Christ as the King

[00:00:00] I am the king. [00:00:02] Harvest. [00:00:05] My dear friends, some people tell me I have to rush one for time. I want to get there because I want you to see what all this is about. You say, oh, well, quick, the boys. The fellow's got to be in the bonnet, you know, he's sort of always got to bring this thing in, you know, somehow or other. [00:00:22] Never have a conference without him getting some word in on this. [00:00:29] That's not the reason I want to tell you why. [00:00:34] To know Jesus as the king of the Jews means that the absolute accuracy and relevance of God's word is proved before your eyes. [00:00:49] Suddenly you discover that in this nation things are being literally fulfilled according to the actual words of the prophets uttered thousands of years ago. [00:01:02] After all this lapse of time, the whole thing is being worked out. And if God is so faithful to work out his word in such accuracy, how much more all the other things he said about the church, how much more all the other things about the coming kingdom and the glory there is to be for a comfort, it is for us. For a strength, it is for us. When people tell me that there is nothing in the New Testament about the jewish people in their future, I always turn them to one word and I catch them on this. There is no way out of it. Not me. It is the word I turn them to. Romans, chapter eleven and verse 28. [00:01:46] There is no way you can spiritualize this as touching the gospel. They are enemies for your sake. Now, you cant say that. Thats the church. [00:01:55] It is quite clear that it is the jewish people as touching the Gospel. They that is the jewish people are enemies for your sake. [00:02:06] Now listen. [00:02:08] But as capturing the election, they are beloved for the fathers sake. [00:02:22] This word election is one of the most mysterious and marvelous words in the whole New Testament. [00:02:34] It has something to do with the predestinating power of God, the foreordaining power of God, the marking out by God beforehand of things, the outworking, the invincible, irreversible outworking of the will of God. Election. [00:02:56] It is the most marvellous word I know. People in democratic days can't quite reconcile themselves. Do you mean to tell me that. Well, all I know is this. I'm just. I'm not going to go into all the arguments for them again. All I'm just simply saying is the word election has something to do with the irreversible, invincible will of God. [00:03:21] Now, people tell me that God has finished with the jew. [00:03:25] He turned away from them, got no more time for them. All done with. [00:03:31] How come the word election is used in connection with them. The only other place in the world that election is ever used, it is to do with the church. How come the very same word is used for the jewish people? [00:03:45] As touching the gospel, they are enemies. For your sake, for your sake, they are enemies. Think of that. [00:03:55] But as touching the election, they are beloved. Not they were beloved. They are beloved for the fathers sake. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. [00:04:07] Ive heard many messages on that in connection with the church. But in the first instance, that statement made by inspiration of the Holy Spirit was to do with the jewish people. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. [00:04:23] Oh, my dear friends, if there's no other word in the whole New Testament, here is a word that gives you a key to the purpose of God. Jesus is the king of the Jews. The election of the jewish people has not been cancelled. It has not been nullified. It has not neutralized. In fact, the purpose of God to bring in a people for his name from every corner of the globe has been fulfilled not by the success of the jewish people, but by their fall and the grace of God is so tremendous that the apostle goes on to argue, but as ye in time passed with disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience, even so had these, the jewish people also now being disobedient, that by their mercy shown to you the church, they also may now obtain mercy. For God has shut up all unto disobedience that he might have mercy on all. Oh, my dear friends, I find this so exciting. [00:05:32] It is so exciting. Neither time I keep you here to midnight, but fear not, I will not. [00:05:43] The fact of the matter is, you see, that there is a tremendous amount more than what I am saying. [00:05:50] And if we really had a full understanding of this thing, our whole attitude to the word of God, its authority, its inerrancy, its inspiration, its relevance, would undergo a tremendous change. We would realize that when God says something, he means precisely what he says. He doesnt play with words, he doesnt exaggerate, he doesnt overstate. He means exactly what he says. And when some prophet, by the spirit of God, has said something concerning this people thousands of years ago, it is going to be fulfilled exactly as God said it through the prophet. [00:06:35] Oh, my dear friends, I go whenever I touch on this matter. And I know that there are people who and are malicious, but they don't see this matter at all and get quite hot under a collar about it. [00:06:54] I always ask them one simple little question. [00:06:59] I can't say. It makes them less hot under the collar. [00:07:05] Why does Jesus return to Jerusalem? [00:07:14] Well, someone says, because it's in the word. [00:07:19] It's in the Bible now. But why? Why does he return to Jerusalem? If the kingdom God is bringing in is a spiritual kingdom, a universal kingdom and an eternal kingdom, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the jewish people, why does he return to Jerusalem, the representative of an antique, glorious past with no relevance to anything present or future? [00:07:47] Why doesn't he come to Washington? [00:07:49] I'm not joking. [00:07:51] He's the capital of the free world. And why doesn't he go somewhere else? Or why doesn't he come somewhere neutral and set up his kingdom from there to take over the whole earth? Why does he return to Jerusalem? It's a good question. [00:08:07] It's a very good question. [00:08:09] Because he returns to Jerusalem, whether we like it or not. The capital of a recreated jewish state. [00:08:19] It sounds to me as if something would have happened to the jewish people. [00:08:28] He actually literally returns as king of kings and lord of lords as head of the church, but he returns as king of the Jews to his own capital. [00:08:45] That's where it all began. [00:08:47] That's where it all will end. And that's where a new phase in God's dealing with mankind will be initiated. [00:08:57] My dear friends, I find again this all very exciting. I think of the words of the Lord Jesus in Luke 21 24 and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the gentiles until the times of the gentiles be fulfilled. I've never been able to understand people who interpret this as meaning that Jerusalem will be trodden down of unsaved people until the Lord Jesus returns. Why didn't he say that if that's what he meant in the previous verse in the phrase, he said, then there shall be great wrought unto this people and great distress to this nation. Now, everybody has understood that this people is the jewish people and this nation is the jewish nation. [00:09:35] And he said, they and they shall fall by the edge of the sword. Everybody understands that to have been the jewish people in 70 ad and they shall be led captive into all the nations. Everyone's understood that of the jewish people. Nobody's been able to apply that to the church. [00:09:55] In fact, it is a very interesting thing that the whole church escaped this siege because of Luke's words in Luke 21 about the armies laying siege to Jerusalem. They all got out in 66 ad when they saw the siege trenches being dug on body and went over the river Jordan into what is now the hashemite kingdom of Jordan. [00:10:15] So the church actually escaped when Jesus had a nation led captive into all nations. And jewish people were speaking up. And anywhere and Jerusalem, the capital, the political, economic and spiritual capital of that nation, will be trodden down of the Gentiles, non Jews, until the times of the Gentiles, the times of the non Jews, are fulfilled. [00:10:47] Now, you might wonder why I spoke about Jesus as king of the Jews for this very reason. [00:10:56] How do we know that we have passed into the last day by what is happening to the jewish people? [00:11:06] You know, Luke again gives us the clue. In Luke 21 29, he interprets the words of Jesus. Learn the lesson of the fig tree by putting it this way. Behold the fig tree and all the trees, when they now their branches become tender and put forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. Now, people say that this fig tree is only an illustration of summer. When you see fleas coming out, you know summer is going there. It's a very interesting thing for us in Israel that the fig tree is the last of the fruit trees to put its leaves out. It is not the harbinger of spring that blossoms actually first be when the fig tree puts its leaves out, which it can do in 24 hours. [00:11:53] You know that the hot, dry summer season is only a few weeks away. Elay. Elay, he nearly meant you have very little time indeed. You haven't got a long spring to go through before summer comes. You really have only weeks to go through before he comes. [00:12:11] But leap and all the trees, as if he were saying. There's a twofold significance here. [00:12:18] That is when you see these signs coming to power, nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom, wars and rumors abroad, earthquakes in many places, famines, shortages, plague, diseases and persecution. You will know that the beginning of sorrows has started, is the beginning of the last phase, but not the end. [00:12:40] When he said about the abomination of desolation that will mark the actual last phase of the end. [00:12:49] But I want to ask you something. Without our help, irreverent. [00:12:55] Can you tell me any time in the last 1800 years when there hasn't been nationwise and against nation and kingdom against kingdom and wars and brimmers of war? Can you. [00:13:09] If you look at history, there has not been a single year in the last 1800 years that has not been marked by war and rumors of war and strife and nation against nation, kingdom against who? Because we didn't have television, we didn't have telephones, we didn't have satellites bouncing off the news. [00:13:29] When something happened in China. It took us sometimes a year or two, but before in the west we even heard about it. Now if something happens in Peking tonight, we shall hear about it within ten minutes. [00:13:45] But that doesn't make any difference to the fact there's always been war. So what kind of sign is that? I mean, the very nature of a sign is that it is exceptional. Oh, someone very clever says, oh, just wait. [00:13:57] Jesus didn't mean just wars and rumors of wars. He meant world wars and rumors of world wars. But then how did any one of the generations in the past 1800 years know that the wars they were in were not the. The worst thing that could ever happen? For instance, suppose we be in the hundred years war which made the whole of Europe desolate. Don't you think you could have imagined that that was the biggest war ever? And it must mean the Lord's coming. [00:14:27] Take earthquakes. Can you tell me any time in the last 1800 years there haven't been earthquakes? There have been earthquakes in China that have killed curse on a million people. [00:14:37] Can you tell me any time in the last 1800 years there haven't been famines? There have been famines so colossal that whole areas had not been decimated. There's only been a 10th of the population left alive. [00:14:54] What about plagues? [00:14:57] Supposing you were alive in the period of the black Death which took 87% of the population of Europe and the Middle east into death. [00:15:08] And then there was ultimate coming because there was nobody to sow the fields. [00:15:13] And when the whole economy of the, of the world broke up because all the professions and guilds, there was nobody in them to carry on. [00:15:24] Wouldn't you report, would the wars and the boat that the plague Jesus must be coming? You know, we're so superior we think of these poor saints in previous generations. Of course, they were so stupid. If they thought Jesus was coming, we wouldn't fall into that trap. [00:15:47] We're far too clever. [00:15:49] I have the greatest sympathy with them. What about persecution? Can you tell me any period in the last 1800 years where believers haven't been persecuted? If you want to, I can go through a marvellous list. [00:16:02] Names you've never heard of, bogomils, polytians, albigens, proceeds. These are the names given to believers in different generations before the Reformation. Murdered, martyred, drowned, hung up. [00:16:19] What about the Reformation period? [00:16:21] What about the inquisition? [00:16:23] What about the crusaders? Is there any period that you can think of where there's not been persecution of believers? So what I'm saying is this, it makes mockery of the words of the Lord Jesus, he said, these are the signs. Well, if these are the signs, anyone can be misled. [00:16:41] Then someone clever says, well, no, just wait. There has to be not only universal war, but a conjunction of all these things together. But there have been conjunctions of these things together. [00:16:52] No, my friend, all I'm trying to get at is this. [00:16:55] Doctor Luke gave us the clue. Behold the big tree and all the tree. In other words, when you see these signs on a universal scale in conjunction with something happening to a particular tree, to the jewish people, then know that you have entered into the last phase of world history. Now, in the whole last 1800 years, nothing has ever happened to the jewish people that could be called the recreational rebirth of a jewish state. Never in those 1800 years has Jerusalem become the capital of a reborn, recreated jewish state. My dear friends, it's been in this generation. The whole thing has happened. On the 14 May 1948 first, the jewish state was reborn. On the 7 June 1967, Jerusalem was reunited in the lightning move of the Israel defense forces and was declared to be by an act of connessic, the indivisible and eternal capital of the jewish people. [00:18:00] It sounds to me as if the words of Jesus have been fulfilled and Jerusalem shall be taken down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Now, my friends, I think our time has gone. [00:18:16] Why have I spoken about Jesus as king of the Jews? Some of you must say, why didn't you stay on king of kings and lord of lords? [00:18:27] Because you will never know where you are. We will never know where we are unless we know Jesus as king of the Jews. [00:18:39] This lord Jesus, has in his heart a passion and a love for the jewish people that caused him to break into uncontrollable tears again and again in his ministry. It has never left him like Joseph, there must be times when tears course down his cheeks. [00:19:09] He loves these people. [00:19:13] It's not that he doesn't love you. [00:19:15] This is a strange thing about Christians of gentile expression. They assume they're about the Jews being loved by second class citizens. [00:19:26] You know, we're the kind of leftovers, we're the sort of dropouts really, that somehow have a no such thing. [00:19:34] No such thing. [00:19:37] No, my dear friend, it's not like that at all. [00:19:41] You are the fulfillment of the aspiration and longing of the patriarchs and prophets. That there will come a day when from all the cities of the Gentiles, ten men would come out and take hold of the skirt of him who is a jew and say, we will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. It's happened. [00:20:11] They have taken hold of, I may so reverently say, of the skirts of the Lord Jesus, the jewish messiah, the king of the Jews. [00:20:21] And that's it. We will go with you, for God is with you. [00:20:26] Immanuel. [00:20:29] God without my dear friends, I think then it becomes a great comfort to us to know where we are. And secondly, I believe that if God so loves this people and is going to reconcile them, then we need to make sure that in our hearts there's a real love too. [00:20:53] Now that's another subject. [00:20:58] Let me close. [00:21:00] I want just to close by talking about the conflict over the king. [00:21:06] This king, king of kings and lord of lords, this king of Israel, this king of the Jews. [00:21:17] There is tremendous conflict over him. Never at any single time has the conflict ceased. Right from before he came into this world, the conflict raged over him. [00:21:32] That's why the psalmist says, why do the nations rage and the peoples imagine the vain thing? [00:21:42] And then he says, the Lord sitteth in the heavens. [00:21:47] He will have them in division. He will not. [00:21:51] I will tell of a decree, he said, yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. [00:22:04] This conflict is not going to grow less. It's going to grow more and more. As we come near to his appearing, the battle is going to become ever greater than its ferocity. As we come nearer to the coming of the king. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken. That's not just political and economic and moral. [00:22:36] It's spiritual as well by the offenders. We needn't be afraid. [00:22:42] The book says, we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. [00:22:52] This is how he puts it in hebrew letter. Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace whereby we may offer service well pleasing to God. You know, this unshakable kingdom is unshakeable because of the king. [00:23:15] It's the king who is unshakable. [00:23:21] That's why you and I need to know the king. We need to know him as king over all the forces in this world, visible and invisible. We need to know him as lord over every single force in the world, whether it's demonic or whether it's political or whether it's economic or. Or whether it's moral or whether it's spiritual. [00:23:42] King of kings and lord of lords. [00:23:46] We need to know him as king of the Jews, working out the purpose of God for the nation, step by step, vindicating his word before the eyes of the nations. There's going to be some major conflicts in the future. And in those conflicts, God is going to vindicate the absolute accuracy and trustworthiness of his book. [00:24:18] That's why we need to know Jesus as king. [00:24:25] My friends, who and I will never be presented a pure virgin to Christ unless you and I know that Jesus has all authority and power in heaven and on earth, we shall compromise. You know, when people become afraid, when nations become afraid of a superpower, they start to compromise. [00:24:51] When individuals become fearful of circumstances and situations, they start to compromise. It's the natural thing to do. [00:25:01] It's only when we know one who is the king over the nations and king over all these forces, who's working out the purpose of God according to plan on time that we will not compromise. [00:25:17] We're on the winning side. There's no need to compromise. [00:25:22] No need at all. So to my friends, do you and I want to be saved from having our minds corrupted, from the simplicity and purity which is toward Christ? [00:25:37] The only way is to know Jesus as king. [00:25:43] Thank God. He's working his purpose out. Am I? Dear friends, let me say it again. [00:25:52] The king is coming. [00:25:56] The Lord Jesus is returning. [00:25:59] He's going to take you and me to be with him. Some little while ago last year, actually, when I was not very well, a person sent me a snippet of a poem, and it meant a tremendous amount to me. I felt as if I was failing, as if somehow or other the enemy had gone on top of me. [00:26:25] And, you know, we're all so big headed, and I am in particular that we think that if we fail, a form of work, you know, the whole purpose of God is going to grind to a hall. [00:26:38] You know, it's an amazing thing. We can. We think we're. We're indispensable. [00:26:46] This was the poem. [00:26:48] On the far reef the breakers recoil in shattered foam yet still the sea behind them urges its forces home its chant of triumph surges through all the thunderous din the wave may break in failure but the tide is sure to win almighty sea, thy message in changing spray is cast within God's plans of progress it matters not at last how wide the shores of evil, how strong the reefs of sin the wave may be defeated but the tide is sure to win. [00:27:40] My dear friends, that's how I see it. [00:27:45] You and I don't want to fail. [00:27:48] We want, by the grace of God, to be overcome. But should we sadly fail, the purpose of God in the hands of this king is going to win.