He Will Reign Forever (Part 2 of 2)

It's natural for any of us to look at a newborn baby and think to ourselves what this child grow up to be long before Jesus was born. The prophet Isaiah told us what we could expect today on Truth for Life. Alistair Begg reminds us that Jesus was born to be king of all creation and rule over your life as well. We continue in Isaiah chapter 9 days of Cesar Augustine said decree went out into all their that all the world should be taxed in each one came to his own city or whatever it was I was as a small boy, this is not something that happened away in a corner. This is not this is not some speculative philosophical notion, this Christian thing has roots.

This Christian thing is verifiable in relationship to secular history itself because Cesar Augustine is nothing to do with the unfolding drama of redemption. He doesn't lie there is aware in the lineage of David, but he is a market and quite really is is a mark and so the look who sets out to carefully investigate to talk to the eyewitnesses to write down the story he said in history. This was the first census that took place when quite rainiest was governor of Syria and everyone went to his own town to register.

Mary probably said you know Joseph you know I don't awaken his newest senses here in Nazareth. Why what what you want about Nono. We have to we have to go up to Bethlehem F to go to Bethlehem for goodness and I would have a baby and it is no time for going to Bethlehem, he could you fill it out here and ascended up there now we must go to Bethlehem doesn't mean anything to anybody and been reading the Old Testament cinders and what that's about. Bethlehem, but anyone reads the Old Testament was Bethlehem. The Dean Bethlehem. That's where Ruth was. That's where she was in the fields of barley take a log. The data that among the fields of barley that was that was Ruth. And that's when Boaz fancied her an ice right around when he married her and that's when they became the great-grandfather of the Internet that was where David lived after the sheep the same fields where the shepherds are now found. Now you read. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house on the line of David did to them to them than that it ended seek here then is the fulfillment which gives rise to my favorite Christmas Carol know that you care, but it is once in Royal David's city stood a lowly cattle shed where a mother later baby in a manger for his back. Mary was not mother mild Jesus Christ.

Her little child and then it advances remember when it finishes, and our eyes at last shall see through his own redeeming love for that child soon meet and gentle is the Lord in heaven of expectation fulfillment. By the time of Jesus birth. Many of the people had given up on the vision of the prophets. They were looking for a Messiah who would overthrow the Romans establish them rebuild the temple put them to rights.

A few were left that really understood what was going on Simeon for one Joseph of Arimathea they were waiting for the consolation of Israel. Simeon was able to take the baby in his arms. You will remember and see my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel, and Jesus starts out on the stage of human history. In Matthew in Matthew's gospel. Luke does the same incident in my Bible is open Outlook three. Again, notice the history with which Luke three begins in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar and Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was the tetrarch of Galilee, and so on. Luke again this is saying to his readers need to understand this, Christ came to a place a real place and at a time at a real time and in a moment in history.

He came and revealed God to us in all his fullness. This is not insignificant. This is absolutely foundational and Jesus steps onto the stage of history, and Matthew records that he goes around the towns and villages of Judea and he does what we would expect them to do. He proclaims the good news of the kingdom.

Essentially, he says I am the king and I am putting together a kingdom, and that's why he does his miracles, not as magic tricks, but as an indication of the fact that the king has come as little indications of his kingly rule of his royal rain. Only God the Creator had control of the wind and the waves and Jesus stilled them on Galilee.

Only God, the creator had the power to give life and to raise the dead, and Jesus stood outside the tomb of Lazarus, his friend and called him forth.

Why because he's the king. But if you're thinking, you perhaps track down this line in the understandably which says if this then is the case, and that Jesus is the king, and he has a kingdom. Would you mind telling me what in the world is going on because it seems to me that we don't see any of this healing for the sickness. We don't see any of this real liberation of the tyranny little insights little glimpses, but nothing that would be regarded as full and final as exactly right.

And let me give you one verse which is not a proof text, but it is indicative of a whole succession of Bible verses that reinforce the distinction if you take notes.

This is all you need to write down and that is already already – not yet. When you read concerning the fulfillment of the kingdom promises in Jesus, they are fulfilled, absolutely, completely and finally, in the person of Christ. There is no successor to the Messiah. There is no other king who comes to rain upon the throne he is. It but his kingdom which he has begun. He has not yet brought to completion and Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 8B and then verse nine is is helpful in this regard.

To me, at least as it is any and this this is what the writer to the Hebrews says after he's introduced us to Jesus and all of his grandeur and his glory. He says in verse in verse eight inputting everything under him. God left nothing that is not subject to him. Alright, so you can leave any loose ends, but says the writer. At present, we do not see everything subject to, but we see Jesus and that's the truth isn't. Death is the last enemy to be destroyed unless Christ returns. They will announce my death, I will be no more people will carry me out and find me somewhere who know death is the last enemy to be destroyed, but it is already been dealt with at the cross. Satan is a defeated foe Christ in his atoning death has played the one move on the chessboard of redemption history that that declares checkmate. If you're just where I'm a hopeless chess player if you're a chess player, you know that even when checkmate is declared, it may still be possible to play out some moves on the board but they cannot alter the outcome. They cannot reverse the checkmate. It is secured is sealed it is done. That is what is happened in the death of Jesus and in his resurrection he has dealt with all of that we do not as yet see everything subject to him. True, but we see Jesus and in seeing Jesus we see the one who will come a second time, not to deal with sin, but to establish the supremacy and his authority. Our time is gone to points of application.

First a personal point of application and it is this the promise of Jesus as a king has an inherent challenge and it and the inherent challenge and it is this that since Jesus comes as a priest if he comes to deal with our ignorance of the things of God. Three comes to speak to us from God. He comes as a priest because we cannot make ourselves acceptable to God, so we comes as the very sacrificial offering himself and he comes as King to rain and to subdue all the tyrannical forces that are operative inside of us can read again for homework and follow-up in Colossians chapter 1, we've alluded to it already. We by nature belong to the dominion of darkness. But we are transformed and relayed into the kingdom of the son that he loves the kingdom of light. In other words, Jesus makes raids into enemy territory. He secures people for himself. He brings them out of darkness and puts them into his life and they in turn is forced to shine as lights in the darkness. That's how people are supposed to see at least a glimmer of the kingly rule of Christ. That's how people are supposed to know that Christianity has something to say to our world, but the challenge and it is significant isn't because it is the challenge of a king who comes to rain is fascinating is that all the things that were there that have been done with Jesus in 2000 years is a wonderful stained glass picture in many churches, but a stained-glass window holds no threat to anybody something to look at. He's a nativity scene that gets packed up and put in a box and people can ignore it for the next 12 months. Maybe it will come back.

Maybe it won't. He's introduced to us as a sort of itinerant rambling preacher who said some good things and did magic tricks might be nice to consider him as a very absorbable Christ is a very ignorable Christ bless another Christ that were introduced to the Christ we are introduced to is the Jesus with the four names he is wonderful, counselor. He has a plan from all eternity is mighty God. He is able to execute his plan. He is father forever, never letting us go and he is the Prince of peace, a peace that is eternal and a rain that will reign forever.

I can start. But I am fascinated by the opposition to Jesus after all this time is. Isn't it ironic that the opposition to Jesus is so forcible, so vehement from the lips, often of people who say that he doesn't exist or that he's in irrelevancy or that he's 2000-year-old history or that he was a rambling prophet or a stained-glass window or a nativity scene okay so are you so concerned about why you concerned about them in your skull. Are you concerned about them in your city when you have to fear from a rambling dreamer what you have to fear from a stained-glass window when you have to fear from historical nonentity. Why are people opposed because they know he is actually the reigning king. They know he is the reigning king and the devil, and all of his wards seek to erode in the minds of everyone.

The notion of his transcendent deity. While there is a challenge. Therefore, there is also a comfort in the comfort is this that on the cross he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, and since he is taken such lengths to deal with our most fundamental problem in predicament.

He is the one tomb we may go and trust with everything we may trust him in our tragedies and in our disappointments with our hearts with our fears with our losses with our failures with our loved ones.

He is absolutely 100% reliable. He is the King forever and incidentally this is not some private little party with yourself. This is not Jesus will come and live in your heart and then you can go and live in a wardrobe.

This is not something that is assertive and esoteric experience. Totally unrelated from life. It is of significant tragedy that evangelical is in for 50 years I've done a pretty good job we have of suggesting that it is that all that really happens is that you have Jesus. He lives in your heart and then you pretty well try and be nice and go to the prayer meeting or whatever it is and sing songs that most people don't enjoy and I said and then you finally die and go to heaven. Boom six is going to be more than that. Of course it's more than that the whole creation groans and travails waiting for the redemption of the sons of God.

The kingly rule of Christ speaks not only personally to our lives but cosmically to our lives. It speaks to the issue of the echo systems of our world. Of course we care about those things because there's going to be a new heaven and a new era. This is what we have right now. Therefore, don't mess it up is because he is caring that we care about life that we care about the issues of life that we care about how animals are treated, that we care about the discoveries of science that we discovered we care about literature and art and poetry, and good songs and music and melody lines and when you cease to believe in a creator God who fashioned man in his own image. Eventually the dust of death sample on your tongue. Darwin was a professing Christian Darwin was a Cambridge student, Darwin was going to submit to holy orders in the Anglican church until he found himself in the middle of Romans one and he exchange the truth of God for a lie and he began to worship the creature rather than the creator. And if you read Darwin you will know that he was an honest man, which led him to his evolutionary hypothesis. He was equally honest enough to say that as he approached the middle part of his life he was niggled by the fact of design in the universe.

He felt there were loopholes in his system. By the age of 30 he no longer believed in a soul he no longer believed in eternity.

By the time he was 14.

He said he had no interest in art.

He had no interest in music. He had no interest in history and when he asked him do you have doubts he said of course I have doubts. I believe that the human mind has emerged from the mind of a monkey and who would trust the mind of a monkey while thanked. We thank him for his honesty. But, my friends, there is a significant difference between a view of the world which which is the product of time plus matter plus chance and a view of the world in which the sovereign Lord of creation becomes the child in the manger becomes the man of the proclamation and of the miracles and ascends to heaven and takes his rightful place as staggering as it is to contemporary thought.

The declaration of the Bible is this that Jesus Christ, the reigning king. Is the source and the sustainer and the goal of all created reality and when Abram Cowper, who was the Prime Minister of Hall and got a hold of that truth.

He writes in his journal on one morning.

There is not 1 inch in the entire area of human life, about which Jesus does not cry of it. My mind and we sing it only this is my father's world and to my listening ears. All nature, sayings, and roundly springs the music of the spheres and it all ends in the hallelujah chorus.

If you have the Messiah.

I suggest this afternoon at some point go to the track that takes us right here and he will reign for ever and ever. And if you been doubting it just let it wash over you.

If you're unsure about it. Ask God to make you sure of it so that you might bring your life in your dreams and your hopes and your disappointments and all that represents the user that is you out from underneath your own tinpot little kingdom, and under the rule of his reign, and for those of you who are gardeners read Revelation 22 for all the thistles that you find in Genesis 1 through three are gone by the time you get to Revelation 22 how that works for the national emblem of Scotland. I do not know, but they will be gone by. Revelation 22 and for those of you say well what am I going to do on streets of gold, and enter the house and alabaster this and alabaster that listen, there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth.

You have a nice garden will have a nice garden, no cam loan no weed removal.

It's all just absolutely the best you could ever conceive.

Why because Jesus is King. Hallelujah, for the Lord God Almighty reigns. The kingdom of the world have become the kingdom by Lord and of his Christ and he will reign forever and there is higher throne before wage every sovereign on every throne and every high court judge will bow and the invitation of the gospel is to borrow now and welcome him as Lord and Savior and King, or bow, then and acknowledge that he executes his judgment justly because you heard and you said no I will not have this King to rain over me. These loved ones are considerations worthy of your own follow-up. Jesus is the King. Questionnaires will be submit to him bow the knee listen to a message from Alastair big titled, he will reign forever. This is Truth for Life and Alastair will be back in just a minute, but first I will say thank you to a very important group of people, people, we refer to as truth partners.

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For example, today were featuring a book that will energize your prayer life. It's titled piercing heaven prayers of the Puritans in this book you will quickly discover that prayer for the Puritans was far from goal. They played passionate prayers, pleading for God's mercy, praising him for his grace and his goodness. For example, Philip Doddridge, a Puritan pastor once prayed, if any surviving friends should when I am in the dust come across this memorial by transaction with you.

May they make it their own.

This collection of players for more than 30 Puritan riders provides us with a rich reservoir from which we can draw to use during our own prayer time the book comes with our thanks when you donate to support the Bible teaching you here on Truth for Life or when you commit to regular monthly support. Sign up to become a monthly truth partner before the end of the year. Give a one time donation@truthforlife.org/donate now here is Alastair God our father, we thank you that we have the Bible, we thank you that it is clear. Sometimes we make it unclear so we prayed in the clarity audit that which is helpful in true useful. Maybe etched into our lives may change our view of the world and the way we live in the world and the way we treat others in our world and when the ask tell them that there is a higher throne beyond all of throne. The world is no that we come to know his Majesty and he to Carl dirty rags of rebellion and give his wonderful new set of clothes clothes.

We didn't deserve. When we walk around in them. Since we know how dreadful we are a sinner just humbles us and reminds us to look away to Christ. Tell others that he is a wonderful Savior, the gracious king send us out. Lord, we pray under your rule and reign for Jesus sake. We ask it. Amen Bob Lapine on behalf of all of us your truth flight enjoyed this Christmas eve. We hope you're able to spend the weekend celebrating the birth of Jesus with family and friends as well as worshiping him in your local church and Alastair say word as well. Thank you, Paul, and on behalf of all of us here and truthfully, we wish you a very blessed and joyous Christmas indeed and a reminder that our offices are closed today so our team can spend this important day with their families will be back in the office on Monday course. Alastair will continue our series them. I hope you'll join us as we learn what the seal of God means for the ones he loves the Bible teaching of Alastair big is furnished by Truth for Life learning