September 11, 2022
Morning Service

Last Thursday’s Headlines in the news were all about the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. One reporter said that not all of London’s square footage would be enough space to hold those who plan to attend the ceremonies related to her passing. The Queen was 96 years of age when passing and she served as the monarch seven decades, longer than any other in Britain’s history. She overtook Queen Victoria, her great-great-grandmother, as the longest-serving monarch in British history. She became Queen at the age of 25 and her reign lasted 71 years. This year she became the second longest-reigning monarch in world history, second only to 17th century French King Louis XIV, who took the throne at age 4 and reigned 72 years. Now Britain will once again have a King on the throne and it is King Charles III, the 73-year-old son of the Queen. The King, who is coming that this message is about, is not King Charles III.

In 33 A.D., The King of Kings and Lord of Lords also passed away from this earth by means of crucifixion on the cross at Calvary. Many gathered through the streets of Jerusalem to watch the King forced to carry His cross to the place of His death at Golgotha, the place of the skull. The people who gathered to witness Jesus as He made His way to Calvary were not there for His honor, they were mostly there to watch the crucifixion and passion or suffering of our Savior. Many mocked and spit upon our Lord as He made His way to do the will of our Father in Heaven. Even upon the cross, they mocked Him and said with great blasphemy, if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross and we will believe. The book of Matthew described it like this:

 

Mat 27:39  And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads 

Mat 27:40  and saying, "You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross." 

Mat 27:41  Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, 

Mat 27:42  "He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. 

We know in our hearts that even if Jesus had come down from the cross at that moment, they would not have believed. They would have once again attributed the act to some form of trickery or magic by the means of Beelzebub, the ruler of demons. In fact, this had already happened to Jesus when they tried to say His miracles and great healings were of the devil and Jesus corrected their thinking by telling them a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Mat 12:25  But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. 

Mat 12:26  If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? 

Our Father in Heaven knew beforehand that the way man in his wickedness would be toward the Savior of the World. The entire plan of salvation was Jesus dying on the cross and His blood being shed for our sins, not His own sins, because He did not have any. We could never live the life Jesus lived, and we cannot earn our way or purchase our redemption. The suffering Jesus endured was our suffering that He willing took on our behalf. Bruised and wounded for our iniquities, Jesus knowing there had to be atonement. Our best-lived life deserves death and separation from God the Father for eternity. Jesus became the Holy Lamb of God to be sacrificed in our place as an atonement for us the sinners. This is the only way man could ever be redeemed and reclaimed by God as His creation. Since the beginning of the time of man being created by God, man was given choices that God allowed to see if we the creation would be obedient or if we would satisfy our own desires. Sin entered the Garden of Eden when the evil one offered temptation and man deliberately chose to disobey God’s direction. This created the sin in our DNA as human beings forever more. This act of disobedience is what caused man to enter into the death God told them about, the wages of sin is death and therefore, since the sin had occurred, death of the soul is what follows. Consequences happen when we do not obey the Lord our God. We know after this, man had to work the ground to eat with great toil and hardship and woman had to bear children with great pains. There were two trees in the Garden of Eden, one was the tree that Adam and Eve partook of, the knowledge of good and evil, and the other was the tree of life. God did not allow them to eat of the tree of life after they had disobeyed because then they would have become immortal as a sinful creature.

Gen 3:22  Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"— 

Gen 3:23  therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. 

Gen 3:24  So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

One might think why God would have given us this choice to do evil knowing that we would make the wrong choice. The simple answer is that God loved us and wanted us to love Him from our own free will! It has been said many times that God could have made us like robots that do as commanded and without choices, but out of Love (Divine Love) for His creation, He gave us the choosing of our own. Just think if original man had chosen to obey God and His commands we could have been made immortal from the beginning. Freely to eat from the tree of life in the garden and to walk with the Lord our God every day in His goodness and mercy! Man would not have to till the ground from which he was made for food and women would not have to suffer such agonizing pain in giving birth to our offspring.

Jesus was nailed to a cross between two thieves and as His life and Spirit was being given up for humanity the creation, they cast lots for His clothes at the foot of the cross. As He was finishing His work on the cross, He said, I thirst and He was not given a cool drink, but instead it was soured wine on a sponge. Jesus said this on the cross to fulfill the scriptures written:

Psalms 69:21  They also gave me gall for my food, And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

John 19:28  After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst!" 

John 19:29  Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. 

John 19:30  So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. 

The KJV of the bible, called this vinegar in the vessel from which the sponge was dipped. Now, the work was finished on the cross and the even greater work was to come. Jesus arose on the third day and had victory over sin, death, and the grave. God the Father exalted Jesus to His right hand in Heaven to be the Way where man can be reconciled to the Father. Jesus now sits on the throne as our Redeemer and Savior from the second death, coming after the Day of Judgment! All will be judged, our hope is that we being clothed in the righteousness of Christ Jesus and His worthiness will be welcomed into the kingdom of Heaven!

2nd Corinthians 5:10  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

If we choose Jesus as our Lord and Savior and follow His teachings described in the Holy Word, we will be judged as a believer in the One who can save us from the damnation of hell! My dad once said, he was asked what are we being saved from when we talk about becoming saved? His answer was of course to the point; you are being saved from a devils hell! If anyone has any kind of intellect, it is a no-brainer that the pits of hellfire is not the destination you want your soul to be condemned. Jesus offers the Way, Himself as the mediator of our souls and the forgiveness of our sins. If we “put on” Jesus as our righteousness, we will not be condemned to the lake of fire!

Once the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus took place, He spent some days on the earth after the resurrection to be seen by some. The disciples are some of these who saw the Lord after the resurrection and they devoted their lives to spreading the gospel message. These disciples then became apostles and they were martyred for their faith in Jesus.

Now back to the message of The King is Coming, had not the King already come? Yes, He did come and for the express reason of making the way to eternal forgiveness and an eternal inheritance with God in Heaven. Once this work was completed and the brief time he spent post resurrection, He ascended to His Father in Heaven with the promise of coming back after a time to claim the dead in Christ and those believing in Him and alive at that time to gather them into His fold. This is the great news of the Coming of the King! Jesus said he was going away and that where He was going we could not go, but that He would come back!

John 14:2  In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 

John 14:3  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. 

John 14:4  And where I go you know, and the way you know." 

Jesus went away to allow for us in this generation to become a part of the family of God! In His infinite wisdom and mercy, He saw us Christians in a time far from when He ascended to His Father and longed for our presence with Him! This love from our Lord is beyond our understanding, we cannot begin to understand the mind of God and that is wonderful news to us humans. God’s understanding and wisdom is so great we cannot begin to fathom the depths of His ways! We need this in our God, if mere mortal men could understand him, this would not be the Supreme Lord of All. We need a Supreme God and must have worship and communion with Him in this life. He holds all our cares in His hands and holds our souls in His good caring and nourishing. Friends, our King is Coming and what a glorious day this will be.

The Word of the Lord says to be waiting and watching, he will come at an hour when we do not expect it, so we need be ready for His coming all the time. Prepare your hearts for Jesus and His return, be in prayer for yourself and others. Be read up in your Bibles and be waiting for that great reunion day when the Lord will come and claim us for His kingdom. Jesus came into our world lowly and lying in a manger to become the great mediator of our souls. He lived in this flesh of ours and knows every little problem and trial we face in this world. However, scriptures tell us not to worry about the trials and tribulations we suffer in this world, because He has overcome the world! The Lord tells us not to worry about anything, He will meet our needs through faith in Him and I can tell you first hand, this is the absolute truth about Jesus. I have not had need of anything in this world that the Lord has not provided. If we keep our eyes and hearts upon Jesus, the peace that surpasses all understanding will be given to us through our great Lord and Savior! Pray for His help and pray for His protection, he will gladly give us all things needed to live a life pleasing to Him and a life without regrets and continued sorrows. We have the hope of a life to come which is much better than our current one, a life without sorrow, a life without death, a life of God’s presence daily and our faith will become sight in those days!

Earthly kings are characterized in the media with great ceremony and pomp as it is celebrated. This kind of prestige will be nothing as compared to how our Lord will return. He will come with great power and glory as the Lord of All and this Coming of the King will be of the grandest appearing. There will not be enough space in all the country to contain those who will long to be part of His great deliverance. Our Help comes from on high, the maker of Heaven and Earth!

Psalms 121:1  I will lift up my eyes to the hills—From whence comes my help? 

Psalms 121:2  My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth. 

Psalms 121:3  He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber.  

Christians, there are 7.75 billion people living on the earth today. Not all of these people are believers in Christ Jesus as the Redeemer of humanity. It is estimated that 2.5 billion of the world’s population are Christians. This is less than one third of the entire world claiming to be Christian in their faith and that means that two thirds do not. It really puts some emphasis on the wide gate leading to destruction and the narrow gate leading to life! I found a disturbing statistic about our great country and it’s understanding of scripture expressed as a percentage. The scripture forms our opinions of what is right and what is wrong, also what is true and what is false, therefore I guess it is more of a lack of understanding. Only 51% of our pastors and 6% of Americans continue to hold a Biblical worldview, this means that bible illiteracy has taken a great toll on our country. We should not judge one another; it is not our place to do that, Jesus holds position. We must continue to teach what the bible says and what is written, rather than to take on a tolerable or compliant type viewpoint. We will be held accountable for the written Word and the convictions it places on our souls.

Lord help us to stay focused on You and Your Ways, let us not become part of the world, but dwell in it and spread the Word of Jesus our Savior whenever possible!