"The Glorious Majesty of His Kingdom" by Leo Eby

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

Okay, so it is, um, about 6:01 in the morning. So welcome, everybody, this morning to, um, Strength to Strength. If you would, uh, mute your devices, that would be, um, helpful. And, um, so this morning we're looking forward to hearing about, um, hearing from Leo about the kingdom. So, uh, Leo, if you want to maybe just, um, introduce yourself, and, uh, then the time is yours.

All righty. Well, good morning, everyone. Um, my name is Leo Eby, like has already been introduced, and, um, I'm a, I'm a lumberman by trade and a Christian by, uh, by profession. So, uh, that sort of introduces me without going into another hour long, uh, introduction. So we'll just skip that part. So, uh, this morning I would like to, uh, share a while on the, uh, glorious majesty of His kingdom, and I'm launching that off of Psalm 145, um, verse 10. Can everybody hear me okay?

Yep. All thy works shall praise Thee, O Lord, and Thy saints shall bless Thee. They shall speak of the glory of Thy kingdom and talk of Thy power, to make known to sons of men His mighty acts and the glorious majesty of His kingdom. Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion endures unto all generations.

So that's kind of where I'm launching my inspiration from this morning, and I'd like to begin with a prayer. Um, so I'll just minute I'll pray. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.

Give us our debtors as we forgive our—give us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.

In 1 Chronicles 29, verse 11, we have this verse: "Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is Thine.

Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalted as Head above all."

So when we think of the kingdom of God, I don't know what everybody thinks of the kingdom of God, but, um, in the—in the Gospels, we have this sudden announcement by John the Baptist and by Jesus himself that the kingdom of God had arrived.

And what a strange message, because this message landed right squarely in the kingdom of God.

The idea of the kingdom of God was not a new idea. And, um, there, uh, in Exodus, for instance, 19:6, we have that God said that there were to be a kingdom of priests. And you've got the concept of them being an evangelistic kingdom in the world that they found themselves in.

And all through the—the—the in Deuteronomy 17, 18, and 20, all through 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, the idea and the concept of the kingdom was saturated there.

Psalm 22:28, "For the kingdom is the Lord's, and the government governs among nations." Psalm 45:6, "Thy throne of God is forever and forever. The scepter of Thy kingdom is the scepter is a right scepter." And that whole idea of a scepter comes out in Hebrews chapter 1 as well.

And, um, there's scores of references of a—of the concept of a kingdom in the Old Testament. And, um, so the—this—the kingdom, the glory of this kingdom was exposed to the world around them in the fact of their peculiar laws, their tabernacle, their temple.

And they were a—a, uh, a light to the world around them in which they lived. When I think of the kingdom, I—I—I like to think of it in this way. I like to think of the concept of the kingdom bef—was—was before the creation in the Godhead community. The conception of the kingdom in Genesis 3:15, in—in bronze form of the kingdom in the covenant people at Mount Sinai and at the, um, at the, uh, the birth of the kingdom, at the incarnation of Christ, we see a—a very paradigmic shift in what the kingdom of God is like.

And then we have the consecration of the kingdom at the cross. We have the confirmation of the kingdom at the resurrection, and we have the maturity of the kingdom in the church age. And we have the full maturity of the kingdom in the new heaven and new earth. Amen.

So, um, when Jesus and when John the Baptist and—and Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand," there was a—a—a sense of change in the air. There was something different about this message that got the attention of the hearers. Because, like I said, there was a kingdom here. So what was Jesus referring to when He said, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand"?

There was a—years ago, there was an airline that had this, uh, saying that for advertisement that said, "The difference between a little bit and a whole lot is not as great as the difference between a whole lot and just a little bit more." Now, that might not seem like it said anything, but when you think about that, the little bit more that Jesus brought to the world, the difference was greater than what the greatness was before.

Amen. It's a little bit like the difference between 211 degrees and 212 degrees when it comes to water. There is suddenly a change in the paradigm. There is a change in, uh, meticulous structure. And, um,

this—this—this glory and this majesty that we want to talk about this morning is—is not always so obvious. And, um, it takes the, um, it takes a new birth experience so that our eyes can see. Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Unless you're born again, you cannot see or understand the kingdom of God. Neither can you enter into the kingdom of God unless you've been born again."

It reminds me of the story of Elisha the prophet and his serv—and his servant. And they woke up one morning, and the Syrian army had surrounded the city. And the servant of Elisha cried out and said, "What shall we do?" And Elisha prayed for his servant that his eyes would be opened so that he could see.

And his eyes were opened, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire. Amen. And that's the kind of experience that a person needs to see or understand the kingdom of God.

I have a little story I want to tell. In our community, because I'm a lumberman by trade, this story has a, a significant meaning to me. In our community, back in the '50s, there was a man by the name of John Davis who had a sawmill.

And incidentally, he built his sawmill directly over a stream. And maybe if you're not a sawmiller, you don't know what the significance of that is. But the idea was of having the sawmill over the stream was so that he didn't have to get the sawdust out from underneath the sawmill. The stream of water took the saw—sawdust away. Now, that wouldn't work very well in our day and age with environmental protection and things, but back in the '50s, that worked. That was a very practical way to get the sawdust out from underneath the sawmill.

Well, Mr. Davis was a very particular man, so much so that he went to work in dress-up clothes every day. He ran sawmill in dress-up clothes. He wore a, a white shirt. He wore a black derby hat. He had, uh, cufflinks on his sleeve.

And, um, you would have thought he was going to church.

Not only was Mr. Davis a very particular, well-groomed man, but he was very habitual in the way he did things.

And exactly at noon every day, he would shut his sawmill down, and he would get his stool out. And those of you that know anything about a circular sawmill know that, uh, you sit down beside your saw, and you sit on a stool, and you rotate your saw, and you sharpen those bits. You swedge it, and then you file each tooth.

And while he sharpened his saw, he would get his lunchbox out and have his lunch. He also had a pet crow named Gus.

Gus knew Davis's habits every day, and so he was prepared when the—came for lunchtime and shut down. Gus would fly in underneath the roof and sit right down on the—on one of the teeth of the saw. And Davis—Mr. Davis would feed this pet crow tidbits out of his lunchbox.

And Gus and Mr. Davis were the best of friends. And so when he turned his saw to sharpen the next tooth, the crow would hop back a tooth. And so he would just keep doing that until he was done.

And when he was done, the crow would fly away. One day, Mr. Davis, uh, had a neighbor show up. He wanted him to saw some lumber for a barn that he was building. And, uh, his neighbor was in a hurry. And lunchtime came, and they weren't done.

So his neighbor talked Mr. Davis into working through the lunch hour to get his lunch—his log sawed so that he could be on his way.

Well, when 12 o'clock came, guess what? Gus thought it was lunchtime.

And he flew in underneath the roof, and he landed on the saw like he always did before.

He was gone.

Mr. Davis was so upset with the experience that he—he, uh, shut his sawmill off and said, "I wouldn't have killed Gus for all of my neighbor's logs."

And the reason I'm telling this story is that Gus didn't perceive that there had been a change in the saw—sawmill paradigm for that day, and he was destroyed by it. And the same thing can happen in this change of paradigm in the kingdom of God. If we don't perceive that something has changed, it's going to destroy us.

I want to read—uh, I'm going to be turning to a lot of scriptures this morning. Isaiah chapter 9, verse 7, I want to read.

So bear with me.

Isaiah chapter 9, verse 7 says, "Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts perform this."

Isaiah 37, verse 16.

"O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, that dwells between the cherubim, Thou art the God, even Thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth, Thou hast made in heaven and earth."

This kingdom, of course, we have the—the references of Daniel and his references of this coming kingdom, of which will be set up in the latter days, of which there will be no end.

Of course, with any kingdom, to have a kingdom, you must have a king/lord. You must have—you must have subjects. You must have a domain, and you must have laws. And, uh, in Psalm 24,

we have this question. The psalm says, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in." Who is this King of Glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle. "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in." Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of Glory. Selah.

Now, fast forward. How are we going to answer this question?

God the Father had one of His best kept secrets for many years and millennials. You know how it is as a dad when you have a secret in the household, and the secret involves the family, but you can't let the family know what the secret is.

But you're so ecstatic about the—the, uh, the secret that you have that you can't help but leave clues out of your mouth once in a while. That's the way God the Father works. All through that history, uh, He would continually give tidbits of clues of what His best kept secret was. That best kept secret was revealed at the incarnation of God Himself in the birth of Jesus Christ.

In Matthew 2, verse 2, we have this question, "Where is He that is born King of the Jews?" Mm-hmm. And, um, and we have this incarnation of God Himself, and we have this sudden paradigm change. We have God with us in a way that was never way that way before. So we have this beautiful story of the Christmas story and the—the light that was brought into the world and the hope that was brought into the world. And, um, and, uh, the—the—the beginnings of a light and a kingdom and a glory and a majesty that here too far had not been.

Amen.

Matthew chapter 12, verse 42, Jesus references the—the Queen of the South. And we remember the story of Solomon and his kingdom and all his glory and his majesty. And the—the—the news of his glory went out throughout all the earth. And we have this Queen of Sheba traveling all this distance to come to visit Solomon with all her questions, bringing gifts for Solomon.

And when she came, she said, "Have I not been told about the glory of this kingdom?"

And she said, "Solomon answered all her questions." And he sent her away with gifts. And Jesus picks up this. He said, "The Queen of South came to see Solomon." And he said, "Behold, a greater than Solomon is here." What a contrast. We have—we have Solomon in all his glory, his throne, the temple. We have the—the display of the laws of God at work. His servants were happy.

There was abundance. There were riches like never had been seen before. And yet Jesus said that a greater than Solomon was here.

And he said that in judgment, the Queen of the South was going to rise up and condemn this generation for not acknowledging the glory that was in Jesus Christ.

In John 18, verse 36 and verse 37, Jesus made this statement, "My kingdom is not of this world." Pilate said, "Art thou then a king?" In John 19:19, he said, "Behold your king." And they said, "We have no king but Caesar."

So we have the—the, uh, this contrast of a king who was humiliated, who was tormented, who was abused, beaten, and he stands before a governor of this world. What a contrast. What a clash of kingdoms.

Who are the subjects of this kingdom? Jesus said, "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Luke chapter 12, verse 32.

This kingdom has unique discipleship, unique citizenship. Matthew 16:24. Um, if any man will be my disciple, first he has to deny himself, take up the cross, and follow me. Furthermore, in Luke 14:26, he said, "Unless a man hates his father and his mother and his wife and his son and his daughter, yea, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

Romans 10:9, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and shalt believe in thy heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

Jesus in John said, "Repent." Those that are of these disciples must repent. They must receive the new birth. They must have their eyes enlightened. They must walk in discipleship. In Colossians 1:16, there's a translation that happens.

Who has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear son?

Where does the domain of this kingdom? It goes to the uttermost parts of the world. A kingdom made up of every tribe and nation and language. Wherever the gospel of this kingdom is preached, that is the domain. This kingdom has unique laws.

Jesus came preaching the kingdom of heaven. He said, "If it hath been said, but I say unto you." Isaiah prophesied of this situation. He said, Isaiah chapter 2, verse 3, Isaiah 42:4. He said that out of Zion shall come a law. Why would Isaiah say that there was going to be a law come out of Zion when there was already a law given at Mount Sinai?

The Sermon on the Mount defines the ethics and the laws of this glorious kingdom. The teachings of Jesus have brought the whole world into a new accountability like never before. We cannot shrug or shake it off. Jesus has robbed humanity of their lack of knowledge of the glorious kingdom of God.

The world will never be the same again.

The best example of righteousness by the letter is embarrassed by the simplest example of the mind of Christ.

We are present. We are living in the presence of the future, like George Ladd says.

The next thing I'd like to do is there's a beautiful illustration in the creation that I would like to take a look, take a brief moment and compare with the glory of the kingdom of God in Genesis chapter 1. I discovered this when I was studying my Sabbath day, Lord's Day subject many years ago, and this this concept has blessed me ever since. And I would like to read in Genesis chapter 1, verse 14. It says, "And God said, 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years.

And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,' and it was so." Now listen carefully. Verse 16, "And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night, and he made the stars also.

And God sent them in the heaven, and pardon me, in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide light from darkness, and God saw it in his vision."

Now hold hold that thought a little bit. And if I'm going to go to 2 Corinthians chapter 3, we want to look at this glory and how God divided light from darkness and how God is bearing rule in the earth.

2 Corinthians chapter 3, I'm going to read this section, and I want you to pick out the words that represent this glorious kingdom and its laws. Verse 3, "For as much as ye are manifestedly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, written in not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart. In such trust have we through Christ to God, not that we should be sufficient in ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who has also made us to be able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit.

For the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." Listen carefully. "But if the ministration of death, written in grave and stones, was glorious so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more does the ministration of righteousness exceeding glory. For even that which was made glorious hath no glory in this respect by the reason of the glory that excelleth.

For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious." Seeing then, we have such hope. We use great plainness of speech, but not as Moses, which put a veil over his face that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look at the end of that which was abolished. But their minds were blinded, for unto this day remains the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ.

Even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now the Lord is at Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

I'm trying to identify the paradigmic change that happened at the incarnation of God himself and the glory that followed. So much glory that it eclipsed the glory from before. And what I want to compare to is these two bodies that God created in the creation, the sun and the moon. We know that the moon has no light of its own.

It borrows or reflects the light from the sun. It's the exact same way in the New Testaments and the versus the Old Kingdom and the New Kingdom. The reason the Old Testament and the Old Covenant had any light at all is because it was reflecting the greater light, which was going to come over the horizon in Christ Jesus.

So God has established these two lights. The administration, both administrations had glory, but the administration of the Spirit so outdid the other administration that it disappeared and swallowed it up. There was so much glory in this administration. And this is the glory that so many people in the world miss in the kingdom of God, that it eclipses and swallows up Moses and all that glory.

Amen.

So anyway, um, the next one I want to pull out, I'd like to go to, uh, Ephesians chapter 3 and look at some more of this glory that is used in this language here. Ephesians chapter 1.

Oh, before I go there, I wanted to mention something in, in, uh, in relation to that glory in the veil that Moses had to put over his face when he came out off the mountain versus the glory of Jesus and his kingdom. And I would like to read the comments that first that Peter makes in 2 Peter chapter 1, uh, uh, verse 16, "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For he received from God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice from him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I'm well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy whereunto ye do well to take heed as unto a light that shineth into a dark place unto the day dawn and the day star rising your hearts."

Peter is identifying the glorious magnification of the, of the, on the mount of transfiguration that he, that Peter, James, and John witnessed. And he's saying that this glory of this word outstrips the glory that he saw in Jesus on the mount. That's a stretch of our imagination, but I see glory there.

Now I want to turn to Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 17.

These words here have been part of my heart for a long time. And I, I'd like to say it by memory that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and what is his exceeding greatness of his power to us according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that world which is to come.

And has put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over the body, the church which is his body, the fullness of him who filleth all and all. Those words exalt the glory and the majesty that is with Jesus in his kingdom.

In chapter 3, he says, "For this call, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all things what is the breadth and the length and the depth and the height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth now, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. Now unto him who's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end."

This more scripture that lifts up the glory and the majesty. I'd like to take you to, uh, John chapter 11. This is another, uh, scripture that I find very interesting. And we don't see a lot of words about glory and magnification here, but the context of it exposes it. And this, this, this part of John chapter 11 that I'm going to read is in starting at verse 6. Pardon me, verse 46 was right after the raising of Lazarus from the dead. And Jesus was getting a lot of fame and, and exposure for this resurrection of Lazarus.

And what comes next just amazes me. And it, it, it, it has the foundation of my, of my eschatology of understanding who Jesus was in his kingdom. But listen to what these rulers and the chief priests happened to say.

"But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees and told them what things Jesus had done." Now he had just raised Lazarus from the dead. "Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council and said, 'What do we for this man do with many miracles?'" Now here's the conclusion.

So pay attention to this. "If we let this man thus alone, if we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him, and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and our nation." What insight. These are people that were not believers, but they had the, they had enough perception to know that Jesus as a king and a kingdom was a direct threat to their national identity. Amen. Preach it, brother.

And they said, "Something has to change. This man's understanding and preaching of the kingdom of God is going to destroy us." And one of them, named Caiaphas, uh, being the high priest that same year said unto them, "Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people and that the whole nation perish not." And this spake he not of himself, but being the high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in the one the children of God that were scattered abroad.

To me, that's an amazing eye opener to an unbeliever's perspective of Jesus' kingship and his kingdom and the threat that he was to national Israel. And I would like to turn to Matthew chapter 21 next. Matthew chapter 21, Jesus makes an astonishing statement to his listeners that day. In chapter, uh, Matthew 21, verse 20, 42, "Did ye never read in the scriptures, 'The stone which the builders reject did the same as become the head of the corner? This is the Lord's doing, and it's marvelous in our eyes.'" Watch out what comes next. "Therefore I say unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth fruits thereof."

Wow.

Wow.

"And what whosoever," listen to this, "whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, broken. But on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to power." This is the accountability that the kingdom of God that was ushered in by Jesus himself in his kingdom.

The world will never be the same place. The world will never be ignorant of the kingdom of God. And our accountability is attached to that. Just like Moses prophesied way back in Deuteronomy chapter 8, that there was going to be a prophet king arise like unto him. And whatever he says, you are accountable to, summarizing it in my words.

Matthew 8, verse 12, another astonishing statement that Jesus made about the kingdom.

But he said, this is right after the, the, uh, the, uh, the centurion expressed his faith. And he said, "Verily I found no such, no not found such great a faith, no not in Israel. And I say unto you that the many shall come from the east and west and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Astonishing words. Astonishing words.

Hebrews chapter 2. I'd like to briefly touch that. Oh, pardon me. Hebrews 1 first. Hebrews 1. Hebrews 1 says, "Who being in the brightness of his glory and the expressed image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels that he had by an inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they."

Hebrews chapter 2, verse 2, accountability to the words of Jesus. "For if the words spoken by the angels were steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompensable reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which at first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him?

God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts from the Holy Ghost according to his own will." Hebrews chapter 13.

Another amazing contrast here. Hebrews chapter 13, verse 25, "See that you refuse not him that speaketh." For referring to Jesus. "For if they escape not him who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven."

His voice then shook the earth, but now he promised saying, "Yet once more I not I shake not only the earth but also heaven." And this word, "Yet once more," signifying the removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made, that these things which cannot be shaken shall may remain.

Wherefore, receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for God is a consuming factor. What I find so amazing about this, this word picture here is that he refers to God speaking at Mount Sinai as speaking from the earth. And he refers to Jesus as speaking from heaven.

And in my natural way of thinking, I think of it in the opposite way. I think of God coming down on Mount Sinai and speaking from earth. Oh, no, speaking from heaven, pardon me. And when Jesus came, he spoke from earth.

But this writer is saying it's the opposite way.

So what time is it? It's 6:45. I need to wrap this up. So

Jesus and his kingdom was God the Father's best kept secret. Jesus isn't a factor in the redemptive kingdom. He is the sum of the redemptive kingdom.

Is there any threat to this kingdom? Is there any threat to rob Jesus of his glory and his majesty? Well, yes, there is. Of course, we have obviously Satan would like to rob Jesus of this glory and his majesty.

He would like to rob his dominion and destroy it, all its beauty and glory and magic majestical kingdom. But

rather, there's a more subtle threat to this glory and this majesty.

And that is Moses. Now, it's not that Moses himself was going to rob Jesus of his glory and majesty. No, not at all. In fact, it is Moses who was lifted Jesus up. And Jesus said, "And if I be lifted up, I would draw all men unto me." That's glorification.

But humanity has a particular problem. Both churched and unchurched would like to see Moses and his glorious kingdom and laws to stand in all its glory.

We as human beings want to see want Moses and his kingdom to be the sun. And we want Jesus and his kingdom to be the moon.

At the very least, we want them to share the glory together. But it cannot happen.

The glory of the kingdom of Jesus Christ must eclipse Moses. And Moses must defer as a servant in the house of God must defer to the Son of who's in the house of God. It must be that way.

We want Moses and Jesus to share the same throne, the same glory, the same power, and the same righteousness, but it's not to be had. And this is a very subtle way of robbing Christ of his glory and his majesty. Moses would not have it that way. But so often we are like the Pharisees. We approach Jesus with the attitude, "Moses said this, but what sayeth thou?"

Christians too often get it backwards. We want to die, pardon me, we want to live by the law and kingdom of Moses and die by the kingdom and law of Jesus. Not so. We must die by the kingdom and law of Moses and live by the kingdom and law of Jesus Christ.

So are we like gusts of crow? Are we perceptive that there has been a drastic paradigm change in the kingdom of God?

Will we be destroyed by the glorious majesty of this kingdom, or will we be blessed? Will we fall upon this stone Christ Jesus and be broken, or will it fall upon us and we'll be crushed?

I'd like to close with, uh, with the last verse in Jude.

"Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of the glory of his glory with exceeding joy to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty and dominion and power both now and forever."

Amen. Amen. Thank you, Brother Leo, for sharing. I really appreciate those thoughts. So we would like to, um, open it up here shortly for, um, questions and other thoughts and considerations. And, uh, maybe before we do that, uh, just one question to start off here, uh, with you, Leo. So I appreciated the, the thoughts. Um, everything that you framed there was about being a, a present kingdom, not a kingdom of the, the future. And, uh, you said that the, the one threat in this, uh, kingdom is, um, the glory, uh, being on Moses instead of on, on the Son of God, on Jesus Christ. What does that look like, uh, practically? Uh, what, what form does that take, uh, today in which that would be the case?

Very good question. And, um, well, those of you who know me the best know my keen interest in the subject of the Sabbath Day and the Lord's Day. And I guess I would just use that as a, a, uh, one of the most obvious ones and one of the most interesting ones to me. But it's, it, it happens in many other forms where we, we claim to be citizens of this kingdom, but in reality, we defend the righteousness of Moses in the sense of defending our own rights, which is very uniquely ruled out in Luke chapter 14, um, when Jesus said, "If you want to be my disciple, you have to hate father, mother, son, wife, daughter, gay all that you have essentially and your own life also."

And, uh, sometimes we, uh, we think of Job. We think of Job's situation where God stripped him of his, all his earthly possessions and his family and all his wealth. And he took away his health, and he was sitting in ashes trying to understand God. And we think, "My, that must be an, an unbearable situation." But when I consider the discipleship and the demands of the kingdom of God and Christ, I don't see a lot of difference.

Not only does Jesus ask for everything we got, my wife, my children, my possessions, and then he wraps it up and says, "Your own life also. You cannot be my disciple." That takes it one step further than what Job's experience was. And so, as a disciple of Jesus, there's a grieving process that starts when we confess that Jesus is Lord and when we repent of all our worldly mindedness and all of our affections and all of our right things in this world. When we give that up in exchange for Jesus and his kingdom, we begin to grieve. But it better prepares us for anything that Jesus asks of us. We should be the best prepared people in the world to lose our possessions, to lose our health, to lose our wife, to lose our family, and to give our own life in the, in the, in exchange for the kingdom.

Best people ever in the world should be prepared for that and sickness, by the way. And the list goes on and on as far as the, the, the, uh, claiming to be, or in the reality, we live by the righteousness of the Moses and, and hope to die by the righteousness and faith which we have in Jesus Christ. But that's not the way it works.

The righteousness and the, the Decalogue was designed for us to die by, for eye to the law and dead to the law. It was never designed for being a life giver. It was designed to, the Decalogue could only do one of two things. And that's either make us self-righteous or convince us that we are sinners in need of repentance. It can only do one thing, two of the, one of two things.

And there's, I've categorized in my own mind for my own sake of understanding that there's three groups of people in this world. You have the ungodly, you have the pagans who want to keep the idea of God the Father and God the Son in the background.

And that's one group. I call them the ungodly. And then you have the godly group, people that love God in the sense that every day they pray to him as a one singular God. Every day they understand that they're a sinner. They understand they need, somehow they need justification, but they don't believe that Jesus is the answer.

Now we have the third group is the Jesus godly people. Referring to the previous group, there's, there's millions of people in this world that fit that category.

And sometimes Christians even slip into that category. But then there is the Jesus godly group. The Jesus godly group understands that, that the old covenant and the kingdom that existed that did not have a circular eschatology to it, but rather was slung out of it into the fulfillment of Jesus Christ. And humanity has a struggle of going from the one to the other. And it's very explicit in the Gospels, the struggle the disciples had, the struggle of Nicodemus of understanding that he must be born again to see the kingdom of God.

And so this is, this is not peculiar only to Nicodemus. This is peculiar to humanity, the struggle of going from the righteousness of Moses' kingdom to the righteousness of Jesus' kingdom. But we do have the testimony of two individuals who flew, flowed smoothly from the old covenant to the new covenant, from the old kingdom to the new kingdom, from the Old Testament into the New Testament. And that was, we have the testimony of Simeon and Anna.

Amen. This is a beautiful picture of people whose eschatological understanding and searching of the scriptures, their, their hermeneutical exegesis of their Old Testament scriptures allowed them to see Jesus for who he was. A rare gem, a flew, a smooth flow from one kingdom into another kingdom. I don't use it. Said to push star six and I put it in. So we have this beautiful picture of what it was like in the struggle of going from this kingdom to that kingdom.

And, um, I also wanted to reference, uh, John chapter 17. And John chapter 17, I just might want to turn there briefly. I won't take much time here. But this was one thing I forgot. In John 17, verse one, he said, "Father, the hour is come," referring to his crucifixion. "Glorify thy Son, that thy Son may also glorify thee." Now think about the glorification that was coming through the crucifixion.

We don't normally think of that as glory, but he perceived that as glory because he was doing the will of his Father. And as that come through, that come the resurrection. Through that we come through the ascension and his enthronement on high. Through that we have the giving of the Holy Spirit. And in John, in chapter 17, verse 22, he does, he makes another unique statement. He says, "And the glory which thou gavest me, I give them that they may be one even as we are one."

Another beautiful part about this glorious, glorious majesty of his kingdom is that he's sharing it with us. And he's sharing this glory with us. And I perceive that it was shared with us with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, when the gift of God of himself and the indwelling of God himself become implanted in us. We receive that glory. He shared his glory with us in that sense so that we can be partakers of that glory and of that kingdom and live in the presence of the future now, like George Ladd says.

Sorry about that.

Yes. Thank you very much for that. Uh, that's, uh, all very, very helpful, very, um, inspirational. All right. I'd like to open it up for other questions. We got a few minutes here. Um, who would have any questions or thoughts to share?

Leo, a little along the same line as Glenn's question there, you said that unchurched and churched alike both, um, gravitate toward the old kingdom of the old glory. Um, would you like to describe any more about how even unchurched people, um, go for that? Oh, yeah. I didn't think your question was going to go there, but I'm glad you did.

I thought you was going to put me in an awkward situation of trying to decide how church people do that.

Well, yes. Um, one of the things that was an eye opener to me is that I've witnessed the self-righteousness of ungodly people and unchurched people that know very little about the, the, um, the, the righteousness of the, of, of the old kingdom or the righteousness of Jesus' kingdom.

And, and, and it's, it seems to be obvious to me, and I, I have a person in mind right now that, that I work with. It seems obvious to me that even though they're not picking up the Bible and reading it, they know enough about the righteousness of God, which is implanted into their DNA, I guess their spiritual creation of DNA, to know the difference between right and wrong, enough so that they justify themselves in that.

And this is illustrated by an ungodly man that can point out the shortcomings of a Christian, even though he doesn't claim those ethics for himself.

And so I, I'm, I'm, uh, I'm fascinated with this, with this ability for an ungodly or an unchurched person to perceive what is right and wrong and also to justify himself in that, that I don't need the Lamb of God.

Mm-hmm. Thank you. Very interesting.

I really appreciate your analogies with the sun and moon. Uh, it's all very helpful. That has been such a blessing to me. I, I just, I just hope that I can articulate that well enough that somebody else can pick up on it. But the words that give it away in, in Genesis are the words rule.

He, he made the sun and the moon to rule over the day and the night. And of course, there's just oodles of scriptures that refer to the day and night analogy in the kingdom of God. You know, we're the children of light, not children of darkness.