THE KING IS REALLY COMING!

 

December article by Robert Kay

 

Not many in the western world will have failed to notice that the preparations ‘of the season’ are well advanced.  The decorations, the tinsel and the commercial strategies to capture our attention and ‘secure our pockets’ seem to get earlier and earlier! 

 

There is an undoubted and obvious disconnect between the events that surround the birth of Jesus, the Saviour when compared with the consumerism and the materialism of the age, now developed out of all proportion in the western world, when considering the humble circumstances of His birth, - laid in a manger, a place for animal fodder.  What a sorry reception for the Son of God, born in Bethlehem two millennia ago!  For many, there the story and the implications ‘of the season’ will start and end.  But the Bible tells that this was only the beginning of the life of Jesus, so named ‘for he will save his people from his sins’ (Matt 1.21).  So Jesus grew into manhood, and ‘increased in wisdom and stature and favour with God and man.’ (Luke 2.32)

 

It is an irony when we consider the divine love and the merciful characteristics displayed by the Son of God that he was treated so shabbily by his contempories.  It’s a good question to ask whether it would be any different today?  The evidence is that human nature has not changed.  Another irony is that Jesus was the only rightful heir to King David’s throne in Jerusalem.  Consider the genealogies in Matt 1 and Luke 3.  He was the rightful king, the rightful ruler, and not Pilate.  The genealogies in the New Testament prove this.  At his trial, Pilate said to him: ‘Art thou a king then? Jesus answered ‘Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth’ (John 18.37).  At the crucifixion, Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS’ (John 19.19)

 

The Apostle Peter describes later the awful death Jesus was subjected to by the Jews, declaring:  ‘but you denied the Holy One and the Just (Righteous One) and desired a murderer to be granted unto you and killed the Prince of Life, whom God hath raised from the dead’. (Acts 3.14).  The Kingship of Jesus with its implications for the here and now and the future, is an angle of Biblical truth lost on many today - sadly, lost on many professing to be followers of Jesus today.

 

This was the assertion that Paul took with him after the resurrection: ‘Reasoning with them out of the scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered, and rise again from the dead; and that this Jesus whom I preach to you is (the) Christ, or the Messiah.  (Acts 17.3)  A title of God’s anointed, the king! He was asserting that there is ‘another King – One Jesus’ (Acts 17.7) - King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

 

One of the most associated words in the NT related to the arrival of a king or monarch, is the word ‘coming’ (Gk parousia) see Matt 24.3,27,37,39;  I Thes 2.19, 3.13; 4.15; 5.23;  2 Thes 2.1,8,9 James 5.7,8; 2Pet 1.16, 3.4,12 1John 2.28    Characteristically, if we follow the New Testament references above, it can be seen ‘coming’ is the technical word associated with and the 2nd advent of Jesus, his second ‘coming’.  Not a presence, but a physical, literal, bodily coming.

 

So despite all the commerce, the decorations and the tinsel that may distract us, the Bible tells that Jesus will come to fulfil the string of Bible prophecies that tell ‘he shall rule (the nations) with a rod of iron: and tread the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God.  And his name?  And he hath on his vesture a name written, KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS. (Rev 19.16)   

 

In these last days of the age, with all the problems that surround us personally, nationally, internationally, and globally, we can be assured because we are told by Almighty God in his word that THE KING IS COMING.

 

‘When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand but the goats on the left.  Then shall the King say unto them on the right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world….’ (Matt 25.31-34)

 

‘And now, little children, abide in him; that when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming’.  (1 John 2.28)   

 

So, we need to see beyond the consumerism, and the materialism of the age, the tinsel, the decorations, the things ‘of the season’ because the reality is, there is a greater plan, revealed in God’s word if only we will heed it.  The King really is coming again - a second advent.

 

He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. (Luke 1.32) 

 

What amazing events we can expect!