The King is Coming

By the time many of you read this, yet another election cycle will have come and gone. As we listened to the debates and the political adds, it quickly became apparent that no man is able to solve all the problems that this world, or this country, or even this county faces. In fact, as we go to vote, we often fear that those elected may actually make the problems worse. I am writing this on election morning, so I do not know who has won the races.
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What would happen, if instead of electing a group of imperfect humans to oversee our affairs, we could just have God as our King? What if He came down to earth and ruled it? Those who understand how just, fair, honest, loving, and merciful God is would actually look forward to that idea. Those who hate the idea of living under God’s standards of right and wrong would fight against that idea. Well, to a certain extent, that represents the spiritual battle that is happening in our world right now.
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The King, the Lord Jesus Christ, came to earth around 2000 years ago. At that time, many expected Him to set up a kingdom and to rule the world. That is what they expected the Messiah to do when He came. Instead of setting up the kingdom, He began first by proclaiming the kingdom. And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. Matt. 9:35. The word gospel, means “good news”. Luke 8:1 emphasizes the good news of the message of Christ’s coming kingdom. And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him,.
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The good news of the gospel is really the good news of the coming kingdom of our God and Savior the Lord Jesus Christ. When He came, He preached the kingdom and told how to get into His kingdom. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. John 3:3. We are born again by putting our complete trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. John 3:3 is in the same chapter as John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. In Matt. 4:17, Christ made it clear that we must repent because the kingdom was near. From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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The message of the coming kingdom is the message we are to proclaim. Even as Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer (Our Father), He said, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” and “for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever.” The kingdom is to be a priority. In Luke 12:31, we are told to be more concerned with the kingdom of God, than with our physical needs, “But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
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Christ spent much of His time here on earth speaking of His coming kingdom. Christ will one day return to set up that kingdom, and when He does, He will decide who is allowed in, and who will be cast out. That is why His message of “repent for the kingdom is at hand” is so important. That is why we as well need to proclaim the news of His coming kingdom. 2 Timothy 4:1-2 makes it clear, “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”
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As we saw in John 3:3, you must be born again to enter the kingdom. The scriptures are clear that not everyone will enter. In fact, few will. Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Matt. 7:14. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out. Luke 13:28. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Eph. 5:5.
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I have some good news, the King has come, and He is coming again. I also have a warning- except you repent and are born again, you will not be ready when He returns.