Brief:
God allows us to have human governments, but Christ will return to rule over
the earth.
Needed: Nothing
Intro Question
What would happen if
we didn’t have a president for the country? How would life be different?
What are some of the
good things that the president does?
What would be
something good about not having a president?
For a long time, the
people of Israel didn’t have a king or a president. They had leaders, people
like Moses and the judges and priests and Samuel, but they didn’t have anyone
who was really in charge of the whole country.
Scripture: 1 Samuel
8:1-7; Matthew 24:30; Read Micah 4:1-4; Isaiah 66:18-21; Zechariah 14:16-19;
Isaiah 11; Isaiah 65:19-20
1 Samuel 8:1-7: When Samuel grew
old, he appointed his sons as Israel’s leaders. 2 The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his
second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. 3 But his sons did not follow his ways. They turned
aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and
perverted justice.
4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to
Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your
ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations
have.”
6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this
displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord told him: “Listen to all
that the people are saying to you; it is not you
they have rejected, but they have rejected Me as their king.
God says that the
people wanting a human king means that they have
rejected God as King, because before, God was in charge of Israel, not a human
being. How do you think our country would be different if God was in charge
instead of the President and Congress?
I think that we
wouldn’t argue about what laws to make or what policies to set. God would tell
us what to do. He would tell us the right thing and the best thing to do, and
we would just do it. Everything would run perfectly because God would tell us
the best way to do things instead of us trying to think and argue about it.
The country would
also be better because everyone would believe in God and follow Him or else
they’d be breaking the law.
But God let the
people choose a king. And He lets us have kings and presidents and congresses
and everything else that countries might have. For now. One day, Jesus is going
to come back to Earth, though, and when He does, He will be King over the whole
world.
Matthew 24:30: “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in
heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they
see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great
glory.”
Why would people
mourn when they Jesus coming back?
There are two reasons
for people to mourn when they see Christ returning. One is because they are
afraid of Him; the other is because they realize how wrong they were not to
believe in Him. My guess is that most people will accept and believe in Jesus
when they see Him coming back.
Micah 4:1-4: In the last days the mountain of
the Lord’s temple will be
established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted
above the hills, and peoples will stream to it.
2 Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to
the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the
God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, so that we may walk in
His paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 3 He will judge between
many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their
swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up
sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. 4 Everyone will sit under
their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make
them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has
spoken.
Jesus will be
reigning from Jerusalem, and all the nations will come to Him to learn His
ways. He will judge fairly between the nations so that there will no longer be
any need for war. When all peoples are God’s, and Christ is ruling them fairly,
there will be no division or discord, only unity and peace.
And for those who
don’t come on their own, Jesus will send out missionaries.
Isaiah 66:18-21: “And I, because of what they have planned
and done, am about to come[a] and gather the people of all nations and
languages, and they will come and see My glory.
19 “I will set a sign among them, and I will send some of those
who survive to the nations—to Tarshish, to the Libyans[b] and Lydians (famous
as archers), to Tubal and Greece, and to the distant
islands that have not heard of My fame or seen My glory. They will
proclaim My glory among the nations. 20 And they will bring all your people, from
all the nations, to My holy
mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the Lord—on horses, in chariots and wagons, and on mules and
camels,” says the Lord.
“They will bring them, as the Israelites bring their grain offerings, to the
temple of the Lord in
ceremonially clean vessels. 21 And I will select some of them also to be
priests and Levites,” says the Lord.
And it will be
against the law for people not to believe in God and serve Him as King.
Zechariah 14:16-19:
Then the survivors from all the nations that
have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the
King, the Lord Almighty,
and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles. 17 If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up
to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty,
they will have no rain. 18 If the Egyptian
people do not go up and take part, they will have no rain. The Lord will bring on them the
plague He inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate the
Festival of Tabernacles. 19 This will be the
punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to
celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles.
For the most part,
however, there will be peace – not just between nations but throughout
creation.
Isaiah 11: A shoot will come
up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of
the Lord will rest on Him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of
might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord— 3 and He will delight in the
fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what He sees with His eyes, or decide by what
He hears with His ears; 4 but with righteousness He
will judge the needy, with justice He will give decisions for the
poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of His
mouth; with the breath of His lips He
will slay the wicked. 5 Righteousness will be His belt and faithfulness the sash
around His waist.
6 The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with
the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling[a] together; and a little child will lead them. 7 The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. 8 The infant will play near the
cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. 9 They will neither harm nor destroy
on all My holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the
knowledge of the Lord as
the waters cover the sea.
10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a
banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to Him, and His
resting place will be glorious. 11 In that day the Lord will reach out His
hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people from
Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from
Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the
Mediterranean.
12 He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the
exiles of Israel; He will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the
four quarters of the earth. 13 Ephraim’s jealousy will vanish, and Judah’s enemies will be
destroyed; Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, nor Judah hostile toward
Ephraim. 14 They will swoop down on the slopes of Philistia to the west;
together they will plunder the people to the east. They will subdue
Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be subject to them. 15 The Lord will dry up the gulf of the Egyptian sea; with a
scorching wind He will sweep His
hand over the Euphrates River. He will break it up into seven streams so that
anyone can cross over in sandals. 16 There will be a highway for the remnant of His
people that is left from Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came up
from Egypt.
Isaiah’s prophecy
shows us a time when the animals will be at peace with each other just as they
were in the Garden of Eden before sin entered the world. With the Creator
actively ruling the world once more, creation will no longer be in chaos but
will return to its original tranquility.
Isaiah 65:19-20: I will
rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in My people; the sound of
weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.
20 “Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a
few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; the one who dies at a
hundred will be thought a mere child; the one who fails to reach a hundred
will be considered accursed.
When Christ is
reigning, people will live to be a hundred or more. How will this happen?
In a world where the
nations are at peace and creation is at peace, people will no longer die by war
or disease. We won’t have to poor money
into defense budgets but will be able to focus all our resources on researching
ways to heal and extend life. Besides this, the Great Physician Himself will be
present and available for those who may need to call on Him.
So, God lets the people have a king. He lets us have our
governments. But the time is coming when Jesus will return, and God will be King again.
No comments:
Post a Comment