He Shall Reign Forever (Part 2 of 2)

Music Playing Battles waged throughout the years, attempting to extend boundaries or regain what has been lost. Today on Truth for Life, we'll find out why the kingdom of God is not like any of these earthly kingdoms. Alistair Begg is teaching today from the seventh verse in Isaiah chapter 9. It is important that we understand what this kingdom isn't and what this kingdom is. First of all, we need to notice that this kingdom is neither temporal nor local. In other words, it is an unbounded kingdom, both geographically and temporally. Now, you see how important this is for us as Christian believers. I know sometimes you think that there's a measure of my sort of British imperialism that bleeds into my preaching that I am a somewhat reluctant member of the land of the free and the home of the brave.

It's not true at all. So I hope you won't take it personally. I've tried to let you know that the British Empire is long gone. But I want you to know the American Empire is pretty well long gone as well. But don't be alarmed, because we're not here to establish the British Empire or the American Empire or any other empire. As we live in this world, because we're members of a kingdom—a kingdom that is established by peace—we are committed to peace. A kingdom that is framed by justice—we are committed to justice. A kingdom that is defined by righteousness—we are committed to righteousness. But there is no place on the face of the earth that is peculiarly selected by God to be the sphere of his influence. The believers have come to Mount Zion already, Hebrews tells us, to the reality of things as they are now, not to what they're going to be in some localized physical form later on. This is not a throne that is a literal throne in a literal Jerusalem for a literal period of time.

How can it possibly be? This kingdom begins with the birth of the child. And this is a throne that will never come to an end. Therefore, it can't last for a thousand years. For a thousand years, it comes to an end.

This kingdom never comes to an end. And that, then, you see, changes the way we view everything. As Smeaton puts it in the Doctrine and the Atonement, he says, to convert one sinner from the error of his way is an event of greater importance than the deliverance of an entire kingdom from temporal evil.

Do you see what he's saying there? Not that the people of God are disinterested in temporal evil or in dealing with the issues of our time—that's why I've just said what I said about peace and justice and righteousness—but at the end of the day, that is not the issue. The issue is that I will unto you as born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. From what does he save?

From sin and from all of its implications. Therefore, our concern for our children must always be—fundamentally be—that we bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, that they might be able to answer the first question of that catechism. What is your only hope in life and death?

My only hope is life and death is that I do not belong to myself, but I belong—body and soul, life and death—to God and to my Savior Jesus Christ. That matter is far more than where your children are educated. That matters far more than whether we have secured the boundaries and borders of our nation, which we love and are prepared to serve.

Why? Because we are kids of a kingdom that will never, ever end. It transcends borders and boundaries. It is the ultimate expression of the United Nations.

It is the only true expression of the United Nations. But if we think kingdom and then think politics and then think nation, then it skews everything entirely. This kingdom is neither temporal nor is it local. What is it, then?

Well, it's the reverse. It is eternal, and it's universal. It is eternal, and it's universal. Habakkuk reiterates what God had told Moses when he writes, The earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

What is the predicament of man? That we have exchanged the glory of God for things that creep and crawl and fly. So the great exchange that has taken place, that we've turned our backs on God and the glory that he deserves, we glorify ourselves. God then, in Jesus, has come and made a great exchange.

He has exchanged the place that he deserves for the place that we deserve, so that we then might be the beneficiaries of that which he deals with concerning justice and righteousness and peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is in light of that that we're able to read here in verse 7, and of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. Now, you will notice that the growth of this kingdom is not as a result of military conquest. That's how kingdoms have largely grown—often by the tyranny of people. But this kingdom grows as a result of the gracious work of the Spirit of God working in the hearts and minds of men and women as the good news of the gospel is made clear to them.

And you must research this for yourself. But you will find that this comes across as you just read your Bible all the way through. Daniel in chapter 2, the prophet, is confronted by the dream of Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar wants an interpretation of his dream. Daniel interprets the dream.

He describes for him this amazing big statue. He describes the way in which these various kingdoms all collapse, and then he makes this declaration, and in those days of the kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed. Nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever. I say to you again this morning, is this rhetoric, or is this reality? Is this a fantasy world that we're reading about here?

Or is this actually the case? That all the other kingdoms will come and go, but eventually this kingdom will grow, and it will stand forever. So that today in mainland China, despite the oppressive nature of the Chinese communist rule, Christianity is explosive. In sub-Saharan Africa, the news that comes out of the rise of Christianity, the impact of Christianity, is just unbelievable.

In South America, the same is true. It may be that this is a day of small things for us in the Northern Hemisphere, but that is fine, because we're not concerned about simply ourselves but about a kingdom that knows no borders and no boundaries. That's why we're gonna send people to Delhi. They're not going there to take photographs of the crowds. They're going there to manifest the love of the Lord Jesus. They're going there to medically intervene in people's lives, to bring peace into their heartache, to bring rightness into their wrongs.

And when people inquire, Why would you ever do this? they're going to tell them, Because the love of the Lord Jesus compels me. The Lord who? The Lord Jesus. Who is Jesus? Jesus is the King. The King of what? The King of a kingdom that will never end. How do you get in this kingdom? You become like a little child. How can I become like a little child?

I'm a growing man. Funnily, there was a person who'd said the very same thing. He was called Nicodemus, and Jesus, and so on, and before you know where you are, there the person says, Oh, you mean the King has actually died in the place of those who become the citizens of his kingdom?

I never heard of such a thing. That brings me to my final word. This kingdom is neither temporal nor local. It is eternal, it is universal, and it is inevitably powerful. Now, I admit there is some artistic dimension to me wanting powerful as the word there.

It is powerful insofar as the impact of the kingdom and the accomplishing of these purposes is by, as the final phrase of our study gives us, the zeal of the Lord of hosts who accomplishes this. Remember, this is the question that Mary, of course, had asked following the angelic visitation. After the angel has finished his speech, there's only really one question, and she asks it. How?

How? How is this going to be? And it's almost as if Isaiah is anticipating the question on behalf of his initial readers as he has described the illumination and the celebration and all that has taken place, and the person comes to the end of all of that about this child with the four names and so on, and the only question that is reverberating in their mind is, How in the world is this going to happen? And so he answers it, The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

In other words, these events won't transpire in any ordinary course of affairs. For all of this to take place, God, unbounded in his power, unlimited in his resources, has to be involved. And that's the significance of the zeal of the Lord of hosts.

That contains a tremendous amount that we don't have time to enter into this morning. But at least if you think in terms of a godly sense of jealousy, you're on the right track. The jealousy that a father has for the care and the purity of his daughters, the jealousy that a spouse has and a wife has for the unfiltered affection of her husband—it is entirely legitimate, it's entirely right.

It's the jealousy that an oncologist has for the eradication of cancer when he finds it in you as a patient. It is the zeal of God for his own glory, to protect his own honor, to provide for his own people so that they might be as a light in a dark place. Alexander says of this, The astonishing effects produced by feeble means in the promotion, preservation, and extension of God's kingdom can only be explained upon the principle that the zeal of the Lord of hosts affected it.

Do you see what he's saying there? He said, if you think about what we've got by way of human product—you know, raw material—for seeing the kingdom of God come in our generation. He says, if you think about that, and you think about this promise, then you have to conclude that this is gonna have to be the zeal of God that accomplishes this.

I find that very encouraging. In other words, the blessings that are described in these verses are tied exclusively to the one who sits on the throne. So, for example, Ephesians 2 says of Jesus, He himself is our peace. In Romans chapter 3, Paul describes Jesus as the one who is just and the justifier of those who have faith in him.

And in that same passage in Romans 3, he speaks of a righteousness from God that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. We say there is nothing in all of fiction quite as staggering, quite as demanding, intellectually, as the truth of the incarnation. And you go back to whatever sphere of influence you have tomorrow, and over coffee you can perhaps begin to tell your friends, if you're brave enough, that you were considering yesterday the fact that Jesus Christ is the king over a kingdom that will never, ever come to an end.

If they stay for a moment longer, which is unlikely—and the only reason they'll stay is to conclude that you have totally lost your mind—you may have occasion to advance the ball a little further. And as you're telling them this story, that Jesus is a king, that he has died in the place of those who become his subjects, that he was raised over death and over the grave and hell, and that he sits triumphant in heaven, awaiting the day when he will return and will take to himself those who are ready to meet him. As you hear yourself saying all these things, you just hear yourself, like, I can't believe I'm saying all these things. What does this sound like? Do I sound convincing? No, I don't. Does this sound inherently believable?

No, it doesn't. Oh, dear, oh, dear. I wish I'd never said anything to start with. Three months later, on a cold day, when the friend that you were talking with over coffee by the machine finds that his son has been incarcerated as a result of his drug dealing or as a result of a diagnosis of illness, the same fellow who thought you were completely nuts just came back to ask, you know, I was wondering about that king. I certainly have no ability to rule over the affairs that have confronted me in life.

Could you tell me a little more about your king? Well, if that person's eyes are ever opened, how will they be opened? Because of the zeal of the Lord of hosts.

Not in a vacuum. You spoke. You weren't very good. But don't worry about it.

It's the zeal of the Lord of hosts. That's why when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he says, Think about your calling, brothers and sisters, when you were called. Not many of you were mighty. Not many of you were noble. Not many of you were significant. It wasn't that you were in the society pages of Corinth. Frankly, you were the riffraff. And he said, But don't take it personally, because if you remember, when I came—this is 1 Corinthians 2—when I came to you, I didn't come with great, eloquent words of man's wisdom.

I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And we were saying, Who's that little guy? Who's the baldy little Jewish guy? What's he on about? What does he have to say? What is he possibly going to do in Corinth?

He can say nothing that Corinth wants to hear. And then you go into chapter 3, and he says, And I'm really surprised that after such a short period of time, you've decided that you have your heroes and your champions, and you're lining up behind them. One says, I am of Apollos. One says, I am of Apollos. One says, I am of Cephas. He says, Don't you realize we're nothing? Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow. It's the zeal of the Lord of hosts that accomplishes this.

It is this King who will reign forever and ever. Now, in my Christmas reading—and with this I will stop—in my Christmas reading, I included, at the last battle, Chronicles of Narnia. And I read, actually, on my iPad, but only for convenience' sake, and then I went and bought it yesterday so I can scribble in it. But it really is good if you haven't read it. It's a great start. You need a great start to a book. I read this out loud, actually, to my wife, and she was immediately hooked. We were in bed together, but you don't need all the details.

It was early in the morning. In the last days of Narnia, far up to the western, beyond lantern waste and close behind the great waterfall, there lived an ape. You see, at that point, I am in.

That's good. An ape. He was so old that no one could remember when he had first come to live in these parts, and he was the cleverest, ugliest, most wrinkled ape you can imagine.

Oh, okay. He had a little house built of wood and thatched with leaves up in the fork of a gate tree, and his name was Shift. It's a great name, isn't it? If you're gonna have an ape, call him Shift. There were very few talking beasts or men or dwarfs or people of any sort in that part of the wood, but Shift had one friend and neighbor who was a donkey called Puzzle.

It's great. Anyway, this is how it ends. Eventually, you go through the whole story, it gets to the end. Now they're out of the shadowlands.

They're into the reality of things. You've got Peter, you've got Edmund, you've got Lucy. And Lucy's concerned that Aslan is going to tell her that she has to leave. Aslan says, No, you never have to leave. She says, But we've had to leave before. He says, No, but don't you understand? Lucy said, We're so afraid of being sent away. You've sent us back to our own world so often. No fear of that, said Aslan.

Have you not guessed? Their hearts leaped, and a wild hope rose within them. Your father and mother and all of you are, as you used to call it in the shadowlands, dead. The term is over, the holidays have begun, the dream has ended, this is the morning. And as he spoke, he no longer looked to them like a lion, but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us, this is the end of all the stories. And we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them, it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page. Now at last they were beginning chapter one of the great story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.

What is Lewis describing here? 1 Corinthians 2 and 9. Eye has not seen, it is invisible, nor ear heard, it is inaudible. Neither has it entered into the heart of man, it's inconceivable, the things that God has prepared for them that love him.

And how has he brought this about? He has brought this about at the gift of his Son. And when John has the curtain pulled back for a wee minute, and he looks over into the reality of what is to come, what does he write? He says, And I saw a throne. I saw a throne, and it was there in heaven. And the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever. Are you in that kingdom? Have you bowed your knee to that king? Have you submitted to his authority? Have you been knighted as a knight of the realm?

You may. You may believe him, trust him, bow to him, ask him. Father, thank you for the opportunity to study the Bible together. Thank you that your Word is fixed in the heavens, that it will accomplish its purposes, that it never, ever returns empty to you.

It always achieves the design and desire you have for it. So fulfill your purposes in our lives today. Help us, Lord, to realize that we become citizens of this kingdom one at a time, as we come and do exactly what Jesus said.

Repent, change of heart, change of mind, change of direction concerning who you are and all that you've done upon the cross. And then we believe this good news, that you died in our place, that you bore our punishment. Hear our prayers for your Son's sake.

Amen. There is nothing more important for us to think about than how we will respond to this good news. You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life. Today's message wraps up our study in Isaiah's prophecy. If you missed any of the messages in this series, you'd like to re-listen or share a message with a friend, you can download a single message or the complete series for free at truthforlife.org.

The series is titled It Is His Story. Every day here on Truth for Life, we teach the Bible because our passion is to tell the world about Jesus. And Alistair joins us today.

He's got some thoughts for us. Thanks, Bob. You know, with another year of ministry nearly behind us, we're just essentially thankful to God for all of his goodness to us at Truth for Life. And we're actually very thankful for your partnership because it's your prayers, your financial support that actually makes the program possible.

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Again, go to truthforlife.org slash donate. We're glad you've joined us today. Sometimes personal trials or worldwide catastrophes can leave us wondering if God has abandoned us. Tomorrow we'll see why we can always have hope, no matter what. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.