejected Christ. According to the flesh, there
is nothing in Christ that is desirous, nothing. In your flesh
and in my flesh, if we see Christ, there's nothing that we would
desire of him, because he didn't do something for our flesh, he
saved our soul. It's an eternal salvation. Paul
said, if we had hope in this life only, we'd be of all men
most miserable. Meaning that if the Lord came to save our
flesh, what good would it do? Because it must die because we're
in sin. If he came to save our flesh,
then it would not be a spiritual kingdom, it would be a physical
kingdom. The children of Israel didn't understand any of this. They wanted a king. They wanted
somebody to reign over them. Now, I want us to understand
something that is very important. Men in today's time, men in society
today, and even us by nature, believe that our position, our
position with God can be changed based upon our merits. Meaning,
if we do something, then we can become in favor with God. Or
if we don't do something, we can become in favor with God.
It's the message of will works or will worship. It's the message
of do and live. It's the message of taste not,
Touch not, handle not, and you'll have favor with God. Now this
king that they were receiving, he was not interested in the
things of God. We find out his demise and his end, he commits
suicide at the very end of his life. He enters in, and I'm gonna
mention this the second hour, first hour we're preaching on
Christ our king, second hour, Lord willing, we're gonna look
at Christ our high priest. And so Samuel has tarried for
a while, Seven days, the scripture says, and Saul's upset about
it. So he takes matters into his
own hands and he offers up a sacrifice unto the Lord as the high priest.
And Samuel tells him the kingdom's been ripped from you because
of this, because of this unbelief, because of this disobedience.
And so later on, we see that Saul ends up committing suicide. So the king that the people wanted
was not the king that they should have been asking for. And men
today are the same way. They believe that they can They
can have a kingship oven in themselves. They believe that their merits
is good enough, that they're able to fight their own battles,
so to speak, and they want it all for a physical standpoint.
But the Lord came to save us from our sin, save us from ourself,
save us from the law that we can't keep. We don't try to do
in order to gain favor with God. It's already finished. It's already
done. We look to Christ our King. We
don't want to exalt this flesh, do we? We don't want to put ourself
upon the throne of God. That's what the children of Israel
were doing here. We don't want to worship God as our King. We want
to worship a man. That's what they were wanting
to do. And that's what we do by nature, isn't it? We put ourself
upon the throne of God if he leaves us to ourself. Men offer themselves up to God,
just as Saul did at the very end of his life. He offers himself
up, he saves himself, he thinks, by committing suicide. I'm reminded
that Judas did the same thing, didn't he? He sold our Lord for
30 pieces of silver, sold our Lord for 30 pieces of silver,
and then when he found out what they were gonna do to Christ
because of that, he comes back and tries to fix it by giving
the money back. And they won't take it back,
it's blood money at that point. And the scripture says, he went
out and he did what every man will do by nature. Every man
will do by nature. They'll take their life into
their own hands and they'll offer themselves up unto God, thinking
that that's going to create an atonement. And it doesn't. It
doesn't. God will not have me as an atonement. I need a substitute. I need a
savior. I need a sin bearer. I need one
that stood before God. I need a king that did successfully
save me. that did fight my battles, that
did win salvation for his people. That's the King that I'm declaring
unto you today. The Lord Jesus Christ did these
things. It's interesting that the only
difference between Judas and Peter, you know what Peter did?
He denied the Lord three times, didn't he? In essence, he did
the exact same thing Judas did in denying the unbelief that
he had. But you know the only difference
between Judas And Peter, the only difference between Saul
and David even, King David, you know what the difference is?
Whenever the Lord looked at Peter and he said, fear not, I have
prayed for you, Peter. That's the difference. Christ
is the one that makes the difference. Our King is the one that made
the difference. It's not what we have done and it's not what
we're doing. It's that Christ Jesus prayed
for his people. Christ Jesus died for his people. Christ Jesus successfully redeemed
everyone that he died for. That's good news to me, because
if it's left up to me, I'm gonna try to put myself upon the throne
of God, ain't I? Aren't you? We're gonna try to
take the place of Christ, our King, by exalting ourself. If
it was up to us, we would say, look what salvation I have wrought,
or look what I have merited by my works. But it's not by works
of righteousness which we have done, is it? It's according to
his mercy. According to his mercy hath he
loved us. According to his mercy hath he saved us. He's the one
that did the work. He's the one that got the victory.
He is our conquering King. Our God will not be dictated
to by men. Our God is not threatened. Our
God is not wishing, or trying, or hoping, or wanting, none of
those words. He is, and he did, and it is
finished, and he is successful, and he has sat down on the right
hand of God as the conquering king, as the conquering sovereign
king of this universe, and no man can stay his hand. That's
good news to me to know that if he accomplished salvation,
and he did, and I was in him, who can remove me from him? He
sat down, his work is finished. He's the king of glory. No man can stay his hand or say,
what doest thou? He is the eternal I am. And he saved his people from
their sin. This is the good news of the
gospel. Acts 13, 21 says, and after Israel
desired a king and God gave them king, God gave them Saul, the
son of Sis, the man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of
40 years. And when he had removed him,
so understand when the Lord gave them the king Saul, he was God's
king as long as God wanted Saul to be king. And the moment that
he was finished with Saul, he removed him. And that's exactly
what happened, wasn't it? As soon as he had removed him,
he raised up David to be their king. to whom also he gave testimony
and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after
my own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. Of this man's seed
hath God, according to his promise, raised unto Israel a Savior,
Jesus Christ. David was God's king. Now don't
misunderstand, Saul was God's king as well, but Saul was the
one that was desired of the people. If you was to see David and you
was to see Saul, and you knew that you were going to have to,
if you were going to, pick one or the other to be your king,
you would choose Saul naturally because of the way he looked,
because of his countenance or the size of him. David was a
boy when God anointed him king over Israel. David was, whenever
he faced the giant, he was a lad, 14, 16 years old, he was a kid.
And nobody would have desired the kid over Saul, this mighty
man of valor, this one that We would be threatened if we saw
Saul, is what I'm trying to implicate, but we would not be threatened
at all if we saw David. And yet the Lord looks on the heart.
Isn't that what happened whenever Samuel came down to anoint the
sons of Jesse? The scripture says, Jesse comes
up and he says, okay, here's my firstborn boy. Here he is,
look at him. He's the biggest, he's the strongest.
And he says, no, that's not the one the Lord wants. You got another
son. He kept going down the line and
going down the line. And what happened at the very
end? Samuel said, no, none of these are the Lord's anointed.
You have any more? He says, yeah, I got one more
son. He's just a boy. He's out in the field tending
the sheep. He's just a kid. You don't say fetch him, bring
him to me. He said, there he is, the Lord's
anointed. See, the Lord looks on the heart
of man. He doesn't look on the outward
appearance. He doesn't desire to see your good works. He sees
Christ in you the hope of glory. He sees Christ our King. And
even though all men would reject him, he is not threatened by
the rejection. He has his people. He has his
people. He saved them from their sin. This is good news. Christ Jesus came through the
lineage of David. He came through the lineage of
David and it's called, as the Lord said, whenever the Lord was talking
to the Pharisees and their unbelief, and they were accusing him of
saying that he was God's son, which he was. But he said, well,
why would David say, my Lord saith unto my Lord, sit thou
here till I make thy enemies thy footstool? He said, why did
David call Christ Lord if he was king? And they couldn't answer
him, could they? They didn't have an explanation
for that. But the point was, is David was a type in picture
of our King, of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one that
was going to get the victory and has got the victory for his
people. And so he was born King by birthright. It's his birthright
to be King. He was born not of a corruptible
seed, but incorruptible. He was born the King of glory
the very moment he come forth from the womb. He was as much
King in the manger. He was as much King as a suckling
child, as much God right then as he was where he's seated at
right now, and not a bit of that has changed. He is the eternal
I am, he's immutable. The King of glory became a man
and died for his people. He abased himself, he humbled
himself to the death of the cross. He was born in a stall, in the
most unlikeliest of places. Men see, they think that the
king that's being born, I know that we just had a, In our society,
there was a death of a queen over in England. You all know
that. And what array of things that they did for her at the
funeral. I mean, the mourning and everything
that was, the ceremonies and how long did it, how much money
did it take and all these things. That's how men view a king, isn't
it? That's how, whenever you see a king being born, in our
minds, we would say, okay, well, it's gonna be in a palace and
he's going to be raised up on a silver spoon and he's going
to be, in a position of authority, and he's going to be this and
that. So whenever we see Christ our King being born in a manger,
we don't look and say, unless the Lord's given us eyes of faith,
we would not ever look at that and say, yup, that's a King right
there in that manger. That's a feeding trough, brethren.
That's what he was laid in, a feeding trough. That's how much he humbled
himself for his people. He was born and placed in a feeding
trough. I'm talking about the eternal
I am, the King of glory. He abased Himself to that measure
to save His people from their sin. This is Christ our King. This is why we rejoice in Him.
It's not a physical rejoicing, yet certainly we physically rejoice,
but it's not for the flesh, is it? It's for our spirit, it's
for the soul, it's for the new man. That's the only way we can
see Christ as King. Men by nature try to water Him
down, if I can put it that way. They make him look so puny and
insignificant around Christmas time. You'll see nativity scenes
all over the place. And I mentioned this to you before. But they
see nobody has a problem with baby Jesus because he's meek
and mild and lowly, and they see him as just an infant that's
powerless. And you've got to let him into
your heart. You have to let him do his part, or you have to do
your part. And in order for God to do him, you limit God on everything
and every decision that you make. That's not who he was in that
manger. That's not who he was. He was
the eternal I am from birth. He was the king of glory from
birth. From the very first moment, even
in the womb, he was the king of glory. You remember whenever
the angel of the Lord appeared unto Elizabeth, or appeared unto
Mary, after that he had appeared unto Elizabeth, who was bearing
John the Baptist, she was expecting John the Baptist, about six months
along, the scripture says, or somewhere around in there. And
she heard, Elizabeth heard, that Christ was gonna come through
Mary. Mary told her the account that it happened, and the baby,
John the Baptist, leapt in the womb, leapt in the womb because
he heard that Christ Jesus was gonna be born. What am I trying
to say? I'm saying that there's no other
name like his name. There's no other king like this
king. He was born the sovereign king of glory. Nothing could
happen to him that was not ordained of God and nothing that he did
was wrong. Everything he did was right.
Everything he spoke was truth. He was obedient to God in work,
in deed, in thought, in every way Christ Jesus was perfect. And he was the King that God
ordained to conquer that which you and I could not conquer,
our sin, to conquer us. We've been conquered. I love
the fact that I've been conquered and I no longer, I no longer
am trying to figure out salvation. I'm not. Christ Jesus accomplished
salvation for His people. We rest in Christ our King, don't
we? We rest in Christ as the babe
in the manger that was obedient unto the Father even then. We
rest the sinless Son of God being born. We rest in His life. We rest in everything that He
did in His death and His resurrection. We rest in Him because we're
seated in him right now in the heavenlies. In Isaiah 9, verse six, it says,
unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government
shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counselor, the Prince of Peace, the Everlasting Father,
the Mighty God. Of the increase of his government
and peace, there shall be no end. Upon the throne of David,
and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment
and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the
Lord of hosts will perform this. By this we see that Christ being
prophesied, this was Isaiah, this was years, hundreds of years
before Christ was even born, but we see even then the declaration
of here's our King coming, reigning, who he was, his isness, who he
was, the everlasting father, the prince of peace, the mighty
God, as a baby, as a baby, we see him, he was born king. He
was born king. When Herod, the king at that
time, when Herod heard that there was the Messiah born, that a
king was born, when Herod heard that, what did Herod do? Herod
say, oh, I wanna, did he have a genuine interest in worshiping
Christ? No, he certainly didn't. He tried
to kill him, didn't he? Why? Because Christ was a threat
to his power. Christ was a threat to his popularity. Christ was a threat to his pleasure.
Christ was a threat to everything Herod was. And that's exactly
what Christ is to men by nature. He is a threat to our righteousness. If we're holding onto something
that is ours, or holding onto something that we've done, holding
onto something that we think we've merited, then we're holding
onto a righteousness, aren't we? And if we're holding on to
righteousness in any way, in and of ourself and what we've
done, and when we see Christ, He is a threat to that righteousness. See, He strips you and He strips
me of all of our righteousness. He causes us to see that our
righteousness is as filthy rags. He makes us see we can't approach
Him because of our sin. We're born in sin, shaped into
iniquity. He was born in perfection. He
was born in perfection. He was born in righteousness.
He was born holy. You and I are born in sin. We're
shaping into iniquity. And so therefore we cannot approach
this King. Our Lord Jesus Christ has made
it to where the veil in the temple has been written twain from top
to bottom, and now we can come boldly to the throne of grace,
having obtained mercy and to find grace to help us in the
time of need. The Lord Jesus Christ, our King,
conquered our sin, conquered Because of his birthright, because
of who he was, he conquered everything necessary for the salvation of
his people. I want to read to us again what
I read from Psalm 145 at the beginning of the service, it
says, I will extol that word extol means I will lift up or
I will exalt my God O King and I will bless thy name forever
and ever, every day will I bless thee. Why does the Lord's people
bless the Lord? Because he hath put away our
sin, because we have been found perfectly righteous in the person
of Jesus Christ, because he's everything to us. Every day will
I bless thee. I will praise thy name forever
and ever. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. And his
greatness is unsearchable. His greatness is unsearchable. Christ, our King's greatness. is unsearchable. The depths of
the treasure of our Lord is unsearchable. The beauty of our Lord is unsearchable. God is past finding out. So what
do we do? We just praise the Lord. We bless
the Lord. As David's saying here, I will
lift thee up, I'll exalt thee. David saw himself, the most amazing
part to me about David, David knew he was the sinner, chief
of sinners. His confession unto the Lord in Psalm 51 is evident
of that. Lord have mercy upon me. according to the multitude
of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgression." He's confessing
what he was. He was a sinner. He was needing
a savior. He said, purge me with hyssop,
I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be made whiter than snow.
So his confession is the same as our confession. What we see
here in David is the same magnification that the Lord gives unto us in
our heart. The same confession once we see ourself is the same
confession of exalting Him. We see Him high and lifted up,
just like in Isaiah, when the Lord appeared unto Isaiah. So
Isaiah was complaining about the children of Israel, much
like Samuel did, and much like they were constantly murmuring,
which by the way, I found out murmuring recently. If you ever
heard a flock of birds on the ground, and they're starlings
specifically, they were over in the field, and somebody mentioned
this to me. I looked it up, and it's true. Those starlings are
just making noise. That's all they're doing. It
would be incredible if you were in the field with them, you wouldn't
be able to hear a thing. But we had to elevate our voice even
over here just because of how loud that was. That's what murmuring
is, just making a noise. And that's what the children
of Israel did throughout the entire... We're still doing it,
aren't we? As the children of Israel, we're
still murmuring, we're still complaining, we're still grumbling.
So that's what... Isaiah comes to the Lord with,
and he says, Lord, these people and what they're saying and what
they're doing, and he's frustrated with the people. And then the
Lord reveals himself to Isaiah. And what does Isaiah say? I'm
a man of unclean lips. I am vile. And I dwell with the
people of unclean lips. When you see the Lord high and
lifted up, Isaiah said, in the year King Uzziah died, I saw
the Lord high and lifted up. It works simultaneously, and
as I mentioned to us before, repentance and faith. This is
repentance, seeing the Lord high and lifted up, and faith, when
you see yourself low and abased and nothing, you're giving Christ
the Savior, faith to believe on Him, faith to look to Him.
That's what happened to Isaiah, wasn't it? He saw the Lord high
and lifted up, and he saw himself as what he was. That's exactly
what happens to you and I And the gospel is preached. We see
Christ high and lifted up and we say with David, I will lift
the up. I will extol the my God, my King. We worship the king, don't we?
We worship him in spirit. Christ said they that worship
must worship in spirit and truth. The only way that we can worship.
is to see Him as the King. That's the only way God will
be worshiped. We have to see Him as the King. Yes, certainly
we see Him as the Savior. We see Him as our prophet. We
see Him as our priest. We see Him as the King, and that's
the only way that we can worship is to see Him high and lifted
up. And if you worship Him, it's
because He's made you to do so. If you see Him high and lifted
up, if I see Him high and lifted up, it's because I've been made
to do so. The Pharisees were, constantly
trying to trick Christ, constantly trying to get him to fall or
falter or find fault with him. They couldn't find any fault
with him. He was perfect. He was perfect. And he tells them
in John 18, 36, Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world.
If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight
that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now is my kingdom
not from hence. The Lord didn't come to set up
an earthly kingdom. He come to save his people from their sin,
and that's how he set up his spiritual kingdom. The king is
seated. The king has successfully saved
his people. The king accomplished everything
that he wanted to accomplish. He didn't try. He didn't make
a plan and hope that it worked out. Christ Jesus successfully
redeemed his people by his sovereign right as king.
we can see him as he is. By our sovereign right as king,
we can come to him. We can come to him because of
what he's done. He says, come unto me, all you
that are labored and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
We can approach the king, brethren. We can come boldly to the throne
of grace. Why? Because our king conquered everything
necessary for our salvation. By what he's done, By what He
has done, we can hear His voice. We can hear His voice when He
speaks. We can hear Him when He talks. Isn't that glorious?
He hears us when we cry. That's amazing that He would
even hear us, but we hear Him, don't we? Through the eyes of
faith, through the ears of faith, the Lord allows us to hear His
voice. Hebrews chapter 1 verse 8 says,
but into the sun he sayeth, Thy throne, O God, is forever and
ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom. The scepter represented the rule
of the king. It represented his authority,
represented his sovereignty, and that's what our Lord has
in his hand. The sovereign right to save whomsoever
he will or to pass by whomsoever he will. The sovereign right
to choose. To choose. And he died only for
his people. It is his sovereign right to
do so, wasn't it? The Lord's people bow to that. We see him
as a king, our king. We see him as holy and sovereign.
We see him as completely sovereign, meaning that if he passes by,
he has the right to do so by birth. It's his birthright to
do whatsoever he will. He created the earth. He owns
the earth and the fullness thereof and the inhabitants. We know
these things to be true. And we see him as seated. We see him as reigning, reigning
eternally. The scripture says he reigneth.
I like the old English, whenever it has the ETH on the end, you
can't really duplicate that. It literally means, when it says
reigneth, it means he's reigning now, and he's reigning now. And
just as there is now therefore no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus, that now, it's him reigning now, and he's
reigning now, and it'll never not be now. It's always, he reigneth
forever and ever and ever, and the Lord's people love that.
There's never gonna be a time where the Lord isn't reigning. Now, in closing, I wanna ask
three questions. How did our king conquer? For
whom did he conquer? And what did he conquer? How
he conquered was as a servant. I've already answered all these
questions already, but I'm just reiterating everything that's
already been spoken quickly. How did he conquer? He conquered
by becoming a servant. Isaiah 53 says, he was led as
a lamb As a sheep dumb before the shearers, he opened not his
mouth. When they begin to accuse him
and they begin to beat him and they plucked out his beard and
they stripped him naked, all of the shame that he was bearing
of our sin and the guilt of our sin was pressed into the sovereign
King of glory. He opened not his mouth, but
he went knowing that he was going to die for his people. As they
were mocking him, He was bearing our sin even then as the sovereign
King of the universe, that never changed, don't forget that. During
the entire time of everything happening in the transaction
for our salvation, all the requirements, He never laid down His deity,
He was the I Am as He's going up Golgotha's mountain. As He's
being nailed to the cross, He's letting these puny humans nail
Him to the cross for you and I. He's allowing them to spit
upon him. He's allowing them to pluck his
beard. He's allowing them to mock him. Why? Why? To save his people from their
sin. And he did. He did. His soul
was made an offering for sin. How did he conquer? By making
his soul, the father made his soul an offering for sin in Isaiah
53. And he was satisfied with Christ
our King. He was satisfied. The father was well pleased with
his son and he gave him a name above all names, didn't he? So
how did he conquer? He conquered by becoming a servant
unto us and unto his father. For whom did he conquer? For
his people. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save
his people from their sin. He conquered all that he accomplished
all that was necessary for our salvation, He accomplished it.
He successfully redeemed His people. All that were given to
Him of the Father in the covenant of grace before the foundation
of the world, He saved them from their sin. He redeemed us, His
chosen people. What all did He conquer for us?
It's the last question. What did he conquer? If he conquered,
what is it that he accomplished? Well, he accomplished salvation
certainly, but in the process of that, he conquered death,
he conquered hell, he conquered the grave, he conquered our sin,
he bruised the head of the serpent. The Lord conquered everything.
Do we see that? There's nothing left that needs
being conquered. Everything that Christ intended
to do, he did. He conquered all of this. and
put away our sin by his own death, that no flesh should glory in
his presence. It's no wonder John saw him seated
upon a horse, having his vesture dipped in blood and written on
his side, you know what it said? King of kings and Lord of lords, the
eternal I am, the God that is our King, Christ, Christ our
King. We now say with David, All thy
work shall praise thee, O Lord. Thy saints shall bless thee.
They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom and talk of thy
power to make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, the glorious
majesty of his kingdom. Thy kingdom is an everlasting
kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. We
rejoice in the Lord's kingdom as his subjects. Arise, ye saints,
salute thy king. We rejoice in being subjects
of His kingdom. We repeat with the four and 20
elders in Revelation four, what will be repeated throughout eternity,
just over and over and over. The elders fell down, the four
and 20 elders, before Him that sat on the throne and worshiped
Him that liveth forever and ever and cast their crowns before
the throne saying, thou art worthy, O Lord. Thou art worthy to receive
glory and honor and power for thou has created all things And
for thy pleasure they are and were created. Our Savior is worthy. Our Savior is King. Our Savior
is King. Christ, our King. Amen. Father, thank you for being King
and conquering that which you purpose to conquer. Calls us
to rest in Him, in Christ, our King. It's in His name we pray.
Amen.