COMING BACK – THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM
Friday, October 30, 2009
Despair over the world is widespread among believers right now. And it’s understandable. You look at the world and you see a mess. What we need is a good long look at the unseen reality. We need to see the King and his Kingdom.
A friend of ours was just with relatives at a family funeral. She said they were all believers – which was wonderful – but they were also all deeply discouraged – not because of the death in the family -- but because of the state of the world. Like Afghanistan – where the Taliban is violently trying to prevent an election. It feels like things are more unstable and chaotic than any other time in history. What we need is to take a good long look at the unseen reality. This is Haven Today with a program called: COMING BACK: The King and His Kingdom.

We see plenty of images of chaos in the world and it can cause us to lose heart – to feel overwhelmed and hopeless. What we need is a counter image of the unseen reality. We need to see what is unseen.
Hebrews 11:1 says, “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”
We need to fix our eyes on what we do not see and be filled up with that reality. That’s exactly what the book of Revelation was meant to do – it was meant to reveal to the eyes of our faith the glorious things that we can’t see with our physical eyes. “Oh, you’re talking about the future,” you may be thinking. “We know things are going to eventually get better. But what about right now?”

Revelation does show us the future but it also shows us what’s true right now. Revelation is all about Jesus --- that’s what the very first verse tells us, “The revelation of Jesus Christ”. Revelation isn’t meant to confuse us – it’s meant to fill us with powerful images of Jesus Christ. It pulls back the curtain so we can see him in all his glory -- as he is right now – and as he will be when he comes again.
I think we’ve treated it so much as a book about the future – as something we have to decode -- that we’ve missed what’s it’s showing us about Jesus right now.
So let’s take a long look and fill our hearts with one of the right now images of Jesus that Revelation gives us. John is allowed a look into heaven – the door was standing open and this is what he saw – he describes it so we can see it too:
Revelation 5 from Karen
What did we just see? We saw a throne. And we saw the King who is standing on it – right now. That image was given to us so we could see it and be filled with courage. It was given to us so we could grow strong in our faith and not be overcome by the chaos we see in the world.
The church of John’s day could easily have been overcome by the world they were living in. They were small and the Roman Empire was powerful. Everywhere they looked they saw concrete displays of that seemingly invincible power. John himself was an old man who’d been forcibly taken away from the little body of believers he loved and exiled on the tiny barren island of Patmos. John needed this image. The church needed it – then -- and we need it now.
We need to understand two things in particular:
1. Who the King Is.
2. What the King is doing.
First, Who is the King?
He’s the Lion of Judah. Way back in Genesis 49:10, Jacob prophesied that out of the tribe of Judah One would come – the scepter would belong to him and the obedience of the nations would be his. But when John looked he saw, not a Lion, but a Lamb on the throne. A lamb looking as if it had been slain. The Old Testament continually taught that God’s people needed a sacrificial lamb to atone for their sins. And here it is, on the throne.
That’s because both images come together in Jesus. Born of the tribe of Judah, he’s the one who was to come. The scepter is his. You know what a scepter is – it’s an ornamental staff that rulers carry – a universal symbol of royal sovereignty. Jacob saw the reality – that there is a Scepter that represents the sovereign rule – not of just one nation – but of the entire world. There’s King who will rule all the nations. There’s a throne at the center of everything that’s been waiting since creation for the rightful ruler to come and fill it.
And he has come – he is Jesus. But what came as a great surprise and fills all believers with joy and amazement is that this King is also the sacrificial lamb. His blood, Revelation 5:9 says, “Purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
That’s the King – King Jesus. In a world full of chaos we can know this unseen fact:
The King is on the throne. He’s in control, He’s ruling right now – not just in the future but right now.
AND, his throne is at the center of every thing. We need to fill our hearts with that reality. It sometimes feels like Jesus is on the periphery. The world seems to be driving forward with very little regard for Him – the world doesn’t acknowledge him – he’s seen as irrelevant – he’s marginalized. And that can make us feel like we’re insignificant and marginalized.
John could have felt that way --- just kicking rocks and killing time on the Island of Patmos. But Jesus came to him and gave him this revelation and he gave it to us, too. It shows us that Jesus is at the center of everything. And because we belong to him we’re at the center of everything, too. His church is what matters. Anything that isn’t related to him by faith is on the outskirts. The thing that matters is the King and his people – his kingdom. Who’s really marginalized? It’s everyone and everything that doesn’t acknowledge Jesus as Lord.
But there’s more.
What is he doing? We need to see that Jesus isn’t just on the throne – he’s standing on the throne. In other words, he’s up and ready for action. That’s the image Stephen had of Jesus. You know Stephen – he was the first martyr, the first to die for his testimony. As he was testifying to the Jewish leaders about Jesus, suddenly the unseen reality was visible to his physical eyes:
Acts 7:55-56 “But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
The Son of Man was standing, not sitting, standing – the same thing John saw in the vision in Revelation 5. Jesus is on his feet, he’s actively engaged in the world. As C.S. Lewis put it in the Narnia tales, “Aslan is on the move.”
And that’s exciting.
Listen to how Paul describes what’s going on right now:
1Corinthians 15:25-27 “He must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ.”
Paul describes Jesus as reigning right now – and not passively reigning like a king in times of peace. He’s on his feet conquering his enemies. The very last enemy he will conquer will be death. When he raises all his people from the dead and gives us all new bodies like his – that’ll be the last enemy -- conquered. Jesus conquered death on the cross and the evidence of it is his resurrection. But, when he raises us, death will finally be a thing of the past. Paul ends this passage celebrating that very fact:
1Corinthians 15:54 “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
But that’s the future – we need to see it – it fills us with hope – but we also need to see that right now Jesus is at the center of everything, on the throne of the universe, and he’s not sitting there passively – he’s on the move, conquering his enemies.
As John heard in his vision, he has “purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” That’s what he’s doing – he gathering his people – the people he purchased – out from the nations. He’s bringing them into his kingdom. Jesus is actively engaged in doing it right now. He’s on the move.
Towards the end of Revelation there’s a vision of Satan being bound for a while. We tend to think of that as a future event but it’s true right now – right now Satan is bound. Wait a minute – how can that be? Look at the chaos in the world.
Yes, but Jesus himself said that the kingdom of Satan is doomed because he’s come and he’s able to bind the strong man – he’s able to rob his house. This is how Jesus described it to the Pharisees. They had accused him of being in league with Satan but he explains that in reality the kingdom of God has come among them and Satan has met his match:
Mark 3:27 “But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.”
Satan is bound to this extent – he can’t stop the king from plundering his house. And that’s what Jesus is doing right now – he taking his people from every tribe and nation and language and people and bringing them into his kingdom.
Revelation 5:20 says, “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.”
We are a kingdom -- the kingdom of the king. We are his priests, serving him as we worship and declare his praises – right now. And one day we will reign on the earth – the recreated new earth.
Let me leave you with one more image:
Janet and I were standing with Victor Jack, Chairman of the Garden Tomb Association. He was explaining how in the late 1800s, General Gordon had come to the conclusion that the area down below us was the most likely site of the crucifixion of Jesus.

We had seen a lot of tourist spots in Jerusalem, but where we were -- the Garden Tomb – it was unique. Not so much because of what it was, but because of what it wasn’t. It wasn’t an ornate church boasting a centuries old tradition. It wasn’t a place where pilgrims came to touch a relic. And it wasn’t staking its existence on being a holy site. Victor was explaining this to us in his matter-of-fact British style. There are good reasons to consider the spot below us as a strong contender for the location of the crucifixion, he said. And the nearby tomb fits the description of as the place where Jesus was laid and the garden as the place where Mary saw him resurrected. But, as he put it, “Nobody knows for sure where these things happened and does it really matter?”

What really matters is that he’s alive. He’s not here, he’s risen. Jack said he saw evidence of that fact week after week in the Garden Tomb. Believers come to this spot from all around the globe, East Asia, West Asia, South America, Africa, Europe. They come to sit in the garden and worship the Risen King.

Right there is an image we should keep in mind in the face of the chaos in the world – the nations are coming to their true king. Jesus is on the throne – and he’s not sitting -- he’s on the move. The strong man is bound and he’s robbing his house. He’s purchased men for God from every tribe and nation and they’re coming to him. He’s claiming them – for himself – one believer at a time.