By: General Jim Green (p. 22 in Issue Eleven of The Tribal Call)
All right, let’s start in Exodus. That’s our starting point or introduction to the message called, Jesus Our King. I felt today that I really wanted to talk about the King and the Kingdom of God. What is it? Who is He? Who are we? I want to give a little introduction here; it’s very short, but when you talk about a king and a kingdom, that’s a vast subject. And about all you can basically do is to break it down as small as you can and pick out the major points which I’ve done. When you talk about a major kingdom, be it four thousand years ago, six thousand years ago, or way back yonder in the Garden of Eden, you’re talking about Royal power, and you’re talking about Royal sovereignty. You’re talking about Royal reign and dominion. These are the things the word kingdom means. We’re going to get into some deeper subjects today, and when I’m done with these messages, we’re going to see if Jesus really is our King. Is He or is He not our King? I’m not going to cut any corners. We must face the issues: Is He really our King, or are we just going to play churchianity?
Go to Exodus 19. The background is the exodus from Egypt, and we find God speaking to His people through Moses. Let’s start in verse five. It says, “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed….” Notice, OBEY! “…and keep my covenant….”, obey and keep my covenant, “…then ye shall be a particular treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine.” Verse six, “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.” What I want to do is go way back, even before Saul was the first elected king by the people or king David was elected by God. Even before all that transpired, we see that God was telling His people that He wanted them to be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, and a peculiar people unto Him. He was talking about a Royal Kingdom of power, sovereignty, and dominion. Since God was going to be their King, He wanted each one of them to consider themselves as a priest and little king, answerable to His ultimate authority. When God delivered Israel from Egypt, His intention was that they would become a Theocracy, or a government ruled by God. I don’t think letting the people rule, like we see in our modem Democracies, is the best system. I think letting God rule over the people is the best! Spiritocracy! Or in other words, Theocracy—where God rules, where God is King, and where God reigns! If America, and the rest of the world as well, would let God really be God, then we would see a different world.
With that in mind, I want to go to 2nd Samuel, chapter 7. In verse 16, it says, “And thine house, thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.” He was talking about the throne, the kingdom of David that would be established for ever. And David was as we know, the first king elected by God. Saul was a king elected by the people, but his election wasn’t even God’s will because God wanted to be their King. He had done a good job of being their King, working through the prophets and priests that He ordained. He was the invisible King, a phantom King, but He was King! He was their SUPREME KING! God was the Ruler over all the kingdom of Israel, over all the tribes. He was their King, but then they got a strange notion. They looked around, craned their necks to the world, and saw the Canaanites, the Hittites, and the many other “ites” in the land. And all these “ites” had their own kings ruling over the people, and Israel said, “Hey, we want a king just like them.” Does that sound familiar today? Has history repeated itself? They were not happy with having God as their King; they wanted a visible, physical king. Well, they got one, and he was more than they bargained for.
Jumping on over to the New Testament days in which we live, we can find a very similar pattern. So many Christians are not happy with Jesus as their King, are they? Oh no, they have to go crane their necks and look out there, and say, “I wanna be like the world! I want to have this thing; I want to have that. I want to copy the world, but I want to have the Kingdom of God at the same time.” We say Jesus is our King, we say that God is our King, and yet we look to the heathen; we look to the world and worship it. We incorporate it’s ways, and formulate our organizations, and everything we do according to the standards and fads of the world. That’s what happened to Israel. Now remember, God said He was going to establish the kingdom of David forever.
Turn to Ezekiel 37:22. Here we find the prophet Ezekiel speaking many years after the verse we just read in 2nd Samuel. It says, “And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all.” After the reign of Solomon, Solomon’s sons had a fight to see who was going to be king, and they started hating each other, and the kingdom split. So you had two kingdoms divided. And those kingdoms, dear one, were divided for a long, long time. Divided kingdoms—they were fighting with each other. Does this sound familiar? Like many of the denominations and organizations we have today? Sounds familiar to me. Everyone was fighting over their kingdoms. Everyone was fighting over power. Untold suffering and terrible conflicts have occurred, all over the question of who is going to sit on the throne. That’s what happened when they rejected Theocracy and wanted a man to rule over them instead of God. The fight started, the split started, and the weakening started. And then, the former unified kingdom of Israel became two divided armies fighting each other, instead of fighting the enemies of God and driving the heathen out of their inheritance. Does that sound familiar?
You cant even count how many “church” organizations there are in America alone, and how many of them want their own little rule, want their own little kingdom, want their own little domain, and all the pastors and leaders want to sit on their thrones and play God. And all the while, the world, the flesh, and the devil is raiding the Christian camp, encroaching upon our land, and destroying our testimony in the eyes of the world. And the Christians are too busy squabbling over who’s going to be the greatest among themselves! Who’s the big preacher?! Who’s the big television star?! Who writes the most books?! Who’s on the radio the most?! Who can draw the most money or the most people in meetings?! Who can have the biggest crusades?! GARBAGE! You see what it’s done?! The same identical thing is happening now just as in the days that Ezekiel was prophesying. Pride, strife, envy, jealousy, and all nine yards of worldliness are there. In the day that Ezekiel was prophesying, he was talking about Jesus, the future King who was to come. He was speaking of a time when Jesus was going to do away with all other kingdoms and have one kingdom that was going to rule over all. Did they receive Jesus? Well, that starts me off on today’s message. Let’s look at it, and see what happened.
All right, we’ve laid down the foundation. The first point I want to talk about this morning is Jesus, King of the Jews. And why I want to start off there is because we’re dealing with a racial issue. Jesus became king of a particular race of people: the Jews. Let’s go to Matthew 1. I’m basically sticking to the New Testament because this is where most of my message is found. The question is: Is Jesus our King or not? Let’s just look and see. Back to Matthew Chapter 1, verse twenty one, “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” OK, what you have here is a new-born king in the making. In the Old Testament, the word Jesus was the word Joshua, and the word Joshua can be traced back to its meaning which is, Jehovah is Salvation, or Jehovah is Savior. So what it’s saying here is that Jesus is going to be the Savior, the Saving King. In other words, Jesus was going to save His people. Who were His people? We’ve already read about who His people were. Who were they? They were the tribes, the nation of Israel; that’s who His people were historically speaking. It wasn’t the heathen around about. Oh yes, God created those people also. They were people created in His image and likeness, but they went whoring after other gods and fell into idolatry, separating themselves from the Living God. So God decided to institute His laws and His covenants with a little group of people called Israel or the Hebrews, and with them, He started forming His nation. His tribes.
Now, let’s go to the book of Romans, Chapter 1. In verse sixteen, Paul is saying, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation unto every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” What I’m getting at is that Jesus went to the Jews first. He became their King first. He presented Himself to the land of Israel first to become their natural-born King and also their Spiritual King sent down from heaven—God’s only Son. He went to the Jews first. Now, it said that Paul went to the Greeks, and the Greeks were considered Gentiles. So, you’ve got the Jew first, then you’ve got the Gentiles, and that includes us, dear people. I’m happy about that. That we have been included to have Jesus as our King. All right, God said, “OK. If you reject me as your King, then I’ll give you a man to rule over you.” So what did the Jews do? They went ahead with their “religious” way of meeting God. But God had canceled it out; He had done away with it. He was bringing in a new Kingdom. He let them go on and have the reign and the rule of the Pharisees, the Scribes, the Chief Priests, and the great hypocrites. And where did it all end, may I ask you? What happened to them? It ended in a full blown rebellion, and it ended in a full blown siege by the Roman army. It ended in the full blown destruction of the nation of Israel. That was the end result.
I don’t have to be a prophet; I don’t even have to have common sense to tell you what’s going to happen to this nation today. I’m not talking about America. I’m talking about the Universal Christian Nation that calls itself God’s people or the Body of Christ. I don’t have to tell you where they are going to end up. You already know where they’re headed, if they don’t repent. They’re end is going to be destruction. And the reason they’re ending that way is because they are guilty of the same crimes against God that Israel was guilty of: rebellion, idolatry, and backsliding. Yet God is moving by His Spirit, right now, today! God is still moving out there among the churches that have been established by men, mostly greedy men, and He is looking for souls that are hungry for Him. He’s going to pull them out. He’s going to begin to save them from their personal sins and from the religious sin that they are sitting in called “Churchianity.” He’s going to begin to pull them out by His Spirit, and speak to their hearts, and let them see the hypocrisy, the slime that’s calling itself Christianity. He is going to pull those people out unto Himself by the Spirit, and He’s going to begin to form Himself up a new Tribe, a new Nation where He once again is King.
You say, “Well General, I don’t read that in the Bible.” I don’t care if you read it or not. It’s being done in the Spirit. The Bible does say that God is going to have a Spirit people. He doesn’t want a carnal people living like a bunch of hypocritical, sin-ridden idiots, sitting in some mortuary called a “church,” and having some preacher, who resembles an ice cube, giving them cold sermons. God is wanting His people on fire for Him! Hot all the way! Burning! Fire brands! But what do we see today? You’ve got little ice cubes sitting around. They could care less about souls. They could care less about their own soul! Their only concern is their own little kingdom—what they can get for themselves. They’re only concerned about their own little sphere of activity. And all the while, some man or woman rules and reigns over them.
Staying in Romans 2, look at verse 28 and 29. It says, “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outwardly in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter whose praise is not of men, but of God.” The point we’re getting at is that Jesus is still King of the Jews. Who is a Jew today? Who is a true Jew? Is it someone who lives in Israel? Is it those rebels over there in the land of Palestine? No way, dear one. It’s us, members of the Body of Christ. If we truly have been born again by His Spirit, we are the true Israel. We are the true Nation of God. We are the true Jews. We are His race. We are His people. We don’t need to go get circumcised in the flesh to prove that we are Jews. We don’t have to be of their blood. We should be asking what’s God doing among us real Jews, among us true Israelites? Is He still our King? Now, we looked in the last message at Galatians 3:28, and I believe we talked about the barriers that Jesus broke down. One of the walls He broke down was race. Jesus broke down the barriers of class, race, and sex. He broke down those walls.
Jesus is the King of the Jews, the King of the race of people called Israelites—the true Israelites, those born by the Spirit—not of men, not of blood, except His blood. If we look at this thing out there calling itself His people, I don’t see any difference between now and when the Jews were in full-blown rebellion way back in Saul’s days when they were committing all kinds of whoredoms and idolatry, and panting for some man and some system to rule over them. I hardly see any difference. I don’t see any difference between the period when they had other kings that came after Solomon, on down until the time when the kingdom was divided, and some of them went into deeper rebellion—Ahab and Jezebel, you remember them. They had no heart for the people, they had no heart for God, and they had no heart for His standards or His covenants. They hated anything that had to do with righteousness. They had no heart for it. They were wicked, yet they were rulers of Israel! I don’t see any difference between way back yonder and now. We’ve got the same thing; we’ve got a divided kingdom. We’ve got a kingdom of sincere people who want Jesus Christ to be their King. Then we have the majority, the bigger kingdom of the ten tribes rather than the two tribes, wanting a man to be in charge—be it one of their own, or some organization, or some dogma/doctrine, or something. The Catholic Church is a good example. They would rather have some Pope to be their king instead of Jesus. It’s the same thing! Then you’ve got these little kinglets built all over called denominations or organizations, and every little kinglet has a little king sitting there, a little priest doing these little things they call “serving the Lord.” They claim that they are serving the Lord, yet I don’t see any power. I don’t see any sovereignty; I don’t see any dominion. I don’t see Christ ruling in their midst—liars and hypocrites. We need to call the King back again. Right? We need to call Jesus back again!
Let’s look at point two: Jesus was King of Israel. Not only was He the King of the individual people called the Jews, but He was also King of Israel as a nation. First, you’ve got the racial aspect, and then the national aspect of Jesus’ reign. He was both an individual King and a national King. Many people understand that Jesus is King in a general sense, and they love to sing sweet songs about Him like “Oh, how we love Jesus,” and all this stuff. The question we are asking is do you really mean it when you say Jesus is your King? Or that Jesus is your Lord? Do we really mean it, or are we just singing sweet songs, singing like angels and living like devils? Is He really King of your space? Is He really King of your heart? Have you stepped down off the throne and let Him sit there and reign and rule your life? Come on! You say, “Quit joking, General. I want my dope, my drink, my sex, my music, my sports stars, and everything of the world. I want the Hittites, the Hivites, the Canaanites, the Jebusites, and the Sodomites—I want them all. I want them all! I want them, and I want to worship them. But, I love Jesus.” LIARS to the core! God help you and rescue you from your lies.
All right, let’s go back to Matthew. In Matthew chapter 2, verse 1, it says, “Now when Jesus was bom in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is bom King of the Jews?” Already you’ve got the beginnings of a clash here. You’ve got one king, already in power, and then you’ve got another King who has just been born. And the king in charge is very jealous, and he wants to know where this other King is so he could do away with him. Well right there, it tells you that Jesus is truly the King of Israel. He is the national King of the Jews, prophesied long ago by the prophets. The Jews believed it and were looking for the Messiah, but they couldn’t believe it was Jesus when He was born. They were looking for somebody else. It couldn’t be just this Jesus guy. I mean, come on, He’s not much of a King you know. He rides on that ass, He walks every where He goes, and He hangs around with a bunch of weirdos called disciples. He doesn’t have a place to live; He doesn’t even have a palace. He doesn’t have a mansion or a chariot with six white horses and gold rims on the tires. I mean, this can’t possibly be our King! Well, He wasn’t King to them, and they flatly rejected him. They were happy to settle for Herod, a proselyte king, ruling over them.
Now going to verse six of the same chapter, “And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Judah art not the least among the princes of Judah: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.” If you look up the word governor, it goes back to the word which means, to lead, to command with official authority. The Bible says back in the Old Testament that Jesus was going to be the Prince of peace. He was going to be all these things. It said the government was going to rest upon His shoulders—He was going to be the King! He was going to be the man in charge, the Official authority. May we ask, by who’s authority? By God’s authority! By Jehovah God’s authority! That’s who Jesus is going to have the authority from—from God—not from man, not from the Romans, and not even from Israel’s past history! Now, it says in Revelations 5 that Jesus is the Lion out of the tribe of Judah! And then in verse 9 it says, “And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.”
This proves once and for all that you don’t have to have the natural blood of the Israelites, the Jews, the Hebrews, in order to be one of God’s people. Forget about all that genetics business! It said He was going to redeem people out of all nations, kindreds, and tongues, and they were going to be a Tribe unto Him, and He was going to be their King. They were going to become little tribes and come into one big Tribe: that includes Jews, Gentiles, Greeks, all kinds of nationalities, and all kinds of colors. Ohh,…that’s going to hurt some people. This kind of truth will break down the racial barriers. Male and female? Ohh…it’s going to break down the sex barriers. Slaves and masters? Ohh…it’s going to break down the class barrier. The glorious truth is that we are all one in Him. Jesus is the central focus—not man, not race, not class, not male/female. He IS! When we talk about Jesus Christ being our King, do we really mean this? Like I said, if He is really our King, why do we have a million different denominations and organizations? Why do we even have men calling themselves the Messiah today? They claim to be Christians, of the Christian faith. Obviously, Jesus is not really their King.
My last point is that Jesus is the King of righteousness. Let’s turn to Revelations 15, reading in verse 3 it says, “And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.” In the Revised Version, it says, “King of the ages.” What you come up with when you put the two together is that Jesus was the King of the saints, through the ages, from the beginning, to the very end. He’s the King. Now listen, just because Israel did not, and still won’t accept Him, that has not done away with anything. It hasn’t dulled His sharpness. It hasn’t put a coldness on His fire. It hasn’t ever done away with any of His righteousness. It hasn’t tainted it at all. He’s still the same Pure, Holy, God of the ages, and He always will be. Men in their rebellion, men in their idolatry, have not changed one thing. They’ve already sealed their own damnation in hell fire.
Now, in Psalms chapter 2, let’s go back there a minute. In verse 6, it says, “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” This was king David speaking, who was already a King. He already sat up on Mount Zion; he was already the King of Israel. David was prophesying here, and he was putting forth the truth that God was going to set His King upon the holy hill of Zion. He could have been talking about himself, but he was looking beyond that. He was talking about Jesus, the real King, the predicted King of Ezekiel, of Jeremiah, and of all the prophets. David was prophesying that Jesus was going to come and that He was going to sit upon the hill of Mt. Zion. Oh yes, Jesus walked the land of Palestine. He was there; He went into their temple. He went up into the temple mount. He even walked up higher than the temple. Mt. Moriah was where the temple was, and Mt. Zion was where king David’s fort was. It was a higher mountain. When you read about Mt. Zion, they are referring to the highest mountain in Israel. What this symbolized was a higher place; in fact, it was the highest place or realm in all Israel. What I’m getting at is that Jesus is going to rule out of Mt. Zion. He’s going to rule out of the highest realm, out of the highest dominion, out of the highest sovereignty, over His people. Jesus is not going to be limited to a lesser mount built by mens’s hands. No! Jesus is going to rule out of the highest realm, with the greatest authority, and that’s what He’s doing now. That’s what He has been doing ever since He came up out of the grave and threw off the grave clothes. He came out as King of kings and Lord of lords.
Actually, in the big picture, Jesus is King over all nations. I don’t care if all the nations out there have heathen kings, He’s still King over them in the bigger picture. He rules over all the nations of the world, maybe not directly because of the wickedness and iniquity in the hearts of men, but He rules indirectly nonetheless. Jesus is still the King of all. But to have a real kingdom, you have to have subjects, and to have subjects, you need the people to recognize the authority of the king. It works both ways. What good is a king who has no subjects that respect his authority? It would be silly to say, “I’m the President of the United States,” and yet no one recognizes me as the President of the United States. I just run around and say I am. You have to have people who recognize your authority before you have a nation or a kingdom. Jesus is King of the ages, and there are countless millions who have recognized Him as such.
I’m going to read a few more scriptures and go over them more slowly. Jesus is our King of righteousness. Now people, I can’t emphasize enough how important righteousness is, and yet in today’s church circles, righteousness is something that is ill spoken of. I mean Christians of today act like they don’t have to be righteous, like they don’t have to live clean. They think nothing about committing the grossest sins, and yet they still think God owes them heaven. I mean they don’t even know what righteousness is anymore because it is hardly ever preached. The righteousness you find preached today revolves around how much money you have, how many people you have, how big of a church you’ve got, and how many TV and radio shows you have. Modern Christians think that all of these material things have to do with righteousness. Let’s go to Hebrews 7, verse one and go slow. It says, “For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him.” Abraham blessed this king, and the king blessed Abraham. Now it says, “To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace.” This Melchizedek, who ever he was, was a king who did things right in the sight of God. Not only was he a king, but he was also a priest, a king-priest. He was a priest-king which meant that he had subjects and that he led them into righteousness by the things of God.
What good is it to have ministers if they won’t lead the people into righteousness? What stupid things are God’s leaders guilty of today? One sin they are terribly guilty of today is leading God’s people into sports idolatry. They talk more about the basketball stars and football stars than they do about Jesus and His righteousness. The vast majority of Church sermons come totally from a carnal point of view, and they use people of the world, like sports stars, to illustrate divine principles. They talk about the things of the world more than they talk about the righteousness of God. What they should be doing is bearing down on the little saints sitting there who reek of sin! But they won’t dare do that because the leaders themselves are full of sin. Right? Now, if you are full of righteousness, you’re going to want to be around people that are righteous. We refuse to allow people to bring their worldly vices in here. And if they can’t take that, then they will usually accuse us of being a cult or authoritative figures. We just had one man tell us that we must not be right with God because we don’t have very many people. As if how many people you have has anything to do with righteousness! If you think the church is righteous in this day and age, then you had better look again. Churches are full of these sinning “saints” sitting in their pews, believing that quantity represents quality in the eyes of the Lord.
Continuing in verse 3,” Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually.” Who do you think we are talking about here? Jesus! Does Jesus abide continually as our priest? Yes, He’s our King. He’s the King of the nation of Israel. He’s my King, and I’m His subject. I want to obey Him. And like any other King, Jesus gives out His decrees. What’s one of His decrees? Live clean! You think, “I dont like that decree, General. That sounds legalistic and dogmatic. That sounds like you’re preaching hate. Can’t you do away with that decree?” Do you see what I’m trying to tell you? Can you see the hypocrisy?
And yet everybody runs around saying, “Oh Jesus is my King.” They sing sweet songs about Him and live like devils! We just had a person here for four days, who I’ll call John Doe. This person came in here calling for help. He confessed that he had been a “Christian” for twenty-five years. We asked him how long had he been on dope. He said, “I’ve been a dope-smoking Christian for sixteen years.” His testimony to me was that out of twenty-five years of his life, he has only been straight for nine years. On top of that, he was shacked up with some girl whom he met through advertising in a sleazy singles paper. And to top it all off, it was supposed to be a “Christian” singles paper. Needless to say, they both smoked dope, drank, and fornicated; nevertheless, they call themselves Christians. So they end up going to some church where they add sin unto sin by assuring them that they are Christians: “Oh yes, you’re Christians; just pay your tithes. You’re good. You’ll make heaven. Everybody has a few problems.”
And so they fornicate, smoke dope, and drink all in the name of the Lord. They represent just one case out of millions in this country. Needless to say, John Doe and his girlfriend are a big mess, and he ended up here looking for help. So I told John Doe, “You need to get rid of your vices, and you need to get on your knees and repent.” Do you know what he told me? “Ahhh General, you’re a cult and I don’t want no authoritative figure over me. You know, you guys aren’t what you’re cracked up to be.” All of a sudden, He’s telling us that we’re confused and not right with the Lord. Of course, he thought he was. Yet he’s the one with the sixteen year marijuana habit he can’t get rid of. He’s the one who sat at our table crying big tears saying he didn’t want to go back where he came from because he knew he would fall back into sin again. He was dried out for four days, and then all of a sudden we’re mean, we’re a cult and he doesn’t need our help anymore. He didn’t want Jesus to be his King of Righteousness.
Let’s go to Revelations chapter 11, verse 15, “And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord,” Don’t you love that? I love that. You know why I like that? Because that proves God is still King. At the end of the Revelations, at the end of the ages, Jesus Christ is still King and He is still able, by the power of His righteousness, to bring worldly sin-ridden, cursed kingdoms under His power. He can bring them right in, save them, and wash them. And then they become His kingdoms; that’s what it says way back in Psalms. It says that Jesus is going to have the kingdoms of this earth for His inheritance. What is His inheritance? It’s sinners like me, like you, like them. We’re all sinners, and when we are born again, we become His possessions. We become His subjects, and we are to serve Him as our King. So here you have it. The kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of our God. They are to come under His rulership, under His sovereignty, under His dominion. That makes me feel good, knowing that as much as the devil tries, as much as “church Christians” serve the devil and try to call it Christianity, that God is still in control and God is still going to have a people who will obey Him. God is still going to have a righteous Kingdom, and He is still going to be the King!
I don’t care how ugly and dark it is out there. I don’t care how ugly, how frightful, how great and grandiose the power of sin may be, God is still King. And He is still going to have a Spirit people, and He is still going to have a people of Light in this dark world. He is still going to have a prevailing people, and He is going to have a people who are capable, able, and willing to overcome sin, whether in it’s smallest or biggest form. We don’t need to make excuses for sin. That’s what John Doe wanted me to do. He wanted me to compromise. You might as well talk to that wall over there if you plan on talking to me about compromise. I’m not compromising the standard of Jesus because that blood-stained standard is good forever, and it was paid for with the price of His very life. That precious standard is what lifted me up out of a life of filthy degradation and slavery to sin. God forbid that I ever turn my head from sin and act like it’s OK. I’m not going to tell you to have a little wine for your belly ache or a little marijuana because, you know, you have a headache. Now, they’re passing laws in America that allow marijuana to be used legally for some medicinal purposes. So now everybody is sick all of a sudden. Have you noticed? I mean everybody’s got a headache, a bellyache, a backache.
What happened to the days when we prayed to Jesus, and by His stripes we were healed? What happened to the power of His blood? God can heal us from our infirmities! What ever happened to that? Do we need marijuana to serve God? Do we need cocaine to soothe our nerves because the world out there is ripping us apart? I’ve heard so many excuses that I think I could write a volume on how to be an excuse-making Christian. It makes me sick how they want to pull everyone into their mess with them. I’ve got news for you, you aren’t pulling me into your sin pit. I was rescued out of that world over 25 years ago, and I’m not going back into it. Jesus is our King, who is ever making intercession for us. That means He’s King forever; He’s Priest forever. When He sees us faltering, when He sees us wavering, He’s making intercession for us so that we will make it, but He’s not going to make us make it. I can’t make you straighten up, lay your marijuana down or your bottle aside, or get out of bed with your girlfriend or your boyfriend. I can’t make you do that. I can’t make you walk away from the abortion clinic because you want to murder your baby to cover up your mistake! I can’t make you do any of those things. And neither can Jesus Christ, but He can put the pressure on us:
He can make our circumstances rotten to us, make oppression crush us so that maybe we will cry out and repent, but He can’t make (or force) us to do anything. And after a while, if you’re determined to stay in your rebellion, dear one, He’ll just depart from you and go somewhere else. And you will be sealed in your damnation. You will be sealed there, but while there’s yet a thread of hope, Christ is making intercession for us. While there’s yet a thread of hope in people, we will still preach the gospel. When it looks like nobody wants to hear, when they all clog their ears up, close their eyes, and just get mad, we’ve still got a job to do. While there is still just one person listening, then you’ve got a job to do. Right? We’ve got a job to do if there’s one soul that wants Christ.
We need to worship God from our hearts. We need to worship Him as the Bible says, in Spirit and in Truth. We don’t need to copy the fads and the fantasies of the world and put the word “Christian” on it. How many self-deceived people are out there? Multitudes! Willfully and willingly deceived. They want to be deceived: deceiving others and deceiving themselves. Why? Because they don’t have a heart to be with God. That’s what it boils down to. It boils down to this demon living inside called SELF LIFE! We try to keep it alive rather than putting it on the cross and letting it die. We try to keep it alive rather than letting it go down in baptism, into the watery grave, and say, “I count you as dead. I reckon you as dead. You stay there; I’m serving the King of kings, and He is going to rule arid reign in my heart: I’m His territory now.” How much does Jesus rule in your heart? How much does He rule in your life? If He tells you to do something, do you drop your lip and rebel when you know good and well you shouldn’t? It’s easy to say, He’s my King, but do you obey the King when He puts out a decree?
This entire Bible, dear one, is one long decree. It’s all right there in the Word. This is a Manual of Righteousness. This is a manual that will instruct us in the way that God wants us to live. Most people who read through it can easily see how many things they should not be doing, opposed to the things that they should be doing. Yet people want to cut corners with excuses like, “Oh, that’s for the Old Testament. That was for the old people in the old days.” Well then, what’s for us today? Fun, games, idolatry, sports, money, booze, sex, and dope? According to the modern Church, all these are for us today. They believe that because they accepted Jesus once that now they can’t be unsaved, no matter what they do. His standard has not changed since He came out of the grave. And it’s not going to change even when He comes back, and touches His feet upon this earth, and dwells among His people. It won’t change; it’s going to be the same standard. Time has nothing to do with it.
Jesus is the King—He is the Priest through every age, through every dispensation, through darkness and light, through rebellions and revolutions. He is the same God, the same Jesus, and the same Savior. He is still capable, able, and willing to save us from our sins. If we ever need to pray a prayer dear one, we need to pray to Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. Just like when I read in Matthew 1. Jesus the Savior came to save His people from their sins. That’s what we need today: we need to see Jesus saving His people from their sins because they are so sin bound that they are hell bound. And they’re loving every bit of it. We have too many lying leaders today telling them it’s OK when it’s not OK. So with all this said and done, examine your own self to see if He is really your King. You better find out if He rules and reigns in your heart or just in your mouth. You had better see if He is the sovereign of your territory; you had better see if you give Him the homage and service that He deserves. The bottom line is that it is our responsibility to come before Jesus, MAKE SURE that we are right with Him, and do all in our power to obey His commands to us, both written and spoken. Amen.