Sermon

The King of the Kingdom Part 1 of a Four Part Series On the Kingdom of God Tuesday BIble Study

New Heights Fellowship Baptist church of East Toledo

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  1. Bangkok

  2. Oh Lord my God, you have put my trust

  3. Oh Lord my God, you have put my hope

  4. In you, in you I find my peace

  5. In you, in you I find my strength

  6. In you, I live and move and breathe

  7. Let everything I say and do be part of our faith in you

  8. Lift up holy hands and sing, let the crisis ring

  9. Oh Lord my God, you have given my hands

  10. Oh Lord my God, you have given my peace

  11. Oh Lord my God, you have given my everything

  12. Oh Lord my God, you have given my life

  13. In you, in you I find my peace

  14. In you, in you I find my strength

  15. In you, I live and move and breathe

  16. Let everything I say and do be part of our faith in you

  17. Lift up holy hands and sing, let the crisis ring

  18. Let the crisis ring

  19. Let the crisis ring

  20. I love this verse

  21. Why would he say it this way? He said it for this reason

  22. Paul said in Romans chapter 8, 38-39

    Romans 8 chapter mention

  23. Look it up for yourself, it's the same word every version

  24. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons

  25. Neither the present nor the future nor any powers, neither height nor death nor anything else in all creation

  26. Will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord

  27. You can write that down in your notebook or phone

  28. But what I love about it is he said for I am convinced

  29. And that's something that's very personal that we have to understand is that he was convinced

  30. Now we can take that and say I'm convinced about that too

  31. But Paul wasn't trying to tell everybody what they're convinced about

  32. He was saying no matter what, what goes on here

  33. In the past, present, future, everything

  34. I'm convinced that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord

  35. So my question is something to think about, do this

  36. Don't just think, do it, write it down

  37. Do something, take the action, take the initiative

  38. Think about it, what are you convinced about?

  39. What are you convinced about Jesus? What has Jesus convinced you?

  40. Something to think about

  41. Amen

  42. Let's pray

  43. And then we'll sing another song

  44. And then we're going to release the doors in the classroom in a moment

  45. And go to the word Limecite

  46. Tonight is part one of four on the kingdom of God

  47. It's quite a worksheet, it's a doozy

  48. So I'm looking forward to it, alright?

  49. Father in heaven, I praise you, I thank you

  50. I thank you, good Lord, that as we talk with people, we can talk about how good you are

  51. And even the last two days have been quite an experiment for me

  52. Since Sunday, really being convicted

  53. That all we need to do is say how good you are

  54. And we find folks that agree with us

  55. And we also find folks that disagree with us or just aren't concerned

  56. And some of that latter group

  57. And some of that very first group that do agree with us that you are good

  58. They're not saved and they're willing to listen

  59. And we've seen it, Miss Chris led somebody to Christ just a few hours ago

  60. Using this very thing, Lord, just talked about

  61. And we're grateful that you brought that to our church

  62. Grateful that you brought that to us

  63. I want to pray for those who are hurting

  64. Aaron's hurting with the muscle that he injured in his chest

  65. I would just pray, Lord, that you can heal that

  66. We pray for Miss Barb

  67. Thank you that her surgery, which wound up being three surgeries

  68. Has gone well now and she's healing up

  69. And she'll be able to be with us in church on Sunday, it looks like

  70. I hope that's true

  71. Lord, we pray for those who lost loved ones this week

  72. The last ten days

  73. Lord, it's been, that's a tough journey

  74. That's a hard time

  75. And we know that you can sustain us through it

  76. So we're asking you to be mighty, mighty, mighty in your lives

  77. Mighty, mighty, mighty

  78. Lord, I pray for Sherry

  79. She got stuck out of town longer than she wanted

  80. She's not here now, I pray that she's driving safely

  81. Lord, thank you for warm weather

  82. Thank you for us being together

  83. And we're going to be blessing on the candy for later

  84. Even though it's candy, that it'll be fun

  85. And also that you can use it

  86. Actually, help us as we learn about the kingdom of God today

  87. And really as we learn about the kingdom

  88. We pray all this in Jesus' name

  89. My word is a lamb unto my feet

  90. And a liar unto my bow

  91. My word is a lamb unto my feet

  92. And a liar unto my bow

  93. When I feel a pain and I think of lost one way

  94. Still you're there right beside me

  95. Nothing will I fear as long as you are near

  96. This we kneel before you

  97. My word is a lamb unto my feet

  98. And a liar unto my bow

  99. My word is a lamb unto my feet

  100. And a liar unto my bow

  101. I will not forget your love for me and yes

  102. My heart forever is one dream

  103. Jesus be my God and hold me to your side

  104. And I will love you until the end

  105. My word is a lamb unto my feet

  106. And a liar unto my bow

  107. My word is a lamb unto my feet

  108. And a liar unto my bow

  109. And a liar unto my bow

  110. Alright, at this time we'll dismiss the children and their leaders to the classroom

  111. for the earth.

  112. Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary

  113. Here and holy, right and true

  114. With thanksgiving I'll be your living

  115. Sanctuary for you

  116. Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary

  117. Here and holy, right and true

  118. With thanksgiving I'll be your living

  119. Sanctuary for you

  120. Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary

  121. Here and holy, right and true

  122. With thanksgiving I'll be your living

  123. Sanctuary for you

  124. With thanksgiving I'll be your living

  125. Sanctuary for you

  126. Okay, just a reminder

  127. Reminder of your binder, okay?

  128. Adults, everyone can have a binder that wants to have a binder

  129. and then you get enough, either enough total worksheets

  130. or enough worksheets in a row, then that's when the rewards start happening.

  131. Okay, so we just started the binders last week, two weeks ago.

  132. So this could be your third one in a row.

  133. And I don't know if RJ, what steps and stones RJ is going to do for the youth on top of what I'm doing.

  134. But seven in a row is my first mark, okay?

  135. So then we'll see what happens with that.

  136. Seven in a row.

  137. That's yours, seven as well?

  138. Okay, well we can't be both on the same one, so we're going to have to adjust.

  139. Let's go, we'll do six and eight for the youth.

  140. Mine will be eight for the teenagers, yours can be six.

  141. You can have seven. You can do seven, I'll do eight.

  142. Okay, that'll work.

  143. You could give them all the rewards at once and then they'll be like,

  144. I won church, I'm going home now.

  145. That would be terrible.

  146. Okay.

  147. The date was seven days before now, the second.

  148. Today is the ninth, minus seven is two.

  149. Okay, yeah, so today is the ninth of April.

  150. Alright.

  151. The first one was the 26th of March.

  152. Yeah, that didn't hole punch it.

  153. There you go, you can make holes or you can get a hole punched in the cafeteria during fellowship time.

  154. Thank you, sir.

  155. Okay, so we are going to begin, as I mentioned tonight, a four part lesson on the kingdom of God.

  156. Now we're going to have a couple of interesting things to have almost,

  157. well other than just because it's fun, almost nothing to do with the kingdom of God going on at the same time.

  158. One of those things is throwing candy, that has nothing to do with the kingdom of God, but it's fun, so we do it anyway.

  159. Okay, it's not anti-kingdom of God.

  160. These are pure chocolate.

  161. Pure chocolate is always good.

  162. No, I just got them. They're not melted yet.

  163. And then I got this here, bad boy. Look at this.

  164. That's a $15 bag of candy right there.

  165. And it's open.

  166. Okay, alright, so to start with, we already kind of know that a kingdom is a place ruled over by a king.

  167. That's just simple.

  168. If you would say adukedom, that's a place ruled over by a duke.

  169. So most of those, there's only a few of those words that actually work that way, but king works that way.

  170. And so tonight's lesson, the first one, is going to be about the king.

  171. Now I'm going to ask you, and it's a trick question, a little bit.

  172. So take a stab at it. Who do you think the king is?

  173. God.

  174. That is the answer to the trick question that is actually incorrect.

  175. But that is what most people would say, right?

  176. But you know what? You stepped out, and so here comes chocolate.

  177. Oh, grab that. Nice shot.

  178. So Jesus is the king.

  179. So now, is God in charge? Yes, God's in charge.

  180. But God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit are essentially all the same being.

  181. So they are three in one.

  182. But the Bible teaches us from the beginning, and we're going to see it through the Scriptures

  183. as we follow the arrows down this very fun, windy page, how Jesus specifically is the king that the Bible taught.

  184. So you start up in the left-hand corner where it says, only start OT.

  185. Does anybody know what the abbreviation OT stands for?

  186. Overtime.

  187. No, not overtime.

  188. Old Testament.

  189. Right, Old Testament, right?

  190. The reason that you start with the Old Testament because in Jesus' day, what was the Bible?

  191. The Old Testament.

  192. The Old Testament, right? The New Testament didn't exist yet.

  193. So it was the Old Testament.

  194. So you start there, okay?

  195. Also, it would be, you could start somewhere completely else, like in the writings of Mohammed or something, right?

  196. You could start in the lab notes of Benjamin Franklin, right, if you wanted to.

  197. And you would not get to the correct result.

  198. You could start somewhere completely else.

  199. So when you start with the Old Testament, you will see first three blanks, priest, prophet, king.

  200. There are three offices, priest, prophet, and king.

  201. That's the first three blanks right there next where it says OT, okay?

  202. Priest, prophet, and king.

  203. And those three offices are always, always, always ordained, which means the person is chosen by God

  204. and the spot is filled by a person of God's choosing, okay?

  205. And that's true throughout the entire Old Testament of every priest, prophet, and king, okay?

  206. Unless, of course, they are a false priest or a false prophet or a false king, then that would be different, right?

  207. But a true prophet, a true priest, or a true king always put in those positions by God.

  208. As we move through the Old Testament, we will see, and this is what you're going to kind of be paying attention for,

  209. we will see that little three lines with an arrow underneath that the king would be a son of David, okay?

  210. That arrow says son of David.

  211. The king would be a son of David.

  212. Now, we could study priest and prophet, right?

  213. That's a whole other thing.

  214. But we're not talking about the priestdom, right?

  215. And we're not talking about the prophetdom.

  216. We're talking about the kingdom.

  217. So we want to know about the king, right?

  218. So the kingdom would be a son of David, okay?

  219. Now, before we go any further, I'm going to play a little game here.

  220. Brayden, tell me your birthday, month, day, and year.

  221. One, ten, ten.

  222. One, ten, ten.

  223. That's too easy.

  224. Yeah, you wrote ten, twenty-ten.

  225. You can eat one, hold another one.

  226. Thank you.

  227. Okay.

  228. Okay, so here we go.

  229. It's the son of David.

  230. Now we're going up to where it says Genesis.

  231. Why do we start with Genesis?

  232. Does anybody know what the word Genesis means?

  233. The beginnings, right?

  234. Or beginnings, plural.

  235. Up in the box, on the right-hand corner, up top.

  236. Genesis.

  237. Starts with a G.

  238. There's a G already there.

  239. Just put Enesis next to the G.

  240. Je-enesis.

  241. Okay, the beginnings.

  242. So we start at the beginning.

  243. All right, so some of this I will not dig deeply into,

  244. because if I do, this would be like a six-hour lesson,

  245. and this is only part one, okay?

  246. So stick with me.

  247. In the beginning, in the beginnings,

  248. we see the first story in the Bible, essentially, after creation,

  249. is Adam and Eve, and the two blanks there, Adam lost.

  250. Okay?

  251. So we're talking about, when we talk about the kingdom,

  252. we're talking about everything that Adam lost.

  253. Okay?

  254. Because he kind of had the kingdom, right?

  255. So in the kingdom, in the Garden of Eden,

  256. before there were children, there was God,

  257. and then there was Adam, and then there was Eve, right?

  258. So if there are exactly two people living in a kingdom,

  259. they are the king and the queen.

  260. That's it, because they're the only two people there, right?

  261. They're not subjects of a king yet to come,

  262. because there ain't nobody else,

  263. nobody else living on another part of the world.

  264. It's just them, king and queen.

  265. So they were king and queen, essentially, under God in the beginning.

  266. Okay?

  267. And then Adam lost that.

  268. So, at the two blanks up here, upper top, where Adam was?

  269. Adam lost, yep.

  270. So there's Genesis, then there's a curvy arrow down,

  271. Adam lost.

  272. All right, now we got a curvy arrow to the left.

  273. Okay?

  274. And we see that God promises to Abraham

  275. that he'll get back what Adam lost.

  276. Okay?

  277. And so the first one, and I'll read the scriptures,

  278. I'll let some other people read if we are on good pace,

  279. but otherwise we're just going to kind of fly,

  280. we're moving pretty fast until we make sure we can get through it, okay?

  281. So stick with me.

  282. All right, so it's Abraham and Sarah, okay?

  283. So it's the ampersand, that little signal in the middle,

  284. Abraham and Sarah.

  285. Okay, now we're back to Genesis 17.

  286. I said it wrong.

  287. Just ignore I ever said that.

  288. Yeah, Genesis 17, almost there, almost there.

  289. All right, and it's, the first verse is 17-6, and it says,

  290. And I will make you exceedingly fruitful,

  291. and I will make nations of you, and listen for it,

  292. and kings, plural, shall come forth from you.

  293. Okay, that's Genesis 17-6.

  294. And then a little later in 16 he says,

  295. And I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her,

  296. then I will bless her, and she shall be mother of nations,

  297. kings of people shall come from her.

  298. Okay?

  299. So it goes Abraham and Sarah, then 17, the first blank is 17,

  300. the next blank is 6, then the next blank is 16.

  301. So in other words, in chapter 17, both verse 6 and 16,

  302. Abraham and Sarah.

  303. Okay?

  304. And then down under that there's two blanks,

  305. there's a blank and then a colon and a blank,

  306. and that's 35 colon 11.

  307. So we're still in the book of Genesis, 35 colon 11,

  308. and this is what that says.

  309. Thus he called him Israel, that was the end of 10,

  310. God also said to him, I am God Almighty, be fruitful and multiply.

  311. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you,

  312. and kings shall come forth from you.

  313. And the land which I have gave to Abraham and Isaac,

  314. I will give to you, and I will give the land to your descendants after you.

  315. And so God promised to Abraham and Sarah that he would give them kings,

  316. meaning king after king after king after king,

  317. descendants to possess and to replace what Adam lost.

  318. Okay?

  319. So that's where we're at in Genesis.

  320. Then there's a circle there that means all of those,

  321. and the arrow goes down to the left,

  322. and you've got a long line and three short lines.

  323. Okay?

  324. And the long line is Deuteronomy, or as I like to say, the dude, D-U-E-T.

  325. What?

  326. What goes in the box with the S-I-P-N?

  327. King.

  328. Sorry, skip that.

  329. Good job, Jason.

  330. Kings, right?

  331. Notice that at Abraham and Sarah's day, he kept saying kings,

  332. meaning king after king after king.

  333. Are you following that logic?

  334. So they would have kings, kings who would have kings who would have kings.

  335. But we're going to get to the point where we get to just one king,

  336. but right now we've got kings.

  337. Okay?

  338. Then we've got the arrow going down to the left.

  339. You've got a long line, which is Deuteronomy, or just dude.

  340. And then it's 17, 14 to 20.

  341. Chapter 17, verses 14 to 20.

  342. Okay?

  343. When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you,

  344. and you possess it and live in it, and you say,

  345. I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,

  346. you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses.

  347. One from among your countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves.

  348. You may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your countrymen.

  349. Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself,

  350. nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses.

  351. Since the Lord has said to you, you shall never again return that way.

  352. Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away,

  353. nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself.

  354. Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom,

  355. he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll

  356. in the presence of the Levitical priests.

  357. And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life,

  358. that he may learn to fear the Lord his God,

  359. by carefully observing all the words of this law in these statutes,

  360. that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen,

  361. and that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right or the left,

  362. in order that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.

  363. So God now, we've moved into Deuteronomy,

  364. God points to a king that they will choose, who will be from the Israelite people,

  365. it's their people, but it's not really their choosing, it's God's choosing.

  366. So God says, I will ordain a man, and you will find him, and you will put him in office.

  367. And what kind of man will he be? He will be a man that listens to me.

  368. He will be a man that does not abuse his people,

  369. that does not teach his people to go back and do wrong things, and so on.

  370. So he will be a man of caliber who will be chosen as king.

  371. And if you go over to the left, there's a box, and you can put king in the box.

  372. So we've transitioned now to looking in Deuteronomy at the caliber of the king.

  373. Now there may be still doubt, because what happens when we get a king?

  374. Does anybody remember the Bible stories of the kings?

  375. No. A lot of them weren't good. That's a good way of summing it up.

  376. They weren't good. A lot of them weren't good, like Manasseh,

  377. who burnt all the priests on stakes all along the road to light the town.

  378. Not a good guy. There were lots of people who were really bad guys,

  379. and some of those were descendants of the actual right king.

  380. So it was bad. It went bad, and then it went better for a little while,

  381. and then it went bad, bad, bad, and then it went better for a while, bad, bad, bad.

  382. So we already kind of know we have a problem with the king.

  383. But in Deuteronomy, that problem has not really shown itself yet.

  384. Bad people have not really shown up to be king yet.

  385. In fact, no one has been king yet. It's talking about when you have a king.

  386. Okay, so we're going to stop for a moment.

  387. Natalie, what's Brayden's birthday?

  388. I don't know.

  389. Okay. Hailey, what's Brayden's birthday?

  390. One times X.

  391. Okay, you can give Hailey the other piece of chocolate.

  392. The one I've been only going to?

  393. All right.

  394. See how easy that was now?

  395. Okay, now we know how to play the game.

  396. And Hailey, what's your birthday?

  397. Nine, twenty-two, eleven.

  398. Okay, here's one to eat.

  399. One to the wall.

  400. You didn't even catch me there one.

  401. That's almost a fail.

  402. Thank you, sir.

  403. Okay, I've literally been holding it like that for a whole week.

  404. Okay, he was trying really hard not to melt the chocolate. Good boy.

  405. Okay, so we're at the box that says king.

  406. Okay, now down to the left, follow the arrow.

  407. And we're going to, we're working our way through the Old Testament.

  408. And those two lines say, is needed.

  409. Okay, and the book of Judges demonstrates that a king is needed.

  410. That's a big part of what that book is about.

  411. Okay, and there's a whole bunch of verses and stuff that we could read,

  412. but I'm going to read a couple.

  413. Okay, so we're in the book of Judges now.

  414. This is all kind of before they have a king, right?

  415. So 17.6 says, I'll find my spot.

  416. Next page.

  417. 17.6 says, in those days there was no king in Israel.

  418. Every man did what was right in his own eyes.

  419. So it's really just a two-part statement.

  420. The first part is there was no king.

  421. The second part is every man did what was right in his own eyes.

  422. And that is not actually a good thing, right?

  423. Because if you think about it, people vary a lot on what they think is right.

  424. And if you need it and you want it and you take it, that's still called fevary, right?

  425. So people were, bless you, people were doing what they thought was right in their own eyes.

  426. And so the writer of Judges is explaining to us that they needed a king and they didn't have one.

  427. 18.1, in those days there was no king of Israel.

  428. And in those days the tribe of the Danites was seeking an inheritance for themselves to live in.

  429. For until that day an inheritance had not been allotted to them as a possession among the tribes of Israel.

  430. So we had a whole tribe of Israel that was still not getting the land that they were promised that was supposed to be theirs.

  431. And the author of Judges says it's because there was no king.

  432. There was no just ruler on the throne.

  433. Okay, so we've got 17.6, 18.1.

  434. We've got some hints there. The 6 is already there.

  435. So 17.6, 18.1, now 19.1.

  436. Now it came about in those days when there was no king in Israel that there was a certain Levite

  437. staying in the remote part of hill country of Ephraim who took a concubine for himself from Bethlehem in Judah.

  438. Does anybody know this story?

  439. It goes super bad.

  440. She gets badly abused and is left after they have sex with her all night long against her will, she's left for dead.

  441. They come out in the morning and find her dead.

  442. So what does he do?

  443. He cuts her into pieces and mails her to all the tribes of Israel to show how upset he is about how this never should have happened.

  444. Now the result of that is one of the tribes of Israel is almost completely wiped out.

  445. It's pretty ugly. It gets really ugly.

  446. But the writer of Judges is showing us that that all happened because there was no king in Israel.

  447. That's what that statement was.

  448. The story began with there was no king and there was a certain Levite.

  449. So in the day that there was no king, so already you can see that the theme of this is if we don't have a king, we will screw it up.

  450. That's what Judges is all about.

  451. If there's no king, we will screw up.

  452. One more, 21-25.

  453. So you should have all those blanks filled in now.

  454. 21-25.

  455. 21-25 says, in those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

  456. So all the evil that's just been recounted in that book, all the bad things that just happened, and it's ugly.

  457. They keep spiraling down into sin. They get a man for a while that will leave them and then they spiral down as soon as he's gone, or a woman.

  458. And as soon as she's gone, they spiral down into sin again, all because there was no king.

  459. So now we're following the arrow over to the right.

  460. So we've now followed the entire Bible, one second, followed the entire Bible from Genesis through Judges, and we have a few lessons that we've assumed.

  461. Question.

  462. Back up in the beginning, what is that line after Son of David?

  463. Son of David, yep.

  464. Okay.

  465. All right, let's see here.

  466. Kishon, what's Haley's birthday?

  467. 9-22-11.

  468. Okay, you can give her the other M&Ms, Haley.

  469. Now listen, Tony Tate's entire Wacked Out Simple Stuff was about writing something down.

  470. He didn't cheat. He did it exactly right.

  471. If you had walked five steps closer, you probably could have reached him in the throw.

  472. Okay, all right, here we go.

  473. So now we're going to the right.

  474. No, we'll probably do it again before we're done.

  475. Just be listening and you'll get whatever I test you on next.

  476. Okay, before we go to the right, let me just kind of recap.

  477. So we have three offices ordained by God, priest, prophet, king.

  478. We are following the logic that one of those would be a Son of David, the king would be a Son of David.

  479. The beginning of the story, Adam loses the kingship.

  480. Then you've got Abraham and Sarah.

  481. They're promised that they will have descendants who will be king after king after king.

  482. That's what they were promised.

  483. Not just of one nation, but of many nations.

  484. Then it goes out of Deuteronomy and we see the qualifications or the caliber of the kind of king that people will need when they have a king.

  485. And that points us to a certain king of each generation, at least for them.

  486. Then we go into Judges and we see they don't have a king and things are ugly, very, very bad.

  487. And they keep getting worse.

  488. Even when they get better for a little while, they wind up worse than they were before.

  489. Now we're following to the right.

  490. So from Ruth and Micah, so it's Ruth slash Micah on those two lines.

  491. It's next to the house that has a giant bread leading on it.

  492. Does anybody know why there's a house with a giant bread leading on it?

  493. It's the gingerbread man.

  494. It is not the gingerbread man, but that's a great guess.

  495. Because she pulled from the field and she made bread out of it.

  496. Because they needed that food.

  497. That's a great guess too, but also incorrect.

  498. Okay, so Ruth, there's a guy in Ruth who's important and who is he?

  499. Micah.

  500. Nope, not Micah. Micah's a prophet.

  501. Say it again.

  502. Boaz.

  503. Boaz, okay.

  504. So the left half of the, when the arrow goes down, you get Boaz on the left.

  505. Boaz.

  506. Okay.

  507. Boaz, just like it sounds.

  508. B-O-A-Z.

  509. Okay.

  510. Alrighty.

  511. So Ruth points to Boaz as an ancestor and you could say a person of caliber in the ancestry of the coming king.

  512. We're going to look at 418 through 22 real quick.

  513. So 418.

  514. Now these are the generations of Perez.

  515. To Perez was born Hezron, and to Hezron was born Ram, and to Ram, Aminadab.

  516. And to Aminadab was born Nashon, and to Nashon, Salmon, and Salmon was born Boaz.

  517. Listen closely.

  518. And to Boaz, Obed.

  519. And to Obed, Jesse.

  520. And to Jesse, David.

  521. Okay, we're getting close.

  522. You're close, you're really close.

  523. Okay, I'll read you the Micah verse and you'll nail it.

  524. As soon as I read you the Micah verse, you'll have it.

  525. Actually, you probably already know it.

  526. If I say, out of you, least of these.

  527. I haven't given it to you yet.

  528. The top two are Ruth Micah, the left one is Boaz.

  529. I haven't given you the Micah one yet.

  530. Okay.

  531. Can't find Micah in my Bible.

  532. Micah's not easy to find because he's little.

  533. I'm going to get there eventually.

  534. Okay, there we go.

  535. Alright, here we go.

  536. Listen for it.

  537. But as for you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you one will go forth for me.

  538. To be ruler in Israel, his going forths are from long ago and from the days of eternity.

  539. Now do we know why there's a house with bread on it?

  540. No, because that's what Bethlehem means.

  541. Tony's nodding his head back.

  542. He can do that.

  543. Because Bethlehem means house of bread.

  544. Okay, so Bethlehem goes on the right hand side.

  545. While you're struggling with how to spell Bethlehem and filling it out and whatever, you can abbreviate if you want, that kind of thing.

  546. Listen to what the verse actually said.

  547. Bethlehem, which is not a very big town, too little to be among the clans of Judah.

  548. They didn't have the big prominence of Judah.

  549. They weren't recognized in court, let's say.

  550. From you one, that's a capital O.

  551. Anytime he's a pronoun to represent God or Jesus, you're going to see it's capitalized most of the time.

  552. It's a capital O.

  553. One will go forth for me, that capital M is God the Father, to be ruler in Israel.

  554. His going forths are from long ago.

  555. So now we have, what's a ruler?

  556. A king.

  557. So we have a prophecy about a king who would be born in Bethlehem, who would be the one king.

  558. And it says his going forths are from long ago.

  559. So what does that mean?

  560. Kind of, kind of, you're not too far off.

  561. It means that he exists before he exists.

  562. He's prophesied long before he's ever born and in Jesus' case he was present at creation.

  563. So he's always been coming, is what it's saying, he's always been coming.

  564. It says even from the days of eternity.

  565. That's powerful, right there.

  566. So now we have a king coming out of Bethlehem, a descendant.

  567. Now I don't want to get too far out of myself, so just follow the arrow to the right.

  568. So there's a funky looking arrow goes down to the right.

  569. And it says one and then in the box goes Samuel or you can just put Sam.

  570. 16, it's already there, 12 to 13.

  571. So that's a reference.

  572. Okay, so first Samuel, 16, 12 and 13.

  573. So when you're memorizing or looking at the Bible, just understand that Samuel ordained the first kings.

  574. So Samuel always goes right before the kings and the chronicles.

  575. So first Samuel, we're doing good.

  576. First Samuel 16, 12 and 13.

  577. Here we go.

  578. 16, 12.

  579. So he sent and brought him in.

  580. Now he was ruddy with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance and the Lord said, arise, anoint him for this is he.

  581. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.

  582. And Samuel arose and went to Ramah.

  583. And so what we have is a king who is a son of Jesse.

  584. Remember how it went?

  585. Obed, Jesse, David.

  586. Right.

  587. So now we have a king who was the son of Jesse and in the blanks underneath that our son of Jesse, Colin, David.

  588. Colin's already there and the of is already there.

  589. So first Samuel 16, 12, 13 is the anointing of David is the choosing of David to be the son, to be the king over Israel.

  590. And I submit to you, I don't want to be too rough with Saul, but the first good one.

  591. The first one will stay the course.

  592. Even though he screws up, he has a contrite heart, comes back to the Lord to be called a man after God's own heart.

  593. He's the first good king of Israel.

  594. So you almost could say if you wanted to that Deuteronomy 17, when you get a king, get a king like this, was talking about David.

  595. And they didn't.

  596. They got Saul.

  597. Right.

  598. And then Saul is eventually replaced by David.

  599. In fact, there is a verse we could have read, which we didn't, that says that the kingdom was ripped from Saul.

  600. Just a curiosity, don't know why the kingdom was ripped from Saul.

  601. It actually is kind of important.

  602. Brother Tony, Deacon Tony.

  603. Yeah.

  604. So who makes the sacrifices?

  605. The priest.

  606. Right.

  607. Remember we had priest, prophet, king, three offices.

  608. Samuel's the priest.

  609. Saul is not the priest.

  610. He's the king.

  611. Okay.

  612. And so right there is a very clear line.

  613. And Saul crossed it.

  614. And God said, for that we will rip the kingdom from you and give it instead to David.

  615. That's literally what he said.

  616. Well, we've got multiple prophets.

  617. Right.

  618. But the prophet is Jesus.

  619. Right.

  620. But we're not talking about that so much as much because why?

  621. Because we're looking at kingdom.

  622. Right.

  623. So our target is kingdom so we're looking at the king.

  624. But you're right to have that question and the answer to that question is still Jesus.

  625. Okay.

  626. All right.

  627. So we're going to the left.

  628. And we're going to the right in the Bible as we go to the left on the page.

  629. Second Samuel 7.

  630. You probably already know what's about to happen I would imagine.

  631. Okay.

  632. So Second Samuel 7.

  633. And I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you and I will make you a great name.

  634. Listen to this.

  635. This is God talking to David.

  636. Are you listening?

  637. And I will make you a great name like the names of the great men who are on the earth.

  638. I will also appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them that they may live in their own place and must and not be disturbed again.

  639. Nor will the wicked afflict them any more as formerly.

  640. Even from the day that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel and I will give you rest from all your enemies.

  641. The Lord also declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you when your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers.

  642. I will raise up your descendant after you who will come forth from you and I will establish his kingdom.

  643. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

  644. You hear it?

  645. God promised to David that there would be a descendant of David who would come on the throne and stay there forever.

  646. Not kings, king.

  647. You see it?

  648. So now we got from Adam gave it away to a king will come who is in the line of David from Jesse, from Boaz, right?

  649. Who is needed as we saw when they had judges appointed by God and the people, right?

  650. So all of that happened but he says and then verse 14 says I will be a father to him and he will be a son from me.

  651. Pretty cool, huh?

  652. And now we've taken it from Genesis through 2 Samuel and we have God's promise that he will send a king that will reign on the throne forever

  653. and he will be the descendant of David, okay?

  654. So let's start.

  655. What, sir?

  656. That was, hold on, I lost my spot.

  657. Yes, it's, I have second, 7, 9 through 14 on my paper.

  658. And I read through 14, yeah.

  659. Okay, all right, here we go.

  660. I'm not going to ask you what's in a blank.

  661. I'm going to ask you for the information so you might have to process a little bit.

  662. All right, so what word on this page means beginnings?

  663. Verse 14 to answer, Jason?

  664. Genesis.

  665. That is correct.

  666. Sega.

  667. Sorry.

  668. I'll throw a little harder next time.

  669. Okay, not Sega, all right?

  670. So who lost the kingship?

  671. The man, I'm looking for the man.

  672. What man lost the kingship?

  673. Somebody other than Jason, I'm going to give it to him.

  674. Haley?

  675. No, oh yes, I'll give you that one actually, that is true.

  676. That was the one I was looking for.

  677. Who else lost the kingship?

  678. Michael.

  679. Sooner than Saul.

  680. Michael.

  681. Nope, not Michael.

  682. The first one.

  683. All right, Jason.

  684. Adam.

  685. Sorry, man, I'm going to pelt you yet.

  686. Okay.

  687. All right, let's see, anyone under 18 in the room?

  688. And if you get it, you get to pick two adults to give candy to.

  689. What does Bethlehem mean?

  690. Hannah.

  691. House of bread.

  692. House of bread is correct.

  693. So you may have two adults in the house.

  694. No, you can't give any little teenager friends.

  695. Find some adults.

  696. Give them to two adults, the extra two.

  697. You can get up, it's okay, this is not like worship, in worship we stay seated.

  698. Hey, that person got out of their seat, what's going on?

  699. I can't concentrate on the Bible study now.

  700. I'm so concerned.

  701. All right, we're going to, here we go, here we go.

  702. Dial it in, we're going to, now we're following the arrow to where it says Psalms.

  703. Right?

  704. The book of Psalms.

  705. Yes, ma'am.

  706. James 7.

  707. Nine to fourteen.

  708. And notice it does say promise there, because that's what that was.

  709. That was God's promise to David that he would give him a king on the throne forever.

  710. Okay?

  711. Okay.

  712. So, this is probably something you've never seen before.

  713. All right?

  714. This is a really cool way of looking at the book of Psalms.

  715. The first 72 Psalms really talk about the history of David.

  716. Now, many of them are written by David, the things that he went through.

  717. 51 is when he was mourning over the loss of his child because of what he did, you know,

  718. the curse, that kind of thing.

  719. But the first 72 are largely the history of David to a point.

  720. So that's one to 72, that's what goes into the blank, one dash 72.

  721. History of David, one dash 72.

  722. The next 73 through 89, 73 through 89, are the downfall of the throne.

  723. They teach throughout them the various aspects of how errors occurred, right?

  724. Not everything went as desired.

  725. Then, 90 through 106 basically teaches Yahweh's reign or Yahweh as sovereign, 90 through 106.

  726. Yep.

  727. So it's one to 72, then 73 to 89, then 90 to 106, and then 107 to 150.

  728. And 107 to 150 largely teaches, and it's misspelled, largely teaches the greater David,

  729. the greater Davidic throne, what's coming, okay?

  730. So the downfall of the throne is 90 to 106.

  731. The downfall of the throne is 73 to 89.

  732. Then next to Yahweh's, Yahweh apostrophe S, it says 90 to 106.

  733. It says greater, but he didn't say it better to be in the Taurus post, or in the House of Wicked,

  734. so he's greater.

  735. Right, he's a greeter, yeah, he's a greeter.

  736. Greeter, there'd be another E, so it's misspelled, it's like greater.

  737. That's no word whatsoever.

  738. Proof positive, the pastor's not perfect, in case you thought otherwise.

  739. Okay, 107 to 150 is the last, and how many Psalms are there?

  740. 150.

  741. There's 150, okay?

  742. So that's all the Psalms, and you can break them down that way.

  743. Now, if you go read, you're not going to get everything that's in the first 72 Psalms,

  744. it's about the history of David, but it's going to clearly lay it out for you.

  745. And the same thing at the end, the greater Davidic throne to come is not the only thing

  746. that it talks about in there, but it's going to clearly lay it out for you in those 44 Psalms.

  747. Okay, then you follow that funny looking arrow down, and I already gave you most of this.

  748. So what we have is a promised king, the greater Davidic throne is a promised king like no other king.

  749. Remember back in the day when the Israelites wanted a king coming out of the judges,

  750. and they said, we've got to have a king like the other nations have a king.

  751. They wanted a king like the other kings.

  752. What God says, you can't have a king like the other king, because you're not a people like any other people.

  753. So instead, what we get as we come out of the book of Psalms,

  754. we're at the point where God has said, he has promised us a king like no other king.

  755. And that's an R.

  756. There, so it says DBR, got cut off on the photocopy.

  757. Bringing the kingdom by DBR.

  758. Anybody under 18 that can tell me what DBR stands for?

  759. I'll give you candy for you and a friend.

  760. I can't hear it. DBR.

  761. What it wants? Don't bring ruin.

  762. Incorrect sir.

  763. What do you think Haley, what does DBR stand for?

  764. Two weeks ago I gave you the gospel in three points, I mean four points and this is three of them.

  765. Luterotomy.

  766. Incorrect sir.

  767. How about if I give you this?

  768. The Easter celebration is because Jesus was DBR.

  769. Death, burial, and resurrection.

  770. Oh great.

  771. Alright, so it's prophecy, it's laid out in Psalms and prophecy that this king would bring the kingdom back

  772. by his death, burial, and resurrection.

  773. What did God say would happen to Adam and Eve as soon as they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

  774. Die.

  775. So from the moment that they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the kingdom was wrested away from them, they were subject to death.

  776. No king could come and replace the king forever on the throne unless he can live forever.

  777. You can't be on the throne forever unless you can live forever.

  778. You can be on the throne and have descendants who are on the throne and that's what Abraham and Sarah were looking for.

  779. But you can't live on the throne forever unless you live forever.

  780. So death has to be defeated, death's triumph has to be undone.

  781. And that's what the prophecies tell us Jesus would do.

  782. Jesus would bring the kingdom back and it didn't say the name Jesus, you won't find Jesus' name in there.

  783. But the king who was a descendant of David, who would be on the throne forever, who would be born in Bethlehem,

  784. who was a descendant of Boaz, who was absolutely necessary, who was promised to Abraham and Sarah back in the day,

  785. who would be the king and was needed since the beginning of Genesis when it was taken away from Adam,

  786. that king would be on the throne forever and to do that he would have to die.

  787. And when people die they get buried and in his case they get resurrected, but in nobody else's case.

  788. That's the exception to the rule.

  789. So then the kingship, and this is really a cool point that we don't want to do away with before we get into the kingdom of God more next week,

  790. there's a blank right above the Y there and that blank is never.

  791. So kingship never isolated. Kingship is never isolated from, anyone want to take a stab at it? From what?

  792. Remember we have three offices, we have the king, the prophet and the priest.

  793. And the kingship in Jesus is never isolated from one of those other offices. What is it?

  794. The prophet.

  795. No, he is a prophet but it is sometimes isolated from that. It's the priesthood.

  796. Jesus is our high priest just the same as he is our king.

  797. In fact Jesus sacrificed himself, remember priests do the sacrificing.

  798. So what did Jesus sacrifice? He sacrificed the perfect lamb, which was him.

  799. So he committed that sacrifice to pay for sins.

  800. Same as a lamb might have been sacrificed previously to pay for sins, but he is the only perfect lamb because he is the only person who never had sin.

  801. That blank is priesthood.

  802. So the kingship that you'll find in the scriptures is that the kingship is never isolated from the priesthood.

  803. And we're going to look at that for a second before we're done.

  804. Now, you've got to follow that it's tricky.

  805. Go across the top of the Y and you'll see the arrow starts right under king and it goes up and it goes through the hole in the top of the T.

  806. You see it? There's a cave there. It goes through the hole and it comes out the other side of the T.

  807. That was my kind of artistic fun. I just want to be fun. I like to have fun sometimes.

  808. T for total.

  809. Yeah. Well this T is for thy.

  810. Okay. So we're going to watch how the New Testament makes it clear that the king and the priesthood are essentially the same.

  811. All right. So John 6, that's John, the J is John.

  812. You might even guess that since we've seen like we're in the New Testament now or could have been Jesus.

  813. So it's John and John 6, 14 and 15.

  814. So it's John 6, 14 and 15.

  815. Okay.

  816. When therefore the people saw the sign which he had performed, they said, This is of a truth, the prophet who is to come into the world.

  817. Jesus therefore, perceiving that they were intending to come and take him by force to make him king, withdrew again to the mountain by himself alone.

  818. So here in the New American Standard Version, you have prophet and king together.

  819. They saw him as the prophet who was to come.

  820. I'm going to see if I can get another version real quick.

  821. They saw him as the prophet who was to come and they started trying to make him a king.

  822. They didn't see the difference.

  823. You follow?

  824. Matthew 22, we're going to go, if we have time, I'll go back and dig into that a little bit.

  825. Matthew 22, 41 to 46.

  826. Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question saying, What do you think about the Christ whose son is he?

  827. They said to him, the son of David.

  828. He said to them, Then how does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said to my right hand, sit at my right hand until I put thine enemies beneath thy feet?

  829. And David then calls him Lord, how is he son?

  830. And no one was able to answer him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask him another question.

  831. So this reference tells us he's making a reference actually to Psalm 110.

  832. And by the way, what part of the Psalms was Psalm 110 in?

  833. We broke it down into four pieces.

  834. So if you know this, if you get these four pieces memorized, say it again, greater David, right?

  835. So this is the greater kingdom of David's Psalm section.

  836. So anytime someone gives you a Psalm and they say, well, it's Psalm 121, you can remember that it has probably something to do with the greater kingdom of David, which would be pointing toward Jesus.

  837. So let me go there to Psalm 110.

  838. See, he's citing Psalm 110.

  839. Listen to see the similarities.

  840. The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies a footstool for thy feet.

  841. The Lord will stretch forth thy strong scepter from Zion, saying, rule in the midst of thine enemies.

  842. Thy people will volunteer freely in the day of thy power, and wholly array from the womb of the dawn.

  843. Thy youth are to thee as the dew.

  844. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.

  845. Thou art a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

  846. The Lord is at thy right hand.

  847. He will shatter kings in the day of his wrath.

  848. He will judge among the nations.

  849. He will fill them with corpses.

  850. He will shatter the chief men over a broad country.

  851. He will drink from the brook by the wayside.

  852. Therefore, he will lift up his head.

  853. So this Psalm is about how the king to come would be the priest in the order of Melchizedek.

  854. And when they saw Jesus in Jesus' lifetime, and the verse was Matthew 22,

  855. back there again, Matthew 22, 41.

  856. The Pharisees were gathered together.

  857. They asked him, what do you think about the Christ, whose son is he?

  858. Jesus quotes back to him the first lines of that Psalm in verse 44.

  859. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put thine enemies beneath thy feet.

  860. If David then calls him Lord, how is he son?

  861. But what he was quoting was the first verse of Psalm 110, in which are these words.

  862. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.

  863. Thou art a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

  864. See what Jesus is saying?

  865. He's saying, you're not getting it.

  866. You're not understanding.

  867. You're challenging me with these other things.

  868. And what I'm saying to you is, I could teach you from the very beginning how God has been saying all along

  869. that I would come, that I will be Lord, that I will be king, and that I will be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

  870. It's all been laid out, even like Micah, where it says that he came from before.

  871. He came from eternity back.

  872. The throne is promised.

  873. That's in Psalm 110.

  874. Also, he would be worthy to retrieve what Adam lost.

  875. So Adam lost it.

  876. Now we need somebody who's worthy to retrieve it.

  877. So if Adam lost the kingship by sinning against God, what kind of king do we need if that king is going to retrieve it?

  878. We need a king that doesn't sin.

  879. And that's who Jesus is.

  880. We only got two very small pieces left, and we're there.

  881. So the first one is in between the T and the H standing up, and you don't have to fill in that blank.

  882. It's already there for you.

  883. It's Matthew 28, 18.

  884. This is the end, if you will, of Jesus' public ministry on earth.

  885. And it says this, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth, Jesus speaking.

  886. If you have all authority, you are the?

  887. The king.

  888. You're the chief ruler, baby.

  889. 28, 18.

  890. You are the king.

  891. All right?

  892. And then you follow the arrow over, and it says he is king.

  893. Now I gave it to you fast, and I packed it all in, but take it like this.

  894. Three offices in the Old Testament laid out, priest, prophet, king.

  895. Since Genesis, when Adam lost the kingship, there have been pointings forward,

  896. starting with Abraham and Sarah and then Deuteronomy and then all the way down to

  897. the judges where it was demonstrated that it was needed.

  898. Ruth and Micah.

  899. Ruth would be in the descendants that would bring it to David, who would then bring it to Jesus.

  900. Jesus would be a descendant of David.

  901. Bethlehem would be his birthplace.

  902. That's a long time before Jesus was ever born.

  903. So God has really been making this obvious from the beginnings what kind of king the kingdom would have.

  904. And you could almost, if you were like God, which we're not, I understand that,

  905. but if we were like God and could see the big picture, then we could see this from the beginning and go,

  906. yeah, it dots and it connects and it goes like this and like, oh, and I can make all of this picture Jesus' face perfectly.

  907. And if you could make it look like what you want it to look like and be what you want it to be,

  908. and all the prophecies fit perfectly, and that's exactly what God has done.

  909. It is a masterpiece of the Lord.

  910. And the reason we started with the kingdom tonight is no king, no kingdom.

  911. That's the bottom line.

  912. If you don't believe in the king, you are not part of the kingdom.

  913. That's it.

  914. And so we need to understand what the Bible teaches about the king that God would send and that it's there.

  915. And this is only one page.

  916. There are tons of prophecies, hundreds, literally hundreds of prophecies that lay out very specifically

  917. where he would live, how he would live, what would happen to him, how he would die,

  918. what wouldn't happen to him when he died, etc., etc., how he would teach.

  919. All of it is all laid out, but you can trace the line now.

  920. Somebody gets talking, he's like, how do you know Jesus is the one?

  921. So you could know it because you know him, and you can testify to that.

  922. Or you can claim it, you can say, I know it because look at what Jesus did.

  923. Nobody else did that.

  924. Nobody else came back from the dead.

  925. That's perfect testimony, right?

  926. Nobody else did all of these miracles.

  927. And they'll say, well, he never claimed to be God, and that's just not true.

  928. He very clearly claimed to be God in the flesh, right?

  929. It's very clear in his teaching multiple times he claimed to be God.

  930. All the I am statements, right?

  931. Basically, he was claiming to be God because that's the Old Testament name for God, I am, right?

  932. And so bottom line is it's all laid out there.

  933. And if somebody says that Jesus doesn't connect to it, they're just being foolish.

  934. They're just being foolish.

  935. It's very clear that God was pointing to a certain king, and it's very clear without even getting

  936. into where we're going next week, which is the first part of the kingdom come, right?

  937. As God demonstrates in the New Testament and in Jesus' life how the kingdom had come upon people

  938. at that time, even without getting into that, it's painfully obvious that Jesus was the one.

  939. It's very clearly laid out.

  940. And that's, you just did it in 45 minutes.

  941. And these guys memorize whole books of the Bible.

  942. I submit to you to some degree there is no doubt in my mind that living in Jesus' day were men

  943. that knew everything that we just studied and five times as much to know that Jesus was the man,

  944. that He was the one.

  945. And yet they denied Him.

  946. How does that make any sense?

  947. How does it make any sense that you'll crucify Him, crucify Him at a man who was said to be the king

  948. of your people for eternity?

  949. Well, remember, before your two judgmental, remember that it says He would be bringing the kingdom

  950. by His death, burial, and resurrection.

  951. To this day, we don't know for sure when the high priest said,

  952. do you not understand that it is beneficial for one man to die for the kingdom?

  953. We don't know exactly how much He knew.

  954. And He said, let Him die.

  955. Right?

  956. Did He mean, want to get rid of Him so we don't have any riots, get rid of Him so we don't have to deal

  957. with the Romans, get rid of Him so we won't get in trouble, get rid of Him so we can get our power back?

  958. Or did He mean, He dies and if He manages to rise, then we'll know.

  959. And we don't know.

  960. But what we do know is this teaches it very clearly.

  961. And now you've seen it.

  962. Next week, Kingdom Come.

  963. So we're going to pray together at this time.

  964. Does anybody have any questions?

  965. Speaking of Brother Chris, he went and tried for a piece of candy.

  966. Oh, I hooked him up.

  967. Chris, do you know Brayden's birthday?

  968. It's a tough one, isn't it?

  969. It was the easy one to remember.

  970. Okay.

  971. How about the two-word messages, the two-word message of judges?

  972. She hooked you up anyway.

  973. Happy birthday, Brayden.

  974. You got it?

  975. A little help from your friends.

  976. Hey, you got it.

  977. Come on out, Brayden.

  978. And both to your general vicinity.

  979. All right.

  980. Let's pray together.

  981. And then there's candy and sweets in the cafeteria, so don't go home sick.

  982. Right?

  983. Okay.

  984. And a couple other things.

  985. I hope it's been a blessing to you.

  986. It took me some work to do that, but not a ton, but it took me a couple hours to piece

  987. that together, and I can do it with the prophecy and stuff like that, but there's only so much

  988. room on a page, and we don't want to go all night anyway.

  989. So I think you get the gist of it.

  990. The most important part is there is a king, and he has a kingdom.

  991. And we're going to talk about that kingdom next.

  992. Right?

  993. I was just going to say, kingdom, and it doesn't, because I know that it means domination,

  994. but by a king, we're done.

  995. Without a king, we're done.

  996. Okay.

  997. There you go.

  998. I like it.

  999. All right.

  1000. Let's pray.

  1001. Father, now, thank you so much for this display of your awesome power.

  1002. The truth is it can't be contained on a page.

  1003. It can't be written in ink.

  1004. Even from Genesis 1-1 through Revelation, the end is still not displayed in its full

  1005. magnitude, its full glory.

  1006. You are unbelievably awesome.

  1007. We would be blown away, flabbergasted.

  1008. Just our minds would be so stretched that you wouldn't even be able to comprehend.

  1009. If we could just see your greatness.

  1010. Think about how you have rolled together and connected people.

  1011. You put us all in this room, and there's a reason for that.

  1012. Because here in this room, it's somebody who's going to grow up and preach the Word, or

  1013. somebody who's going to go out and win a soul later today or tomorrow or next week.

  1014. And the kingdom is going to advance, and the king is going to reign, and all authority

  1015. and power has been put in his hands, and he has yet made the intercession for us, and

  1016. we are grateful.

  1017. I don't know.

  1018. I don't think we're like Abraham or Sarah or even David, but we're humans.

  1019. According to what I see in my Bible, that means that you made it for us to reign in

  1020. this world under you.

  1021. That we have prophets here.

  1022. That we are supposed to take care of what comes in our reach.

  1023. That we are supposed to be kind and loving and gentle and compassionate, and yet strong

  1024. and even dangerous.

  1025. Just right.

  1026. But we're not vengeful.

  1027. As we love, we don't keep a record of wrongs.

  1028. But as we love, we don't back down.

  1029. We don't back down.

  1030. Father, make us your bold messengers.

  1031. And we realize that a long time before we were ever born, we have to orchestrate something

  1032. incredible, and then we now get to pick a sample of it.

  1033. We get an inkling of it.

  1034. And there is no varying with you.

  1035. There is no shadow.

  1036. You're very clear and open.

  1037. This seems so painfully obvious to me, and I think it does to some others in this room,

  1038. that you have been at work for a long time.

  1039. And then a couple of decades and a half back when I heard about Jesus, you were at work

  1040. that day, and you've been at work every day since.

  1041. And in the lives of every person in this room, overcoming difficulty, overcoming trials,

  1042. pushing through tight places, making a difference.

  1043. That's your kingdom.

  1044. That's our kingdom.

  1045. And we praise you for it.

  1046. Jesus, watch over us.