Turn to God as King

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Jen Wilkin
The Lord has been having fun with me. He actually had fun with many of us last night, because I don’t know how you feel about tornado sirens going off. I grew up in Tornado Alley, and I actually still currently live there, and when I was a little girl, an f4 tornado came through my hometown and took out about a third of the town. It was over a mile wide, and it took out a swath all the way through the center of town. And ever since then, I’ve had what my husband calls an irrational phobia when the sirens go off, and I really remember one of the things I remember from when the tornado came through was how there was a grocery store around the corner from my house, and the interior of it was just completely sucked out. There was nothing in it, and so for about 17 years I worked in a church that was in an old grocery store, and one one afternoon the sirens were going off, and I flipped out because I’m picturing this old grocery store just completely gutted, and I’m thinking that’s my office, like it’s all going to be sucked out of the building, and everyone around me is just sort of milling around, they don’t know, they don’t know, and as I’m heading downstairs, I have my purse, and I’m heading downstairs as quickly as I can, I run into my friend Anne, and Anne is just kind of dreamily walking down the hall, placidly smiles at me, and says, “Maybe we’re about to meet Jesus. I could not even be polite. I just looked right at her, and I said, ‘You go meet him. I’m going down to the ladies’ room to lash myself to the plumbing with my purse strap, and I was not kidding, because I knew that the only thing that would be left was the plumbing in the women’s bathroom. I was spared that day, and then last night I’m up on the.. we were on the 17th floor, okay? And it was.. I’ll just tell you who was there. It was my dear friends Nancy and her husband, and Courtney, and Melissa, and Melissa’s husband, Mike, and I was sitting with my back to the TV when the sirens went off, and I turned around and caught a look at that screen, and I thought my friends are about to see a whole new side of me. I tried to be, I tried to be cool about it. In fact, someone else had just shared an irrational phobia they had, and I had sort of made fun of them. And then I was, I was like, I’m like, I gotta go find whatever the interior room is, and I literally blurted out, I think if we’re in the hallway, we’ll be safe, and Mike Kruger’s like, we’re fine, he’s like, it looks red on the screen, it’s really yellow, and I thought this is the kind of lie that Jeff Wilkin tells me, he’s not here to tell the lie, so Mike is stepping in, who else was afraid? That is not enough hands. Do you people have no sense? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I’m seriously worried for all of you, and you know this. The scriptures tell us in the book of Job, Job says, and these are but the outer fringes of his works. Who then can understand the thunder of his power? Thought about that a lot, and we ought not to walk through life terrified of the Lord. There is something different between feeling fear when the sirens go on, go off, which I would argue is a rational response, and the way that we think of the Lord of the storm is we don’t tremble before Him as those who fear the loss of the salvation He has so graciously granted us, but I do think we live in trivializing times. I do think we live in trivializing times, and I would imagine that most of you can sing more than one verse of what a friend we have in Jesus. But how many verses do you know of crown him with many crowns, or my favorite hymn, Immortal Invisible God Only Wise? wise. These hymns that recognize a transcendent God, they’re so important to our understanding of who He is.

Jen Wilkin
And yet, in most lineups of the worship set, we’re going to find a lot more singing, and even a lot more talking about an imminent God, a God who is close, nearby, accessible. I think, in any day and age, the church has a tendency to lean either too far toward the transcendence of God, the God who sits enthroned between the cherubim and the imminent God, the one who we say is Abba Father, and the thing is, is we need both of those. Yes, and we have to understand what our current lean is, if we’re to know what it is that we need to keep them in balance. So, my son, Matt, is really smart, and he works in the semiconductor industry. He works for Texas Instruments, so you know, big fan of Texas, and I love any time I can point out how great it is. Texas Instruments was founded in the 50s and has been a leader in the semiconductor industry. The semiconductor industry is the invisible backbone of modern life. They produce the microchips that run everything from smartphones to energy grids to global communication networks. If the word smart is in it, it has a microchip in it. So, if your microwave is smart, if your dishwasher is smart, if your phone is smart, if your washing machine is smart, all of it is depending on the semiconductor industry and on microchips in particular, to make sure that it stays smart like that, and so Matt has been working for TI for a few years, and he calls me one day, and he says, “Mom, you know Gene France? and I said, “Yeah, he’s a, he’s our old friend, and he goes, “Mom, he’s worshiped like a god around here. Well, let me tell you about Jean France. Gene France taught my young married Sunday school class right after Jeff and I got married. Sweetest man you would ever want to meet. He always looked a little disheveled when he showed up on Sunday morning, and one of the favorite stories the class would repeat over and over to each other was the day that Gene came in and taught the entire Sunday school lesson, wearing one brown shoe and one black shoe, and so I had known Gene for many, many years and knew that he worked for Texas Instruments, but to me he was my sweet, humble Sunday school teacher, who came in every week with a lesson prepared, who really wanted to make sure that our marriages were functioning well and that we were dealing well with having small children, just the most lovable guy that you could ever meet, and so you can imagine my surprise when we were having dinner at their house one night, all of these young couples and I see lying on their coffee table a magazine called Semiconductor Weekly, and I pick it up. It’s everyone’s favorite publication, am I right? I pick it up, and Jean’s face is on the cover, and it says Top 10 Influences on the Semiconductor Industry, and I open up the magazine. The number one influence on the semiconductor industry was China. The number two influence was Jean France, my Sunday school teacher, the guy wearing two different colored shoes, Jean France, number two. Does anyone in here remember the Speak and Spell? Do you remember this, the movie E.T. and how E. T. communicates with Elliot by using the Speak and Spell. The Speak and Spell came out in 1978 It was a children’s toy, but the technology that made that toy possible was something called digital signal processing technology. It was so significant to the development of modern day technologies that the Russians and the Chinese were trying to steal speaking spells to be able to get the chip technology was in them. Gene France was the one who led the team. See, I had understood him as this kind and near friend and teacher, but after I learned this about him, I couldn’t view him the same way again, like he’s still my friend, he’s still someone who I can get advice from or look to to be an example, but I just never thought of him the same way again. It changed the way I thought about our friendship.

Jen Wilkin
I knew that to be friends with Jean France was a privilege that many people wish they had, and never would, and something that had been given to me without me even asking for it. It is good for us to think of Jesus as a friend to sinners, but I hope that we will bear in mind that He is not a peer, he is not merely someone who is our buddy or our pal, because he is a king. We live in a disrespectful and trivializing age, and we should not expect that the church would not show signs of it, and indeed it does. Yes, in the Ligonier and Lifeway survey on the state of theology, which some of you may be familiar with, we see some of the signs that our age of the church leans more toward the imminence of God than it does to His transcendence. We prefer close-up Abba Daddy God to the God who sits enthroned between the cherubim and thunders from on high, and we have a hard time reconciling that He is both. And here is some of the fallout of an overemphasis on eminence at the expense of transcendence. The survey is given to evangelicals, so kind of our crowd, right? Like, and they don’t just go, “Are you an evangelical? and people go, “Yes, I am. They say, “How do you define that? And so it’s things like, “I believe in the doctrine of scripture, I believe basically all of the things that Bible-believing Christians would say that they do. So it’s us, okay? And here are some of the responses that came out of that survey in response to the statement, God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. 47% of evangelicals agreed. Agreed, in other words, Jesus is on par with the gods of these other religions, and in response to the statement, Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God. 28% of evangelicals agreed, Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God. Friends, we need a transcendent savior. The antidote for trivialization is transcendence. We don’t need a better sense of who we are, not any more of that, until we have spent time regarding the King with whom we have to do, and Psalm 72 is a great place to go for that. So, if you have your Bibles, will you turn to Psalm 72 And we’re just going to do something that my church does, because I think it’s a good way to start these things. If you are able, will you stand with me for the reading of God’s Word? Let’s bask in the transcendent language that it gives us. Psalm 72 Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the royal son. May he judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice. Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people, and the hills in righteousness. May he defend the cause of the poor, of the needy, of the people give deliverance to the children of the needy and crush the oppressor. May they fear you while the sun endures, and as long as the moon throughout all generations, may he be like that, like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth in his days. May the righteous flourish, and peace abound, till the moon be no more. May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. May desert tribes bow down before him, and his enemies lick the dust. May the kings of Tarshish and of the west of the coast lands render him tribute. May the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts. May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him, for he delivers the needy when he calls the poor, and him who has no helper, he has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy from oppression and violence, he redeems their life, and precious is their blood in his sight? Long may he live. May gold of Sheba be given to him. May prayer be made for him continually, and blessings invoked for him all the day. May there be abundance of grain in the land, on the tops of the mountains.

Jen Wilkin
May it wave, may its fruit be like Lebanon, and may people blossom in the cities, like the grass of the field, may His name endure forever. His fame continue as long as the sun. May people be blessed in Him. All nations call Him blessed. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be His glorious name forever. May the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen. And amen. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Whew, that is a banger, as the kids say. Let’s take a minute just to appreciate sort of the what and the why and the how of this psalm. First of all, you probably noticed that under the heading it says of Solomon, of Solomon, and in verse one we read, Give the king your justice, O God. God, and your righteousness to the royal son. So we assume that this psalm is written by King David, and it is written for his son Solomon, his son Solomon. And this is a psalm that was probably used for coronation ceremonies beyond the kingship of Solomon, it’s suitable for such a thing. It’s a celebration of the throne. I try to imagine David penning these words, thinking about the future reign of Solomon, a reign that he doesn’t live to see, because Solomon’s reign begins upon the death of David, all of the things that he must have hoped for, the reign of Solomon, all of the things that he wanted to see come to pass for the nation of Israel. And you can feel it, you can feel it in these words. Not only that, but we know that David would have been clinging to a precious promise that had been given to him by the Lord in Second Samuel 716 a promise that his house and his kingdom, the house of David, would be made sure before the Lord, and that the throne of David would be established forever, and in fact we hear the language of forever in this psalm, you could argue that David kind of goes for it, and kind of a go big or go home way, because you heard some of the things that were in here. I mean, it was stuff like while the sun endures, and from sea to sea. I mean, it is some very big poetic language, and we read through this, and we think, well, gosh, no earthly king would be able to do that. It speaks of an eternal throne, and of a throne that stretches to the ends of the earth. Like, if you look down in verse 656 and seven, he does something with this psalm that we find all over the scriptures. He appeals to the testifying witness of the created order, and he does it in the classic order that we find it. He starts with the heavens, and then he moves to the earth, and then he moves to the waters, and the waters are often broken out into the sea and the rivers. If you’re familiar with the book of Revelation, you know that that’s the order in which judgment is rolled out in the decreation narratives that we find in the book of Revelation, and here he appeals to these same three spheres of creation. He starts with, “May they fear you while the sun endures, right? And then, as long as the moon, through all generations, and you have to understand, there’s more going on here than just a reference to the heavens, because in pagan culture, in all of the cultures that surround Israel, what do you think they’re worshiping? The sun, the moon, and the stars, those are their principal deities. So, one of the things that David does when he references them is he indicates that they actually bow down to the King on the throne of David, and then he says, May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth, and so he takes our vision from the heavens to the earth in his days, may the righteous flourish and peace abound, till the moon be no more, and then what does he say next? May he have dominion, that’s an important word we’re going to pay attention to.

Jen Wilkin
May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth, and he throws river in there, like we’re like, oh yeah, yeah, the river. Well, where I am, the river is the red river, the raging red, which actually I’ve never seen rage, but it’s a catchy name. And in Texas, we also like hyperbole, much like King David and our Lord himself. But what river is he referring to here, with a capital R? Well, he’s referring to the Euphrates, that’s the river that they would all think of. Then he talks about desert tribes bowing down. He mentions Tarshish. Do you know where Tarshish is? Everybody’s favorite holiday destination. Actually, it kind of is for some people. Tarshish is modern-day Spain. It was the farthest westward point of the known world. That’s what it means when you see it pop up in the scriptures, in poetry in particular. He talks about may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts. They were southern kingdoms, and in fact they were very wealthy, and we know that the king, the Queen of Sheba, does actually come bearing gifts during the reign of Solomon. But what we see here when he is talking about all of these things is something similar to what we saw in the psalm that Ruth taught. He is giving you compass directions. He basically says, may your rain reach to the skies, may it reach to the earth, may it be through the seas, may it be from the east to the west, from the north to the south, and then he wraps it all up in. Verse 11, with May all kings fall down before him, and all nations serve him. In other words, may the entire known world give him reverence. So he begins with a prayer for total dominion in verses one through 11, and then in verses 12 through 14, we get a description of what his kingship will be characterized by. He delivers the needy what he calls, the poor in him who has no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy from oppression and violence. He redeems their life, and precious is their blood in his sight. If you’re familiar with the reign of Solomon, you know that actually the first story of the test of his wisdom demonstrates that this is the way his kingship began. The story of two prostitutes who come to him and they have a quarrel over who a baby belongs to. It’s a story that really you have to wonder why would he even hear this case in the first place. These women can be of no account, they’re the last and the least. But when we see this psalm, we begin to realize that it’s his wisdom already functioning that he hears the case at all, because it demonstrates these qualities that we see here. And then we get into the final portion of the psalm, which sounds a little like a reiteration of what he has already said at the beginning, but if in the beginning he has a prayer for total dominion, what we now see in verses 15 through 19 is a prayer for total blessing, a prayer for total blessing. May blessings be invoked for Him all the day. And then all of the abundance language. I don’t know if you noticed, but are you hearing Purple Mountain Majesty and Amber Waves of Grain? This psalm is actually the languages co-opted for America the beautiful. I don’t have any thoughts for you on that right now. So we’re going to get back to this: a prayer for total dominion, followed by a list of the qualities of the king, followed by a prayer for total blessing. And what I want to submit to you, as the logic of this psalm is that only when the king has total dominion can there be total blessing. Those two things go hand in hand. So we have this beautiful coronation psalm before us, and I want you to consider how it fits into the entire story of the Bible, because Psalm 72 presents a transcendent king for us, and I’m arguing that we very much need one. I know that you know where I’m headed with this, but I want you to enjoy the journey while we get there.

Jen Wilkin
Okay, so you note that the escalating language in the psalm means that no merely human king could possibly fulfill these promises. This psalm can not hope to be anything more than hyperbole unless there is some superhuman or supernatural thing that happens, but Psalm 72 becomes for us a window into the Bible’s entire story of kingship, because the story of Scripture is the story of God as king. Go all the way back with me to Genesis chapter one. What is it that God says when He creates the man and the woman in his image, he says that they are to be fruitful and multiply and to what rule and subdue, they are to take dominion, they are to take dominion. Now there are scholars, Old Testament scholars, who will tell us that the way the creation narrative is structured in Genesis chapter one is to mimic an enthronement ceremony that basically God builds his garden temple and is then enthroned in it with his royal emissaries, the man and the woman who are charged with the work of fruitfulness and of dominion, so you and I, as much as I hate it, and don’t like to say it at women’s events, buckle up, here it comes, girl, you are a precious daughter of the king, the thing is, you are like you are, but I hope that you’re going to have a different appreciation for that as we move along. We were made to be royal sons and daughters of a king, that’s what we were made for, and that means that if we were made for it, when we’re not. Acting in that way, we’re like we’re not being human, we’re being subhuman, and so it’s important for us to understand what does it mean to be those who rule and subdue and who exercise dominion as we were created to do, because it’s what we’re made for, and then, of course, you know how the story goes. We get to Genesis chapter three. Bad things go down. Adam and Eve fail to rule faithfully, and in Genesis 315 we hear the promise of the serpent crushing offspring. The serpent crushing offspring, and perhaps one of the most heartbreaking passages in all of scripture, Eve names her first son Cain, which means essentially here he is. You see, you and I know that it would be 1000s of years before the prophecy would be fulfilled, but Adam and Eve don’t know that. She seems to think that maybe this child that is born to her is the quick answer to the massive thing that has happened in chapter three, and yet he turns out to be the first murderer instead of the first life giver, and so then we move along in the story, and in Genesis 17 six, Abraham receives a promise, and part of the promise is that kings will come from him, and this is important for us to keep in mind, because as we move a little further into the nature of kingship in the Bible, you might start thinking, wait, were kings even a good idea, but what do we hear? God promises that kings will come from Abraham as part of the promise that there will be a blessing to the entire earth through his line. And then in Genesis 4910 in his final words, his prophecies that he speaks over his sons, Jacob says the scepter shall not depart from Judah until the royal one comes. A scepter, there’s a promise of a coming king all the way back in Genesis 49 not just that a deliverer is coming, but that a royal deliverer is coming, and then we get into Exodus, and we find that Israel is actually in hard servitude under a king, and that king is very different than the king that they are hoping will come. That king is the embodiment of the serpent in human form. In fact, if you know what Pharaoh wore on his head. Think about it. You’ve seen it in cartoons and movies. What is it? A headdress with a serpent right in the middle, a serpent right in the middle. That’s because he was believed to be guarded by the goddess Wadjet, who was ironically the deliverer of women in the deliverer of women in childbirth. And yet this is the serpent king who utters the decree that the male children be put to death.

Jen Wilkin
He is the embodiment of wickedness. So Pharaoh is the evil serpent king, but God is the true king of Israel, who ransoms his children out of slavery and brings them into the desert and then in language that mimics the ancient near eastern patterns of the time between a king and a servant he gives them the 10 commandments and do you know what he says very significantly in Exodus 19 six he says you will be to me what a kingdom and priests to God. You will be that to me. That’s what you are made for. Do you hear what he’s doing? He’s capturing what they were made for in the garden, and saying it’s not too late. You can be this for me. You will be my royal representatives here on earth. Not only that, but when we get the instructions for how the high priest is supposed to be dressed, he is wearing robes that are by any measure royal robes. Like, what do you think these people were wearing wandering around in the wilderness all those years on the camp out that would not end. I loathe camping. I take every opportunity to mention it, and these people – the only thing worse than being on a camp out is being on a camp out with this really expensive outfit that you’re supposed to keep looking good all the time, and on the head of the priest who wore this royal outfit is what’s called a crown, although it was described more like a placket. And do you remember what it said, “Holy to the Lord” on his head. We’ll come back to that image later, but just keep it in your head right now. By his royal representative, but he didn’t say you will have high priests who will be priests to me and a kingdom. What did he say? All of you, or as Texans say, all y’all are going to be a kingdom and priests to God. So then what happens? Well, they’re ransomed out of slavery. They have the Mosaic Covenant, which is a kingly covenant that is given to them, and then they mess things up, sounds a lot like Eden, and they have to spend how many years waiting to enter the Promised Land. It’s going to be important for the story. 4040, years. The number 40 represents a generation in the Bible, but it also represents a probationary period, right. And so that’s why when Jesus goes into the wilderness, where he sort of replays this scene in the New Testament, he’s there for 40 days. It’s a probationary period. I want you to keep that in mind. And so the children of the king under Joshua’s warrior king leadership enter into the promised land, and what do they do? They rule and subdue, they take dominion, and for one brief moment it looks like maybe they’re going to obey and not forget, but then we have to turn the page to judges, which, as I was talking with a girl earlier about, she goes, I call it the TMZ of the Bible. I told her, I call it, with all due respect to the genre, a Spanish soap opera. You never know what is going to happen next in those stories. It’s terrible, and it starts at one point like a tiny little cycle, and then it just spirals a lot, like, oh, I don’t know, tornado, and so what we find is like these stories that we love, like Samson, who I don’t know about you, but on my felt boards of my youth, he was this hero, we were all supposed to be like him, until you find out that there’s actually 12 judges, and the closer you are to the end of that list, the more terrible you are, and he’s judge number 12. Yeah, he’s.. I kept calling him a dirty dog the first time I was teaching this study to the women in my community, and one of the leaders in my study named her dog Samson and referred to him as dirty dog his whole life. Effective teaching. What can I say, but the overwhelming message from the book of Judges is, in those days there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Jen Wilkin
Well, that doesn’t have any modern application for us at all, and by the time we reach the end of Judges, the story has gotten so tragic and violent. Israel tearing down Israel, they’re no longer battling their enemies, they are consuming each other in warfare, that the question burns in the mind of the reader, where is this much needed king? Where is this king that was promised in the garden, promised to Abraham, reiterated all the way through? Where is he? We need him. Everyone does what is right in his own eyes. And then, and then we get to First Samuel, and you probably know the story, there things are very bad, and Samuel receives a particular calling from the Lord, but it turns out that despite the fact that Samuel is a good leader, he’s a terrible parent, or so it seems, because he has, I don’t know, I’m not going to lay that on parents out there, but he’s got some ratty kids, and we can’t figure out, like, how could such a nice guy have ratty kids, and so maybe that speaks to some of your hearts today. So, if you have your Bible, turn to First Samuel eight, because I want to show you something that is so important to our understanding, so critical to our understanding of the nature of the human kingship that gets introduced into the story at this time, so you’ve got Samuel, and Samuel, he’s pretty fed up with everybody, they’ve been acting all kinds of bad, and and then he’s got the bad kids, which has got to be stressful, and so then the elders of Israel decide to have a meeting with him at Ramah. So, in First Samuel, chapter eight, starting in verse four, read along with me, says, “Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, ‘Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Ouch, and double ouch, now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations, but the thing displeased Samuel when they said, ‘Give us a king to judge us, and Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, These people continued to be morons. Let’s just blow them all up. No, no, no, no. What does it say? And the Lord said to Samuel, obey the voice of the people and all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. And here we get into one of the problems of having a king who you can’t physically see, they’re like, well, where is he? Like, they’re so good at forgetting him because they’re like, we can’t see him, and all the other people, they got these really nice looking kings, like they don’t just have kings, they’ve got kings that are, you know, kind of smoking hot, and we want one of those kings, and so he says, “Hey, this isn’t personal with you, Samuel. I’m sorry they made it personal, but it’s not you they’re rejecting, it’s me. Verse eight, according to all the deeds that they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they’re also doing to you now, then obey their voice. Only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the way of the King who shall reign over them. So, what is God essentially saying? They have a king, they had a king all during the book of Judges, they’ve had a king all along, they just want their own version of rule. And so he says, you know what, we’re going to give it to them, but first I want you to let them know a few things. And now we get to one of my favorite rants in all of scripture. Look at verse 10, and I want you to fill in some words with me. So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you.

Jen Wilkin
What does it say next, he will what take he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots, and he will appoint for himself commanders of 1000s and commanders of 50s and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. What does verse 13 start with? He will what take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. Verse 14, he will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. Verse 15, he will take the 10th of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. Verse 16, he will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys and put them to his work. Verse 17. He will take the 10th of your flocks and you shall be his slaves, and in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day. Six times, what does he say? He will take, he will take, he will take, he will take, he will take, he will take. Look at verse 19, but the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said no, but there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, obey their voice and make them a king. Have you ever had a kid or known a kid who’s like, I don’t want the fake polo shirt, I want the real polo shirt, like all the other kids had. That was me, actually. I said that there’s a very.. we can, we can understand the impulse. I’m not justifying it, I’m just saying it’s something we can all relate to. And so, God says, ‘Hey, you know what? Good luck with that. Don’t say that you weren’t warned, and I just want to make sure that we understand that the problem is not with having a human king itself. The problem was wanting the wrong kind of human king, like God basically is like I can work with this, but not the way that I think you’re conceiving of it, or I know you’re conceiving of it. So, what happens? The people choose who Saul, and guess what, he’s impressive in appearance. He has military strength, and he’s an absolute crashing spiritual failure, and he takes, but then what happens? Well, Second Samuel, and actually, before Second Samuel, we get introduced to David, and as I was looking at the story, preparing for this. David actually is taken by Saul. He’s a son who has taken to play the harp for him to be his little music therapist. And so David, who we know is what the man after what God’s own heart is, who comes to the throne next. And we exhale, and we think now everything will be fine, except that by Second Samuel three we find that David has already taken seven wives, and by Second Samuel 513 we learn that he took more concubines and wives. The red flag. Start to wave almost immediately, and we have to ask, How is it possible that the man of the people’s choosing was a crashing failure, but now the man of God’s choosing would be as well. The man after God’s own heart. Theologian John Woodhouse tells us that a closer reading of that phrase is the man of God’s choosing. So we have the man of the people’s choosing, and the man of God’s choosing, and so David has already given some indications that he too might take. And then in Second Samuel seven, we get the Davidic covenant, which I read to you earlier, God knowing that David is already waving red flags, promises an eternal throne, an eternal kingdom, eternal dynasty, and the expectation of a greater son of David emerges, and then Bathsheba turn to Second Samuel 11 three.

Jen Wilkin
It says, and David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? Look at verse four. So David sent messengers, and what took her? He took her. Nathan the prophet will echo the language of taking. This is no great love story. This is a tragedy of a king who takes, and he takes, and he takes, and so it is that in First Kings 115 through 21 Bathsheba enters David’s chamber to plead for the second son of their union, because the first son that she gets pregnant with dies, and she says, “My lord, you swore to your servant by the Lord your God, saying Solomon, your son, shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne. She advocates for the kingship of Solomon, and she then informs David that Adonijah has declared himself king, and she warns that if David dies without acting, she and Solomon will be treated as offenders, and so David renews his oath and his orders, and says that Solomon is to be placed on the royal mule anointed by Zadok the priest and proclaimed the king of Jerusalem, a coronation ceremony, which brings us to Psalm 72 Like we wonder if perhaps this psalm is used at that coronation ceremony, and yet, what do we know? If David had seven wives, Solomon, though he showed early signs of wisdom and promise accumulates 703 100 concubines. He marries many foreign women who turn his heart to idolatry, and he builds high places for the gods Chemosh, Molech, and other foreign gods. He accumulates wealth. He becomes known for his prosperity as much as for his wisdom. He accumulates horses and military power, all of the things that Deuteronomy 17 said. You’re not going to do these things. Why? Because that will make you a king, like what the nations. He starts with wholehearted devotion, but he ends with a divided heart. And because of his divided heart we get a divided what kingdom after him the kingdom splits Jeroboam and Rehoboam buckle under the weight of the taxation and laws that he has put in place. Psalm 72 reflects the hope for Solomon’s reign, a king who protects the poor reigns, his reign brings peace, whose dominion extends to the end of the earth, and through whom all the nations of the earth are blessed. And we get a holy dissonance, asking the question, Where is the Son of David? The kingdom collapses, increasing the dissonance, and we get the divided monarchy, and would anyone like to guess how many kings there are from Solomon until the end of the list of the kings of the two kingdoms? What do you think the number is 4040? it’s a probationary period ending in the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom, the Babylonian exile of Judah. 40 kings to test them. Will you trust the one true king? And I tell you, what, that list of kings will keep you up at night. It is awful, awful. 40 kings. I’m looking at the chart that I printed off, and about five of them got a B plus, and everybody else got an F. Names like Ahaz, who sacrificed children in the fire to Molech, Manasseh, who murdered his own son. Those two names, by the way, appear in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. And so we have the 40 corrupt kings and the kingdom of Israel essentially broken holds on to hope through the time of the prophets who continue to prophesy the nature of a king who is to come and so the Israelites would have sung Psalm 72 as a future hope that perhaps this king was still to come to sit on the throne of Jesus, and then we find ourselves in the Gospels, but it’s weird what’s happening there. Because Herod, who is the king of the Jews, is sitting in the seat of an Old Testament archetype, he is the serpent king. What does he want to do? He wants to put to death the Hebrew boys, well, he’s the king of the Jews. How is the king of the Jews painted as the serpent king? That’s backwards. And then John the Baptist and Jesus, when they see the religious leaders, they call them not the ones who are worthy of the most honor, but instead, you brood of what vipers.

Jen Wilkin
So the King of the Jews is the serpent king. The leaders of Israel, the royal priesthood, and holy nation are what, a brood of vipers. And so the language of Egypt is applied to the children of God themselves. That’s how bad things are at the point that after 400 years of silence, Jesus appears on the scene, and at his birth, what happens? Those who worship the sun, the moon, and the stars, the Magi come and bow down before Him and give Him royal gifts. At His baptism, we get a royal call back to Psalm two, when God says, ‘This is my beloved son. That’s Psalm two seven. I will declare the Lord’s decree. He said to me, ‘You are my son today. I’ve become your father. A royal psalm. In his preaching ministry, Jesus opens his preaching ministry with a very critical statement, which would have landed on the ears of the Israelites like a bomb going off. What does he say? The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Kingdom is not neutral language. You don’t think that they knew the things that I just told you about kingship going all the way back to Genesis. You don’t think they know the checkered and terrible history of the 40 kings of Israel, the kingdom of God is at hand, he says, because Jesus, the true king of Psalm 72 is going to defend the poor, heal the needy, rescue the oppressed, and bring peace. The true Son of David is a king who does not take and take and take, but is a king who gives and gives and gives. If there is anything that he takes, it is our guilt. If there is anything that he takes, it is our weight of our sin He bears our punishment, and the disciples are confused by His unkingliness, which is an understatement. He doesn’t do any of the things that they thought He would do. He was supposed to be a big deal, and if He was a big deal, then they were also supposed to be a big deal, because they’re His guys, they’re his posse. He’s supposed to overthrow Rome, and yet instead, what are we doing? What are we doing? He tells them, “Go get a donkey, so I can ride it into Jerusalem. What? Wait a minute, that sounds familiar. And they fumble around, and they get the donkey, and we see that there’s some sort of acknowledgement among the people of, oh, this feels familiar, a little like what was done at Solomon’s coronation, but before they get to that scene, there is this really, really good and important moment where a man named Bartimaeus, who is seated at the entrance to Jericho, you remember Jericho. Jericho is the first stop on the Canaanite conquest, where ruling and subduing began for the children of God all the way back in the book of Joshua, but now Jericho is filled with people who are Israelite in name, but who are children of the serpent king in practice, except for a blind man named Bartimaeus. And when Bartimaeus knows that Jesus is coming by, he calls out to him. He calls out to him in a particular way. Verse 46 of Mark 10 says, and they came to Jericho, and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside, and when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. Listen, no one else has said that; they’ve called him all kinds of things. They’ve called him teacher, they’ve called him friend, they have not called him the Son of David, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent, but he cried out all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me. You know who he reminds me of, another inhabitant of Jericho, who was near the city gate, who the first words on her lips were, for I know that your God is the God of heaven and earth. We see shades of Rahab in blind Bartimaeus, and we see that the Lord deals kindly with him as she was dealt kindly with.

Jen Wilkin
In verse 49 it says Jesus stopped and said, ‘Call him, and they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart, get up, he is calling you. And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. How many articles of clothing do you think Bartimaeus, the beggar, owned? He leaves everything to follow Jesus immediately. And in verse 51 and Jesus said to him, What do you want me to do for you? We often just hear this story pulled out of its context, and we think, isn’t that precious that Jesus would ask him this, but we miss an important detail, and that’s that in the story that precedes this one, the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus, and they said, we have an idea, we’d like to run by you. You know what it is, right? Does it have anything to do with humility? And do you know what Jesus says to them? What do you want me to do for you? And they say, we would like to sit at your right hand and your left hand, they are all about what are the perks of associating with the King of the Jews. What does blind Bartimaeus respond with when he has asked the same question? What do you want me to do for you? The blind man said to him, Rabbi, I want to see. And Jesus said to him, “Go your way, your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way. Irony layered upon irony that the only person who truly saw him for who he was couldn’t see at all, and the people who had their sight didn’t recognize him for who he was. Blind Bartimaeus, he understood Jesus not merely as a teacher but as the Son of David. And then when Pilate offers to return Jesus, the religious leaders, their words are chilling, you know. What happens, he’s tried all of these things happen, and he says, Do you want the King of the Jews back? Like Pilate can’t find that he’s done anything wrong. He keeps calling him the King of the Jews, and they’re like, We would love for you to stop saying that. And here’s what the religious leaders respond, they cried out, ‘Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him! Pilate said to them, ‘Shall I crucify your king? And the chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but Caesar. Let that one hit you. We have no king but Caesar. What do we hear in their words? Israel is no longer waiting for the promised king. They are fine with the king who is like the nations, and so Jesus is crowned with thorns draped in purple robes, given a reed for a scepter, and he ascends the only throne he will know in his earthly ministry, and it is a cross, and over his head is hung a sign that says King of the Jews, and then there are three crushing days of silence. The Son of David is not eternal, he is dead. And then the resurrection proves that He is everything that was promised. And in Acts one, we have what’s often referred to as the forgotten act of Christ. If you were sharing the gospel with someone, wouldn’t you say something like Jesus died and buried and was raised on the third day for your sins? And then there’s that forgotten act that we forget to mention, that’s so, so important. And what is that? That he ascended, he ascended to the right hand of God the Father. That’s where he is, guys, right now. That’s the rest of the story. He may have only had an earthly throne of a cross, but 40 days after his resurrection, 50 days, he ascends and is seated at this moment at the right hand of God the Father. The book of Revelation, you know what. Revelation means it means unveiling, and I think it’s worth us asking, what does it unveil, and for whom does it unveil it? Have you guys had any issues with the headlines, like, do they upset you at all, or you feel good? You feel good, like everything’s going fine. Yeah, I don’t feel that way, like we have earthly kings. They’re on thrones.

Jen Wilkin
Some of them don’t call them thrones, but they’re all doing the sorts of things that we’ve heard he will take, he will take, he will take all over the globe. The headlines are cuckoo, they are cuckoo. And we have a problem because we have an invisible king, like we know that we’re not citizens of this earth, but our king is, we’re like Israel, we’re like, but where is he? I would love to just like, can I just see him? The book of Revelation means unveiling, why? Because it’s been shown to you exactly where he is. Do you know that in the book of Revelation, the word throne appears 47 times, 47 times in the New Testament, it is only there 62 times. That means in all the other books in the New Testament, 15 mentions the throne in Revelation 47 Why? Because to Israel, to the Christians of the early church, enduring persecution, what are they being told to say Caesar is Lord, which is why it’s so chilling to hear what the religious leaders of Israel had to say. We have no king but Caesar. It’s the very thing that the early Christians would have to say, I cannot bow the knee and say it, because what are they to bow the knee and say, Jesus Christ is Lord. And so the book of Revelation goes to great lengths to show us the lamb seated on the throne, reigning and ruling, so that they would remember, so that we would remember that, while there is a future reality where this will come in fullness, that our present reality is that He is seated, reigning and ruling at the right hand of God the Father, right now, the true Son of David, that is where He is, and we need to remember that, because it’s scary down here, that’s why we need a transcendent king, not just a friend. I thought of Jean France as just my friend until I knew differently. You will pray differently to the king seated on the throne if you recognize him not just merely as your friend but as your Lord. One of the ways that I know that we have a low view of who Jesus is is because of the way that people tend to pray these days, we’ve seen a major rise in declarative prayer. I pray against this, I pray for this, right? I bind this, I loose this, and what do you hear in that declarative prayer appropriates the supernatural to do its own bidding, but what are we called to do? Petitionary prayer. Petitionary prayer submits itself to the supernatural to do his bidding. When we have a low view of Jesus, we believe that he kind of works for us, and so we even, as we make these declarations, we appropriate them to His name, in Jesus’ name. You know, that’s how your prayer gets through the ceiling, right? Like, have you ever been around someone who prayed this really great prayer, and then they’re like, “Amen, and you go, “Oh, so close. So you were almost there, you were almost there, man. And I mean, that’s all it just needed that postage stamp, and it would have been just fine. It’s actually demonstrating a low view of Jesus, not a high view. That’s not that’s a prayer for control, not a prayer for submission, but it’s not just in our prayers, it’s in our witness as well. What are the implications of recognizing that Jesus is even now reigning and ruling on the throne for you and your everyday life? Because, yes, He has fulfilled all righteousness for you, and no, you cannot earn your salvation, but yeah, you got some time left here on earth, and there’s some stuff for you to do, because you are a kingdom and royal priest to God. That’s what we’re told in First Peter. It’s what gets reiterated in the book of Revelation. And so, as a royal nation and a holy people, what are we supposed to be doing in the meantime? Well, first of all, I think we should be praying those prayers that yield us in submission to him, but secondly, How are we supposed to act? Well, you’re not going to wear a Jesus Loves Tacos T-shirt. I’m sorry if you own it. You can just, you can cross out the tacos and just keep it, circle to Jesus.

Jen Wilkin
But think for me again about the image of the high priest because. We are a royal priesthood and a holy nation. We like us in this room. If that’s what we are through the finished work of Christ, then I want you to think about that image, because it’s telling something about who, who we are, or who we should be. Now, think about on that terrible camping trip that would not end, this guy, he’s got to get up, and he’s got to go to work over there in the tabernacle. We don’t know where his camp is pitched, but he’s got to put on this elaborate outfit, which, ps, you know what was sewn around the bottom of it? Bells. Anybody got a cat that wears a bell, or maybe a bad two year old, and you hear that bell, and you’re like, here they come again, and that’s this guy, and so imagine he gets up, he puts his get-up on, everybody else is wearing their comfies, their stretchy clothes, and here he comes through the camp, looking like royalty, and sounding like a one-man band, and he goes to work at the temple, and then he comes out at the tabernacle, and he comes out the end of the day, and now not only can you hear him coming, but you can smell him, because he smells like incense, or he smells like animal sweat, he’s taken on the smell of what it is to be in the house of the Lord, but there’s another thing. What’s he got on his forehead? Holy to the Lord, holy to the Lord. You can hear him, you can smell him, you can see him coming from a mile away. I’ve often wondered when I read headlines of church leader scandals, how fewer there would be if we all wore that outfit everywhere we went, but do you realize that when we speak of being clothed in the righteousness of Christ, that is exactly the outfit you have on, holy to the Lord, written on your forehead, sealed. You are sealed, holy to the Lord. How does that change your speech? How does it change whether you decide to gossip? How does it change how you spend your money or your time? Doesn’t it make you want to be like the King of Psalm 72 who had eyes for the needy and the poor and the oppressed. That means eyes for the people who can do nothing for you in return, nothing, not the people who you know later there will be a payback on the favor. There’s no, can I sit at your right hand or sit at your left hand? No, it’s like I’m doing this because I can’t possibly repay the one who gave me these garments. I could never have afforded them on my own, and yet everywhere I go, I know that when people look at me, they’re picturing an invisible God who they can’t see, holy to the Lord. So my prayer for us is that we would recall a transcendent God, that we would recognize that until the sky splits and every eye sees Him, and every knee bows, and every tongue confesses that we are a royal priesthood and a holy nation, and they will see Him in us until they see Him on that day. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be His glorious name forever. May the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen. And amen. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are reigning and ruling. We cannot see it here on this earth. Everything looks like confusion and terror to us, but what a comfort to us, as it was to the early church, to know that, though all around us bend the knee and say Caesar is Lord, that we bend the knee to no one but you, and can trust that your throne is an everlasting throne. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and you have welcomed us into it with compassion and with joy. In Jesus’ name, Amen.