"King and Country: The King Arrives" by Wendell Martin

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Well, good morning, everyone. Welcome to Strength to Strength. This morning we have Brother Wendell Martin from State College, Pennsylvania, with us, and it's the second segment of our King and Country series, The King Arrives. One thing interesting about Wendell is he's actually moving to Pittsburgh later this summer to help out with the church plant there. So if you think about Wendell and that church plant, please stand up a prayer for them.

And yeah, I guess go ahead, Wendell. Okay, well, good morning, everyone. And I am honored to take this second segment of King and Country, The King Arrives.

So I'm going to share my screen here. King and Country, The King Arrives. I don't know what you think about when you think about a king.

I think about power, or maybe more specifically authority.

Having grown up in a democratic republic, the idea of a king is kind of scary to me. Someone who has lots of power, lots of authority.

And so we're thinking about kings today, and I want to think about King Jesus, and that's the title here, The King Arrives.

And my goal is to convince you, and if you're already convinced, to inspire you that Jesus has arrived as king of a new, real, upside-down kingdom.

So thinking about this idea of what it means to be a king, what a king is, I have some kings, some examples of kings here. Here's someone who ruled as a king, maybe you could say emperor, Alexander the Great. He was a very influential person, even in our world today.

So Alexander was born in Macedon, in the little country of that's known as Greece, right in there in that peninsula.

Macedon was what his father was, the king of Macedon, King Philip. And the legend says that as a child, Alexander's father bought a horse that was too wild. No one could tame it. And Alexander said, "He'll take it, and he'll tame it." And he tamed this horse. And the legend says that his father said with tears, "My son, you're going to have to find bigger kingdoms to rule because Macedon is too small for you."

And that's exactly what Alexander did. He went on to conquer at a young age, became a very successful general, conquered and ruled territory all the way over to what is now India. And he had a goal, a mission in life, not only conquering, but also to spread the Greek language and education and culture and gods, religion, over the world.

So he ruled the world. And of course, it's not the world that we know. You see, it's not the whole globe. It was most of the known world at the day, and it was actually much larger than you probably realize.

If you've ever hiked somewhere, you realize how long distances can be that we can easily drive or fly around the world. But this is true. Massive distances in terms of horseback or foot travel or by sea.

Alexander the Great, amazing general, amazing ruler, very successful. And like I said, we're still living under the shadow of his influence today in the Western world, especially. Here's another king. King wasn't known as a king. In fact, the Romans would not have called him a king. That was taboo in Roman culture.

Julius Caesar came at the end of the Roman Republic. In fact, he's the one who made the change from a republic to an empire. He was facing some challenges. He was facing some challenges against his authority. Things he had done, actually, he was recalled to Rome by the Senate when he was out as a general.

He was recalled to Rome, and he feared that he would be punished for his crimes that he had committed. Don't remember what they were, but he did the unthinkable. And instead of coming back to Rome to face up to his past, he brought his army with him. And he marched on Rome itself, which was the unthinkable thing for a Roman general to do.

Defied the Senate and made himself first. Well, he called himself first citizen, but in reality, he was the first emperor of Rome. And he ran the tremendously skilled and organized Roman war machine that rumbled through the world on hobnailed sandals, crushing their enemies, crucifying their enemies, doing what Rome has done throughout history and taking power and ruling with an iron fist.

So that's a king. Another king, and this one was actually known as King, King James. He was King James I, as well as the VI. And this king reigned in England, Ireland, and Scotland from the years 1567 to 1623. This king, he was a good king in many ways. One positive thing that he did was he did unite these different kingdoms under his personal rule. He also managed to keep his kingdoms out of the Thirty Years' War that was raging in Europe at the time. And that's a war that affected and impacted Anabaptists. There's lots of Anabaptists that suffered deeply from the Thirty Years' War, which was a war between Catholics and Protestants.

The reason you may be most familiar with this king is because he commissioned the publication of the King James Bible, King James Translation. So if you're familiar with that, you know of King James. This is the king. This is King James.

So I don't know which one of those you would consider most important. I'd say all three of them have lots of influence even in our world today, 2,000 years later than some, 400 years later than King James, at least.

So we're talking about Jesus, the king arriving. And use those pictures, those stories to think about this idea of kingship and think about influential kings and important kings.

Chuck Pike, in his introduction to this series, the first one, The King Foreshadowed, he talked about Messiah and the idea that Messiah in the Old Testament, the Hebrew term, is the same thing as Christ in the New Testament, both mean the anointed one. And I'd like to make a case that this term could be translated. Instead of being transliterated, the Greek word was Christos, and in our English Bibles, it's usually translated as Christ. And so it could be translated as king. Now, king doesn't capture all of the meaning that is in Messiah or Christos because it can also include prophet and priest. And Jesus filled both those roles as well. But king is what we're focusing on here this morning.

I'd like to make the case that you could insert king wherever your Bible says Christ, and maybe it would give you a clearer idea, in some ways at least, of what his title means in that way.

I think for myself, at least at a gut level, king is more powerful than Christ. It's something that I can relate to and understand better. And so that's why we're looking at this idea of king and thinking about this idea of kingship. So there's a prophecy. The prophet Daniel had prophesied this in the Old Testament. And to the Jewish world of the first century, this was a very important prophecy.

Daniel says, "I was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the ancient of days, and they brought him before and they brought him near before him. Then to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, the one which shall not be destroyed."

So Daniel is prophesying about a king who will come. And he's talking about him being seated with the ancient of days, with Yahweh.

He's talking about him coming with the clouds of heaven, and he's saying he is one who is like the Son of Man.

And that's talking about his humanity.

Important point here that he brings up, that he mentions his kingdom or his dominion, it says, is an everlasting dominion. Now, in a world that is ruled by a king, one of the most tumultuous times is when the king dies and another king takes his throne.

And in history, that has been repeatedly a time of civil war. There's often various contenders for a throne, different people who think that they have the right to be king and different factions that back them. And it's very common for civil war to break out over those times. So succession is a very fragile and risky time in a kingdom.

When you have a king whose dominion lasts forever, there's a lot of stability, there's a lot of strength, and there's confidence in replacing that king. You don't trust in another king whose kingdom may end anytime. He could die. He could be assassinated. This kingdom will last forever. So I've got a quote there on the bottom from Matthew.

Jesus, when he is before Pilate—no, sorry, before the chief priests and the council—and he is being grilled, the high priest says, "Don't you answer anything. What is it these men are testifying against you?" They were testifying that different false witnesses were brought against him. And then the high priest says, "I put you under oath by the living God. Tell us if you're the Christ, the Son of God."

And Jesus says, "It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming from the clouds of heaven." And if you're like me, I've often wondered what it was about that statement of Jesus that made the high priest tear his clothes and say, "This is blasphemy, and he's worthy to die."

And everybody agreed, "Yes, yes, he deserves to die," in that council. But I think understanding their context of what they were looking for in a Messiah—and prophet Daniel had prophesied that this one would come. He would be like one who would sit with the ancient of days and coming on the clouds of heaven. And Jesus is saying that about himself. And so in saying that, he is saying, "I am the one who is to come. I am the Messiah."

And they saw that as blasphemy.

So Jesus is identifying himself as this one who had been prophesied by Daniel. So I'd like to go through this. And like I said, I'd like to show more by what Jesus did than what he said that he is king. Jesus is king of creation.

He's king over his people. He rules his people. And he is king over his enemies and conquering king. As the apostle John said, "In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him, nothing was made that was made."

So I'd like to show, like I said, show by Jesus' life that he was king, is king. And Jesus was, I'd say, Jesus is the master of understatement. He did more speaking in roundabout ways, you could say. He used stories. And I'm convinced he also performed actions that were clearly pointing to his kingship and his rule and the reality that what he said, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It really was at hand.

So here we have Alexander the Great again.

Talked about him and his powerful influence and many of the ways we think and process the world around us are deeply affected by Greek influence, Greek thought, Greek philosophy. And Alexander the Great was very powerful, not only by conquering but by spreading Greek culture and Greek thought and education around the world of his day.

Alexander the Great died at the same age Jesus did, 33 years old. And historians aren't sure what he died of, but we see him here in this picture. He's on his deathbed, and you can see the scepter. It's fallen out of his fingers. He's losing power. His soldiers are walking past, and the artist portrays them looking kind of forlorn, I think. Their leader is dying.

Anyhow, historians think he may have died from malaria.

The recordings of his symptoms would seem to line up with that. And I don't know if you know what spreads malaria, but it's a mosquito. And I think that's so ironic thinking about Alexander the Great and his power and his legacy that is living on today yet.

The man who it's said of him when he conquered all the world, he cried because there were no more kingdoms left to conquer.

And he died, possibly died of a mosquito bite.

So Jesus is king of creation. Or contrast that with Alexander, who died by a creature creature. He possibly died of a mosquito bite, spreading malaria. So Jesus shows his kingship. And go with me to the Sea of Galilee here. He's with his disciples. They have been together. They've been teaching, busy all day. And Jesus says, "Let's go cross over to the other side." And they get into their boat.

He says, "When they had left them all, they took him along in the boat as he was." And he says, "A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat. The boat's filling with water, and the disciples are fearful for their lives. Seasoned fishermen, though some of them are."

And Jesus is asleep in the back of the boat. He's just wore out from his busy day. And he's sleeping. And one of the disciples, or it says, they woke him and said, "Teacher, don't you care? We're perishing.

We're going to drown." And he says, "Then he arose, and he rebuked the wind, saying, 'Peace, be still.'" He says, "And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm."

And he looks at the disciples and says, "Why were you so afraid? Where's your faith? How is it you have no faith?"

And the disciples were terrified. It says they feared exceedingly.

And they looked at each other and said, "What kind of man is this? They've been following their teacher." And they're obviously impressed and hanging on to what he's saying. But they're beginning to see a side of him they hadn't seen before. What kind of man is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him.

It struck terror in their hearts.

So we see Jesus as king. And like David, King David said, the prototype of Jesus, who was the king of Israel. And I think people who had probably thought maybe he is this Messiah we're waiting for in David's time, but he turned out not to be.

And David, writing in Psalm 29, I believe it is, says, "The Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The Lord sits enthroned as king forever." Like a beautiful fulfillment of that psalm is Jesus and his power over the wind and the sea.

He is king. Jesus also showed himself by his actions, not only king over creation, but as king over the fallenness of creation, the brokenness, and having the ability not only to be creator with his father, as John says that all things were made by him, but also the ability, as he came, as king of his kingdom, to write, to heal the broken, to

undo in small ways in his ministry the curse that people were living under. So we have this picture here of John the Baptist. We have this scene here where John the Baptist calls his disciples to him and sends them to Jesus and says, "Ask him, 'Are you the coming one?'" And that's the Messiah. That's who they're looking for. "Are you the one who's been prophesied, the one who we're waiting for, the one who will—" And implied in this is the one who will rescue us from the bondage, from the iron heel of the Roman Empire that we're living under. "Are you the coming one, or are we supposed to be looking for someone else?" And it says, "In that very hour, he cured many of their infirmities and afflictions and evil spirits.

And to many blind, he gave sight." And then Jesus looks at John's disciples and he answers and says, "Go. Tell John what you saw." He says, "The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them."

And so Jesus illustrated, not in so many words, but by his actions, that he was a fulfillment of what the prophet Isaiah had said. Isaiah 61, "The Lord, Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. The Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek he hath sent me to bind the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, the day of the vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn."

Jesus is king over creation. He's king over sickness and demons. And we also see Jesus being king to the extent that he was king over death. And we'll get into that more in his own death here. But Jesus is king as he raises several people from the dead. Lazarus, he raised the son of the widow at Nain. He raises Jairus' daughter from the dead.

What kind of man is this?

So Jesus is king of creation.

Jesus is also king over his kingdom, king of his people. A king in any kingdom is expected to be the best representation of the people of the kingdom. If you think of the story of Saul, King Saul, it says he was head and shoulders taller than anyone else. He looked like a king.

And that's throughout history. The people of a kingdom have expected the king to be kingly and to rule well, not weakly. Sometimes kings were enthroned as children. There were some kings who were very young when they became kings. And when that happened, someone else would actually do the ruling for them until they became old enough. And that actually was setting the stage for also some upheavals, political upheavals, because someone else was ruling in the king's stead and maybe not doing what the king would like. And when the king comes to power, comes to age, there's always that tension that existed there.

And some kings didn't rule very well. Some kings were weak kings. They maybe didn't keep control of their territory or their kingdom. And sometimes rebel factions rose up against them. So a weak king was not a good thing.

Neither was a tyrant. And that's kind of been the—if you're like me, when you think of a king, you think of a tyrant. Someone who has all authority, there is no one he answers to. He's the ultimate. And if he is angry with you, he'll send you to the dungeon or say, "Off with his head." And there's no court of higher appeal because he's the king after all. And so there's the both sides of this thing that sometimes a king would be weak and not effective. And that's not a good king because then there's turmoil and there's uprisings. Or sometimes a king would be a tyrant, and he'd just crush his subjects under his feet and literally live off the fat of the land.

And his personal will was law.

But Jesus came. And if you look at where Jesus came teaching and preaching, especially, I'm thinking of Matthew chapter 4. It says Jesus came teaching, and he says, "Repent because the kingdom of God or heaven is here or is at hand." And that was his message. He calls that the gospel.

The gospel is that Jesus is king.

And I don't want you to miss that. And if when you think of the gospel or good news, and it is good news that Jesus is king because his kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and his kingship and his rule is a just and fair and true rule. His reign is not going to end, and his justice is forever.

When you think of the gospel, the good news, if you think of something other than the good news is that Jesus is king, maybe you ought to reconsider what the gospel is. Are you teaching the same gospel? Do you believe the same gospel? And are you teaching the same gospel that Jesus became preaching?

So some things I want to point out about this kingdom, prophet Isaiah, and how Jesus is king over his people. Prophet Isaiah had said that this king who he's pointing forward to, this Messiah, this coming one, this anointed one whom God would anoint with his spirit, and we see that happening at Jesus' baptism, he says the government will be upon his shoulders. And so there's a picture of rule and rulership there, government. He says, "Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever." So once again, this is an eternal kingdom.

He talks about it being a government of peace. And that's a beautiful but elusive idea for many kingdoms of this world. There was a period in Roman Empire that was called the Pax Romana or the Roman peace. And Rome said it was because we're so powerful that this Pax Romana is—we have this peace in the Roman Empire.

And the early Christians actually said, "No, it's because the prince of peace has come." And his influence in their lives was producing peace. So he is the prince of peace. He is the never-before-seen and never-since in a king, the epitome of what it means to be a servant and a king together.

So Jesus came not as some exalted ruler, I mean, just from his birth. He's born to an obscure couple in suspicious circumstances. Their neighbors thought he was born out of wedlock. He was born in a barn. His onlookers maybe were sheep and goats.

You know what a barn smells like. That's where Jesus, the king, that's how he came. Like the psalm says, "How should a king come?" And that's how Jesus came. And that's how Jesus lived his life as a simple person.

No pomp and ceremony, walking around the dusty roads like any other human of his day. He presented himself as a traveling rabbi, teacher. And when one disciple came to him and said, "I want to be your disciple," and Jesus responds to him and says, "Foxes have holes. Birds of the air have nests."

But using his favorite title for himself, he says, "But the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." He's like, "I don't even have a home."

And yeah, like I said, that's his favorite title, the Son of Man, identifying himself with humanity.

The Son of God is not a title that we see Jesus using for himself.

And in his statement, I think this comes from Mark, the Son of Man, and again, he calls himself that, "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many."

So Jesus uses himself as an example of what true greatness is in that context of that quote, "The disciples were arguing over who was the greatest." And Jesus presents himself as an example and says, "I didn't come to be served, but I came to serve." I just want to contrast that to kings who came, and they're surrounded by their retinue of all their court and all their servants who wait on them hand and foot.

And his will is law. His wish is my command. That kind of authority whose personal whims are unquestionable. And Jesus not only says he comes to be served, but he did. And he proved that and showed himself as a servant in the act near the end of his life of stooping, washing his disciples' dirty feet and showing his meekness, his humility, and what true greatness really looks like. King over his people, he stoops to wash his disciples' feet, even Judas's.

So contrast that to Julius Caesar. This is Julius Caesar's motto, "Veni vidi vici," meaning, "I came, I saw, I conquered." And Julius Caesar did just that. Like many other Roman emperors and generals, he was skilled in warfare.

Stories are of him crucifying his enemies, which is the most painful and horrendous death that a person could die. Something that in polite Roman society, you wouldn't even mention by name, crucifixion. It was too obscene.

But Caesar conquered, crushed under those iron-shod Roman sandals his enemies and even his people. He ruled with an iron fist.

The reason he died is because senators rebelled against him, stabbed him on the Senate floor because he was taking too much power on himself. Very powerful.

Contrast that to Jesus, the servant king, the one who said, "I didn't come to be served, but to serve." So another point I want to make about this Jesus' kingdom as he is king of his people. And this ties into his servant king persona.

No, persona is not right. The reality that Jesus was a servant as well as a king, stooping from his exalted position to become a man and even to be a servant and serve his own disciples who you would think should be washing his feet rather than Jesus washing theirs.

But what goes along with that is in most kingdoms of the world, citizens, there's two ways that a person normally would be a citizen of a kingdom. And one, like in the Roman Republic or sorry, the Roman Empire, is by conquest. So a person, if you lived on the edge of the Roman Empire, say in a tribe along the edges of the empire, and a Roman general decided it was to his best interest or to the empire's best interest that you became and your tribe became part of the empire, you had no say in the matter. You would be crushed under the might of Rome, that just the unconquerable, unstoppable war machine that with their just, yeah, they had perfected the art of war and perfected their weaponry, perfected their strategy to a point where they were basically unstoppable.

And you would be crushed. You would be conquered. And you would become a maybe not a full citizen with the you may not become a full citizen with the blessings of being that, if you can call a Roman citizenship a blessing.

You would be a subject, in fact.

So thinking about the other world that Jesus is stepping into, which is the Jewish world. And in the Jewish world, while they didn't have a kingdom at this point in history, what was most important was who your parents were. So you were either born into this world of being a Jew or you were not. You were either one of the chosen ones or you were not based on who your parents were, based on who you were born to. And there again, there was no you have no say in the matter.

But Jesus' kingdom is a kingdom that's based on citizens being freely and by their own choice part of this kingdom.

Jesus talks about this in John chapter 3 when he tells Nicodemus who comes to him and wants to talk about how impressive Jesus is. And Jesus wants to talk about how you get into the kingdom. And he says, "Unless you are born of water and of the Spirit, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God." So it is necessary to be born into the kingdom of God.

There's no naturalization. You can become a citizen in the United States. But it's not because of natural birth. And it is a new birth. And Jesus talks about that. He says, "Unless you are born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of God."

So that new birth, as Jesus says, through the water and the Spirit, is the entrance into the kingdom. Now, I talked about what we think about when we think about the gospel. And in the evangelical world that we're immersed in, many of us, the new birth is often presented as the gospel, as the epitome of the gospel. And I'd like to point out that the new birth, being born anew from above, is the entrance to the kingdom. It is very important because it's the way you get into the kingdom. But just as important is being Jesus' subject, letting Jesus be king.

And because a person, when he rebels against Jesus' authority, exits the kingdom and loses his citizenship. So Jesus has something to say about this. He was talking to the Jews who felt superior. I mean, they were the chosen ones.

They were the ones to whom the kingdom was given. And they were waiting for their Messiah. But there was no doubt that they were the chosen ones. They weren't the Gentile dogs, after all. But Jesus says in the parable of the tenants, where Jesus gives the parable, and he says that the farmer has leased his vineyard to tenants, and the tenants, and he sent someone to take messages to them, sent prophets, and they stoned the prophets and sent them away and did that a couple of times. Then Jesus says, the king says, "I'll send my son. Surely they'll respect him."

When they see the son coming, they say, "Look, there's the heir. We'll kill him, and then we can inherit the kingdom." And they killed him. And Jesus says, "In effect, these people will have the kingdom stripped from them." And he actually says to the Jews then, in explaining this, he says, "Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it."

Fruit-bearing is not only important, but it is necessary to be in Jesus' kingdom. And so obedience is required. But obedience is never forced in Jesus' kingdom. Always required, but never forced.

So that brings us to the next section.

I'd like you to go along with me to a place known as the Gates of Hades or the Gates of Hell. And this is in this is in the region of Caesarea Philippi. Someone has called this Jesus' graduation speech to his disciples, the graduation speech for his disciples.

And so Jesus is going to Caesarea Philippi. This was a place no good Jew would go because it was a very simple place. It was immersed in a local Greek culture and Greek mythology and religion. And this place here, you can see in this picture a cave in the background. And out of that cave, at least at that time, flowed a spring of water, which actually was the source of the Jordan River. This is Mount Hermon, the base of Mount Hermon. And this cave was known in the local religion as the Gates of Hades.

They believed that the gods and goddesses lived underground at least part of the year. And they came out through this opening in the earth. And it was the center for lots of ungodly and filthy orgies and actions in worship of these gods, most notably Pan, the god Pan.

This is a place, like I said, no good Jew would go because of the associations of it. But Jesus took his disciples there. And they're probably wondering as they're going, "What in the world are we doing here in Caesarea Philippi after all the whole things?" Jesus takes them to this place, and he says and scripture doesn't say exactly where he stood, but you could put yourself here on the edge of this rock here. He's standing on this rock, saying to them, talking to his disciples, and he says, "Who do people say that I am?"

And they said, "Well, some say that you're John the Baptist. Some say you're Elijah. Some say you're one of the prophets. Come back." And Jesus says to them, "But who do you say that I am?"

And Peter often answers, and he says, "You are the Christ," or you could put the king, "You are the king, the son of the living God." And implied in that is that Jesus is the son of the living God, not of these dead gods that are worshipped here.

And Jesus answers and says, "Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonas. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." And he is affirming Peter's statement, recognizing Jesus as king.

And he says to Peter, "I say, you are Peter. On this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." And so in one of the most wicked places on earth, Jesus is saying, "On this rock, I will build my church." And there's lots of disagreements about what he meant.

He also changed Peter's name to Rock or Little Rock. But I think the context and the location makes this a powerful statement. "On this rock, I will build my church." Now, he's using the word church here, not kingdom.

But church comes from the Greek word ecclesia. And that word ecclesia means the ones who are called out. And as Brother John Demart has said various times, the ones who have been called out to rule. And they are ones who are ruling under the authority of King Jesus in his kingdom, co-rulers with him. So that's what's included in that word that is translated here as church. "I will build my church. I will build my kingdom." I don't think it would be a bad way to say it either. "The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."

So Jesus is coming as king over his enemies. That's what's coming. We're transitioning into that, not only king of his people, but king over his enemies.

Here in this hostile territory, the center of the worship of the god Pan, very ungodly, very ungodly place, pagan shrines, and where this annual festival with orgies and other foul acts.

He says, "I will build my church." He's still creating here on this place where this hostile, one of the most hostile spots that they'd ever known, this rock, he says. That in its own in the niches of the rock, there's those you saw in that picture, there's those niches where images of gods were kept and worshipped.

Jesus' king over his enemies. Now, talking about a king and how he relates to enemies, there's this little story I want to bring that relates to one of the kings we talked about earlier. This is called the Gunpowder Plot. And this was during the reign of King James, 5th of November, 1605. This man by the name of Guy Fawkes and some other co-conspirators didn't like King James. Guy Fawkes was Catholic. King James was not. And they wanted to overthrow him and like the king. They were treason. This was an act of treason they carried out or tried to carry out. And they were traitors.

And what they did is they rented a cellar beneath the House of Lords, which was where the parliament met, stashed 36 barrels of gunpowder under there, which was more than enough to blow the whole building and everyone in it sky high and just kill everyone.

Some authorities got wind of what was going to happen, and they arrested Guy Fawkes as he's down in this cellar guarding these barrels of gunpowder.

So as you can well imagine, they were arrested, and they were tried and sentenced to death. And they were sentenced to the exemplary and gruesome death that was used for someone who committed treason against the king. And they were hung and drawn and quartered. And that was a very shameful way to die. Hanging was more common. The drawing would have been dragged behind horses, I think, on the way to hanging.

And then they were quartered. They were actually cut to pieces. Their bodies were cut to pieces and sent to different parts of the kingdom as a gruesome

picture of what will happen to people who do things like this. If you commit treason against the king, you will die, and your body will be dismembered, and you'll be sent as an example to other people. This is what happens to traitors. That's how kings treat traitors.

That's how kings treat their enemies. And I think that's an impressive picture of the difference between King James and King Jesus.

So as we read there from that passage, Jesus says the gates of Hell or the gates of Hades will not prevail against his church. Maybe we'll just go back to that picture and that scripture, thinking forward into Jesus being king over his enemies, Jesus conquering.

And I want you to think about what a gate is for. And gates in this context would have been probably thinking about gates of a city or a castle. And so gates are a defensive element, right? It is something to keep things out. It is a way for someone inside the city or the castle to control outsiders, mostly.

It can also be used to keep things in. But gates are a defensive element. And Jesus is not telling his disciples, "You're going to be able to build a strong. We're going to build a strong kingdom, and its gates will be so strong that the enemy will not be able to overcome us." No, he's actually saying this in an offensive way. This is an offensive marching orders that Jesus is giving to his disciples. And he's saying the gates of Hell or the gates of Hades, the fortress of the enemy will not be able to resist the advance of my kingdom. I will build my church. And so Jesus is giving not a defensive position for his kingdom, but an offensive in conquering his enemies.

So how did Jesus conquer his enemies? Like I said, not like was done to Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators who were hung there on a quarter.

The only blood that Jesus spilled was his own.

So we have this king over his enemies. Jesus is being accused. This is at the end of his life. This is the Jews. He's been accused before the Jews, been before their tribunal, and they take him to Caesar or to Pilate.

And they accused him, saying, "We found this fellow perverting the nation, forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying he himself is Christ the king." He's saying he's a king. They're equating Christ and the king. So we have Pilate here, and he's speaking with Jesus.

And Jesus is before Pilate in this famous scene. And Jesus is asked by Pilate, "Are you the king of the Jews?" And Jesus is like, "Well, did you get this for yourself? Did someone tell you about this?" And Pilate's like, "Your own nation and chief priest delivered you to me. What have you done?" And Jesus says, "My kingdom is not of this world."

He says, "If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, but I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here." So Jesus is making a statement about the reality of his kingdom and about how he operates and how he controls and conquers.

And Pilate, I don't think Pilate gets it. He says, "Are you really a king then?" And Jesus says, "You say rightly I'm a king. For this cause I was born, for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." And then Pilate and Jesus have this interchange about. And Pilate's like, "So what is truth then?" Because Pilate lived in a world where might makes right. That was the epitome of the Roman Empire. I mean, if you have the power, you set the rules. You say what's right and wrong.

And to Pilate, whoever is powerful has the truth, has the corner on truth. And they can make truth fit what they want it to. They can massage the truth, as we say today, or they can outright lie and say, "Well, that's the right." It's different.

And Jesus says, "My kingdom is based on truth." He says, "For this cause I have come into the world." Jesus' kingdom is based on truth, and it's using different methods to conquer his enemies rather than using physical force.

The mode of power behind Jesus' kingdom is not brute force that the Romans knew. It's not manipulation. But the mode of power of Jesus' kingdom is suffering love. And Jesus proved that as he conquered his enemies. So we have this going on in the story. We have Jesus being crucified.

We have the soldiers. They put this crown on Jesus' head. It's thorns. It's a mockery of a crown. But they're saying, "Hey, he says he's a king. We'll make him a king." They put a robe on him, and it's a royal robe. And they give him this fake scepter to hold and say, "Hey, oh, king of the Jews." And they spit on him and mock him. And there's this intense mockery, and there's this intense focus on this idea of kingship. And I think the gospel writers were inspired to do that, to show Jesus' kingship coming together here in what looks like the ultimate tragedy, the ultimate loss of any kingship. So the Romans had perfected this instrument of torture, crucifixion.

The Romans, yeah, had perfected this method of death. And so they put him on the cross, nail him to the cross, hanging there in shame and agony. And there's this signboard above his head that says, written in three languages. Everyone can read it: Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. "Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews."

And in this mockery and insult, the Romans did what Romans always do to people who thought they were a messiah, people who claimed to be a king. They used their most powerful weapon, and that was death. And they crucified Jesus of Nazareth and with that put to rest this king.

"Obey, fall into line, or die." And that's been the most powerful weapon that an empire, kingdom, has ever been able to use, kingdoms of this world. They thought they put this king under. But as you know the story, the grave could not hold him. He conquered death. And Apostle Paul, writing to the saints at Colossi, wrote there that I have on the bottom. That's from Colossians. It says, "You were dead in your trespasses, but God has made you alive together with Christ." And he wiped out the handwriting requirements that was against you.

He says he nailed it to his cross. And having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. And so what looked like the greatest defeat in all of history to Jesus' disciples as they stood around there but looked like the end was God turned around to raise King Jesus from the dead and triumph over his enemies in a powerful, unstoppable way. I mean, if you can't kill someone, what are you going to do?

And Jesus proved himself once again as conquering king. And he's still doing that, proving himself as king not only over creation, but king over his people and king over his enemies. And I guess the question for myself and for all of us is, so what does that mean for me?

Jesus, who came as king, is he king of your life? Is he king of my life? Thank you.

Does anyone have questions or comments for this time?

Yes. Thank you, Brother Wendell, for sharing. I did have a question. And that is, so you talked about how the word gospel, as we know it now, is more like a church term. But originally, it was a political term about proclaiming a new king's arrival. And the initial message of Jesus and the initial message of John the Baptist was, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." So those thoughts, it seems like the original audience would have heard a message that strongly resonated with them, like they understood these meanings. But where we live today, there is no king, and this nation is not called a kingdom. So if I were to tell my neighbors, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," it's not going to sound like it did to the original audience.

It's going to sound strange to modern ears and very foreign, and it won't have the same impact. So the question is, how can we better communicate Jesus' kingdom in today's world? Yeah. Thank you, Glenn. That's a good question. And I'm not sure that I have a good answer for it, but some thoughts.

So we don't experience kingdom in the same way. And it's a different way of thinking than what we live in, a democratic republic that we live in the United States or many countries of the world are today.

I think one point of connection is that I think we all, no matter where we live, feel the need for a hero. There's this thing of hero worship, and people have their idols, whether it's a sports idol or an entertainment figure or a politician.