The Righteous King #2

For goodness sakes, an athlete makes a good play and thinks he's the king pounding his chest and displaying his glory.

These pipsqueaks, celebrating what they perceive to be their own glory? No, I'll tell you what glory is. Glory is when Christ reigns and all of the nations are bowing before him.

We've never seen anything like that. Thanks for joining us on the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hi, I'm Bill Wright, and we're concluding a message titled The Righteous King. Last time, Don gave us the first two of five characteristics of Christ's coming kingdom on earth. It will be one of righteousness, and it will endure, unlike the reign of mortal men.

On today's broadcast, Don will round out this picture of the world to come. So open, if you will, your Bible again to Psalm 72, as we join Don Green now, teaching God's people God's word from the Truth Pulpit. Go to Revelation chapter 11.

Oh, I can't wait for the fulfillment of these things, because it's going to be so very much better than anything we've ever known. Revelation 11, verse 15, the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever. Chapter 21 of Revelation, if you would turn there.

Chapter 21, beginning in verse 22. As the apostle John describes the vision that he saw, still future to us, God accomplished in AD 70, contrary to Preterist's thinking. I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple, and the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.

You see the worldwide dominion? In the daytime, for there will be no night there, its gates will never be closed, and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it, and nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. The nations, the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, all bowing to the greater glory of God's righteous King. The righteous King who has this extensive reign, who has this worldwide dominion, that's God's King. We haven't seen it yet, but beloved, one day we will, and that will be magnificent, that will be glorious, that will be the fulfillment of this God-inspired song.

Now, these lofty themes would almost overwhelm us, wouldn't they? The surpassing righteousness of this King, his extensive reign, his long reign, his glorious reign, all submitted to him, but there's more to this King, there's more to his reign. And thirdly, what we see as we read Psalm 72 is that this will be a reign of compassion, a reign of compassion. And the Psalmist now moves from the King's glory into his very character, who he is as a ruler. And in verse 12 he says this, "'For he will deliver the needy when he cries for help, the afflicted also, and him who has no helper. He will have compassion on the poor and needy, and the lives of the needy, he will save, he will rescue their life from oppression and violence, and their blood will be precious in his sight.'" In other words, their lives will be precious in his sight. And though this King, though God's King reigns in righteousness and in glory and for extended generations over all of the earth, you know, the only thing that we know by human experience is that when a sinful man ascends to something of heights, we're so accustomed to the display of arrogance, the display of pride.

Look at what my hands have done. I mean, for goodness sakes, an athlete makes a good play and thinks he's the King pounding his chest and displaying his glory because he put a ball through a hoop or a football through the air. Are you kidding me? These pipsqueaks, these men of dust celebrating what they perceive to be their own glory? No, I'll tell you what glory is. Glory is when Christ reigns and all of the nations are bowing before him.

We've never seen anything like that. But when Christ comes and reigns and displays his majesty, what we're going to find is that he's a compassionate King. He's a King who considers the lowly.

And in verse 12, where we see he delivers the needy, in verse 14, he will rescue their life from oppression and violence. I want to make a point here. Oppression expresses the idea of people with power exploiting those who have no power, exploiting those who are defenseless, using them for their own purposes. Violence, referring to a ruthless disregard for life.

And I want to say something important here. You and I are conditioned by the violence in which we live to such a point that we are numb to it, that we assume it as something that is an acceptable part maybe of life. We've lost our sense of outrage.

We've lost our sense of moral indignation by what is around us, beloved. This violence and even more this love of violence that marks our culture shows us in a mirror how desperately sinful we are as a race. We see what ungodliness leads to, a denial of God, a refusal of Christ. What a godlessness leads to is violence. It leads to bloodshed inevitably.

Ungodliness leads to unrighteousness. Well, what's the glory of Psalm 72? What's the glory of biblical prophecy? What is the glory of the anticipation of the return of Christ?

I'll tell you what it is. It's not always going to be like that. This is not the final word. Christ will come and He will change it. And God's King will defend the weak. God's King will defend the vulnerable.

God's King will provide for the poor. And the redeemed heart says, oh, may that day come. Come, Lord Jesus. Let that day hasten. Lord, Thy kingdom come.

That would be glorious. You know, I've said in the past, teaching on the so-called Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, that element where the Lord teaches us to pray, Thy kingdom come, do you realize that that prayer is an assault on the existing world order? To look around, to see the sin, to see the darkness, to see the deception in the world around us, to say nothing of the remnants of indwelling sin in our own hearts, and to say, Lord, I see what this world is like. Bring your kingdom down. Lord, I call your kingdom down.

I pray that your kingdom would come because I identify, I identify in heart desire with the righteousness and the godliness of the coming reign of Christ. I don't accept what I see around me. I don't embrace it. I deny it.

I reject it. I want your kingdom to come. And here in Psalm 72, we see what that is going to be like when God's King comes. And so worthy is God's King that tribute and honor is given to him. Verse 15, so may he live and may the gold of Sheba be given to him. And let them pray for him continually.

Let them bless him all day long. It will be a reign of compassion. And when such pristine, perfect, holy goodness is on display, the response will be to honor him who implements that in his reign. A righteous reign, an extensive reign, a compassionate reign.

But there's more. Fourthly, Solomon describes a reign of prosperity, a reign of prosperity. God's blessing will be seen from the wealth that attends his rule.

Look at verses 16 and 17. May there be abundance of grain in the earth on top of the mountains. Its fruit will wave like the cedars of Lebanon. And may those from the city flourish like vegetation of the earth. May his name endure forever. May his name increase as long as the sun shines. And let men bless themselves by him. Let all nations call him blessed. Prosperity, abundance for all, marked by the reign of God's King.

Why? Because righteousness is attended with under the reign of God's King. This righteousness will be attended with prosperity. He will usher in prosperity as well as peace and compassion. And this prosperity is pictured with fruit and grain covering the landscape from the valley to the mountaintop. Those of you that perhaps come from farming communities and are familiar with those golden moments just before the harvest and the land is bursting with a full crop.

And there's such a sense of anticipation. Well multiply that by 10,000 by 10,000 and get a sense of what the glory of this reign will be. The prosperity that attends his rule. And this universal reign and this universal prosperity points to a great blessing. Points to a reign that had to go beyond Solomon. That has to be still future to us. And while we're not promised that prosperity of the false teaching of Word of Faith teachers in our day, there is a time when Christ will come and institute true prosperity. He'll really deliver on it.

He'll fulfill the promise rather than hold out an empty promise so that the person who gets rich is the one who's teaching. Blessing for the nations. You know what this language reminds us of?

We've looked at it in the past. This language reminds us of the promise that God made to Abraham. Turn back to Genesis chapter 12. Genesis chapter 12. Solomon in Psalm 72 has talked about a submission that attends this reign. But in Genesis chapter 12 when God called Abram out of paganism, he makes promises to him.

Chapter 12 verse 1, the Lord said to Abram, go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land which I will show you. And I will make you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great. And so you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you.

And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. All the families of the earth are going to experience blessing under the descendants of Abraham.

Under the ultimate descendant, the ultimate seed of Abraham, better stated. And Psalm 72 describes that blessing that all the families on the earth are going to enjoy. You see the nations are not only going to submit to Christ, they will do that, but they will share in the blessing that he brings when he establishes the fulfillment of this Psalm. It's going to be wonderful. It's something to look forward to and to anticipate. And so you say, well, what do I do with this?

How do I respond to this? Well, the Psalm leads us in that. And we see finally in our fifth point for this evening is that this will be a reign of praise, a reign of praise. Righteousness will mark this reign. It will be an extensive reign of chronology and glory. It will be a reign of compassion, a reign of prosperity.

And there's only one thing that the believing heart can say in response. Praise God. Praise God that this is still ahead.

Praise God that this is coming. And such a blessing from the reign of God's King calls forth praise from his people. Look at verse 18 and 19 with me. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone works wonders. And blessed be his glorious name forever, and may the whole earth be filled with his glory.

Amen and amen. Prophet Habakkuk speaks of that in chapter two, verse 14. The whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. And so there is this description of praise that Solomon recognizes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that a day like this is coming. And in recognition of the greatness of the glory and goodness of God that will be on display, and the fact that he will share this blessing with his people, that he will share this over the earth, the only thing to do is to respond and praise him, to honor him. God, God, this is what you will do.

This is who you are. And God, this transcends human existence. This transcends human thought, certainly in the realm of a sinful man's heart. God, this transcends everything. And in the presence of your greatness displayed through the coming of your king, in the presence of the goodness of the blessing that you will bestow when this comes, God, all I can do is worship you.

You are superior to me. You are infinitely beyond me. You are beyond me in your goodness, your grace, and your mercy.

You're beyond me in your essence. And so I bow, and I ascribe glory to you. I give honor and glory and praise to your name. And so with that, this psalm ends book two of the psalms, as you see in verse 20. It says the prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.

And it comes to end on the highest of notes, as it looks forward to the coming righteous reign of God's king. Now, what can we say about this today? We've kind of looked back at Solomon. We've looked forward. What do we say about it? What do we say about it today? Beloved, I want you to see, I want you to see how high and lofty Scripture shows the work of God as he builds a people to one day populate his kingdom.

These themes of which we have briefly spoken here today are high and majestic. And here you and I are with the people of God in the body of Christ, if we've received him by faith. And you and I are a part of what God is doing to prepare for that coming day. Through joys, through sorrows, through the work of his word, through the sanctifying influence of his Holy Spirit, through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, even with our seemingly routine fellowship with one another, what is God doing? What is the Lord Christ doing in anticipation of that coming kingdom?

He is working now. He is working in our midst. He's working in this moment as we look into his precious word. Christ is working even now to build a people to populate his kingdom.

And if you belong to Christ, when he comes and reigns, you will be there and you will be rightfully a part of the glory of that kingdom. It's phenomenal to think that he's doing that in our midst. It goes into another realm when you realize what the work that he accomplished in order to make that happen. Not to make it possible – we're not Armenians here – to make it happen, to make sure that it would come to pass when this king offered his own innocent blood on the cross to save sinners like you and me. This king whose blood – if I could be so bold as to say this blood of compassion, this blood of mercy, this blood shed for those oppressed by their own sins, oppressed by the devil. Who is this king? How great is his compassion?

It was his blood that was shed voluntarily to wash away their sins and to give them a status of perfect righteousness before a holy God that they might be able to enter in. It was this king who sent his Holy Spirit to impart to us a new nature, to open our eyes, to draw us to faith in Christ, and once we were saved to increasingly conform us in character to God's righteousness. Do you see?

Do you see it? That the coming greatness of this kingdom is being prepared for now in the midst of the work of God amongst his people in small, humble congregations like ours and countless others throughout the world where the name of Christ is proclaimed and his word is taught and sinners are called to faith in Christ. And we're a part of that. We share in that. Beloved, this is our destiny.

This is what lies ahead. Soon enough our feet will be on the shores of glory and we start to see that we are on the receiving end of unspeakable, unconquerable grace that God has initiated such favor to sinners like you and me. We have it good now to share in the foretaste, to share in the firstfruits of his kingdom.

But then we realize that it's going to be so much better when the king establishes his reign. And as the hymn writer says, we sang it in one of these recent services. We're lost in wonder, love, and praise. We realize that we're still waiting for the fullness and thus we pray, Lord, thy kingdom come.

But we pray that not from a position of weakness but of strength. Lord, I know it will come. I'm just eager for it to get here. Lord, you could come now.

Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't it be great to just enter straight into the presence of glory while we're studying his word together? But that coming reign of Christ will be glorious. And we seek it in the midst of our sinful culture. We seek it in the midst of our own sinful lives knowing that a more glorious day lies ahead for us. No more tears, no more pain, no more sin, no more sorrow, no more politics, no more violence, no more death.

Only an uplifted look at our glorious king. You don't want to miss that, beloved. And if you're in Christ, you won't. You'll be there. You'll be a part of it. And so we're left with the question, have you turned from sin to embrace Christ the King?

I want you there, beloved. How we long for the reign of the righteous king. It will be a reign of praise, of righteousness, extensive in chronology and glory. And it will be a reign of compassion and prosperity.

If you're a Christian, that describes your future. Praise God indeed. Well, Pastor Don Green will begin a new series next time here on The Truth Pulpit, so be sure to join us then.

Right now, though, here again is Don with news of a great resource. Well, my friend, as we bring today's broadcast to a close, I want to offer you a very special gift, a special resource as a gift from our ministry. It's my series called Trusting God in Trying Times.

And this series over the years has proven to be the most popular set of messages that I've ever done. It helps you know how to trust God as you're going through the deep sorrows that sometimes come to us in life. It comes from the book of Habakkuk in the Old Testament, and it comes from some very deep sorrows of my own that were present early in my Christian life. It's very personal. It's very helpful. It's very biblical.

And I would love to see you have it in your hands. It's available in CD album or by download. Transcripts are available if you prefer that. My friend Bill is going to give you information on how to find it. Just visit our website at thetruthpulpit.com to get the resource Don just mentioned. That's thetruthpulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright, inviting you back next time as Don Green once again teaches God's people God's word from the truth pulpit.