The sermon you are about to hear was recorded at Grace Baptist Church, Cape Coral, Florida. For additional sermons and more information, visit our website at truegraceofgod.org. Good to be with you again. It's been a while, as your pastor has mentioned, that I've been down here. But our paths with various people have crossed. many times from this congregation and we thank God for you and the way in which your congregation reaches out in a very broad way to our nation and to the world. We've just in song been praising God and nothing can be more important to us than that our heart be led out in praise and honor to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And in these times we're together, we're going to be focusing on Jesus Christ, the Lord. Jesus is Lord. And of course, he's the Messiah. He is the promised one. And as the Messiah, he has three offices. He is the greatest of the prophets that ever came to the earth. He is the greatest priest that was ever on earth and the only priest that we have. And he is the greatest king that has ever walked on earth. We're going to focus this evening on Jesus Christ as king. My hope is that seeing how this theme is taken up by Matthew and seeing how Matthew brings Old Testament Scripture through his Gospel and exalts the Lord Jesus Christ, that some of these thoughts will make you to praise Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Matthew opens his Gospel by talking about verse 1 of the New Testament. Verse 1 of the New Testament, Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham, taking us back into the depths of the Old Testament. Jesus Christ is a descendant of David, and He is a descendant of Abraham. And God made great promises to David as the king. Speaking of the Messiah, And He made great promises to Abraham by speaking of the Messiah. As a matter of fact, the Old Testament promises Christ more often than most of us can remember. When man first sinned, and that great tragedy fell upon the human race, of sin and corruption, God gave His first promise of the Messiah. And He said that the Messiah would crush the head of the serpent who tempted mankind to sin. And the New Testament follows through with that in saying that Jesus Christ came to destroy the works of the devil. That's why He came to the earth with a great purpose to carry out. In the days of David, David intended to build a temple for the Lord in Jerusalem. He made great preparations for this temple to be built. And God sent a prophet to him to say, David, you're not going to build the temple. I never asked you to build the temple. The prophet Nathan went on to say these words, I will establish the throne of Solomon, your son. And I will establish that throne forever. And your house and your kingdom, David, will be established forever. It's interesting that Jesus came into the world with the appearance of great humility. He never wore the clothing of a king, of any kingdom that the world has seen. And he never had a palace in which to live like kings have. But he's the king that came to be a king forever. and forever, for all time, for eternity. In numerous years, when the promise seemed to expire and no one who was a descendant of David sat on the throne of David or Solomon, it seemed like this promise was not coming to pass. But we do find in the New Testament in Acts 2, verses 32-36, that on the day of Pentecost, after Jesus' resurrection, we have a great description of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Having been crucified in a humiliating way, as men would see it, on the cross, He was then raised from the dead And in Acts chapter 2, we have these words, Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, Jesus has poured out what you are seeing on the day of Pentecost with the moving of the Spirit within the church. The church is being told this is happening because Jesus is sitting on a heavenly throne at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. And He is there to reign forever and forever. For David did not ascend into the heavens. But David said, the Lord said to my Lord, David calling the Lord Jesus, my Lord, The great King David saying, this is my Lord, the coming Messiah. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ. Jesus is the Lord. And in Matthew chapter 28, when we come to the very end of Matthew's Gospel, the closing verses tell us that Jesus came into Galilee after His resurrection and had His final discussion with His apostles. And these are the words He spoke to His disciples in Galilee. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Now, we know that kings have a certain authority that rules maybe a vast area, maybe a very small area. All authority in heaven has been given to me. All authority upon the earth has been given to me. Now you go and disciple the nations, He told the church. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. I'm the King. I've given the commandments. The church is to teach what Jesus commanded. And Lo, said Jesus, I am with you always. as you keep this commandment of Mine. I will be with you, whether there are few people present or whether there are multitudes present. If you are spreading My name and My authority throughout the earth, I will be with you as you do it. And I will be with you to the end of the age. This age in which we're living. The last stage from the beginning of Christ's coming to the end is the final age of the world until our Lord Jesus Christ returns again. And so, He announces His own authority in these words, with you always to the end of the age. Now, this is precisely what the Old Testament said of the coming of Christ. And Matthew and the other writers of Gospels, the four Gospels that were given to us by divine inspiration, are making it clear that Jesus is the King that was predicted in the Old Testament. So it was predicted to Adam and Eve that a King would come. It was predicted to Abraham that a great king would come. It was predicted to David that a great king would come. And in some of the Psalms of David, there are such amazing predictions of how Jesus would rule and that He would rule all the earth and the heavens. There's another interesting revelation of the coming of the king in the prophet Daniel that Matthew lays hold of throughout the writing of his gospel. You remember that the time came when the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, became a world emperor, the mightiest man upon the earth, and took over the rule of the world in its entirety as it was known at the time. I don't mean it was in the Western Hemisphere. They didn't know about that. The world to them was around the Mediterranean Sea, Europe, North Africa, the east all the way to India. And Nebuchadnezzar came to rule in the earth and there was no one who could contest his reign. And one of the things that happened is that Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Jewish nation, destroyed Jerusalem, took the educated Jews and the craftsmen of the Jews back to his palace in Babylon. That was in 605 B.C. And you will remember that he took young men who were being educated, probably teenagers at the time, Daniel and his three friends who in Babylon were called Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, And they were taken to Babylon, seemingly captives. But when they were in Babylon, they became the means of revealing to the world emperor that a greater king was coming than he was. As a matter of fact, very soon after Daniel began serving Nebuchadnezzar in his palace, the king had a dream one night. And he saw a massive statue that was brilliant to behold. Actually, when he woke up the next morning, he totally forgot what he had seen. And yet, he was disturbed in his spirit. And so he called in the wise men of his kingdom to tell him what his dream was and interpret it. Now, they were used to interpreting dreams, used to telling a man who had forgotten what he dreamed what the dream was. That was not a common thing to be done. And even Daniel, when he interpreted the dream, said to him, there's not a man on earth who can do this. You've asked someone to tell you what your dream was instead of telling them what your dream was, and there's not a man on earth who can do that. But said Daniel, there's a God in heaven. And Daniel had prayed with his three friends. And God revealed these things to Daniel. And Daniel said, You saw one great statue, which is the picture of world empire. And the head was of gold. And that's you, Nebuchadnezzar. And the chest and the arms were of silver. And that's the next kingdom to come, Nebuchadnezzar, after you. God's telling you this dream because you were wondering, what's going to happen after I live? What's going to happen to my kingdom? Well, God's telling you what's going to happen. The Babylonian Empire will be swallowed up by the Persian Empire. And then there is the midsection of the statue, which is of brass. Another empire to follow, the Persian Empire. And that is the Greek Empire. And then the legs and the feet made of iron and clay. Iron because they would smash everything in their way. And clay because they would utterly be destroyed. And so, we have the history of the world empires being given to the first emperor. And it was one united statue because when Persia took over, They swallowed Babylon. When Greece took over, they swallowed Persia and Babylon. When Rome took over, they swallowed Greece and Persia and Babylon. And this was the ever-expanding idea of conquering the world and ruling the world with human might. But in the dream, there was a fifth figure. that was called a stone from a mountain, a little stone that smashed into the feet of the Roman Empire and utterly destroyed the whole idea of world empire. And that was the Christ who was to come. And when Jesus comes in the days of the Roman Empire, No longer will there be worldwide conquering of the earth. Now, many tyrants have dreamed of a world empire since, but none have succeeded in establishing one. But as Daniel told this emperor that this The stone which was cut out of the mountain is the Christ, the Son of Man, who was to come. And He will have the final say in the ruling of this earth. Later on, it was Daniel's responsibility to tell the king that God was going to humble him because he was such a proud man. And God made that emperor mad. He thought he was part of the cattle of the field and he went out in the field and ate grass with the cattle. And then God restored him to his throne after a period of time. And it's thrilling to read the book of Daniel in chapter 4 and read how Nebuchadnezzar responded after his mental health was restored. He wrote, and we have in Daniel 4, the actual copy of a document that the emperor sent out to the entire empire and everyone under his power and mentioned that the God of heaven had driven him mad and that there is no one able to resist this God. And now he, Nebuchadnezzar, worships that God, which in those days was part of the world empire. that when someone became emperor, everyone was required to worship who he thought was God. And Nebuchadnezzar is saying to everyone in the empire, this is the God that I worship now. Probably a converted man. Some people disagree. But it seems to be that way. But this revelation of Jesus Christ, the King who was to come. Revelations kept coming to Daniel through the book up until the time that he was 80 years old. It began when he was barely out of teenage years that he had the first revelation. And then when he's 80 years old, he's dreaming again of the Lord Jesus Christ who was to come. And he is called in those revelations, the son of man. And so when we get to the gospel of Matthew. There are 23 references. To the son of man. Listen to a few of these where Jesus is referring to himself. Did he have a palace? Jesus said, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. He did not own a house. He lived in a stone cottage in Capernaum during his earthly ministry, probably bunking with a fisherman who was his disciple. Matthew 9.6, the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. Power on earth to forgive sins. You have sins. I have sins. We are taught by our Lord Jesus every part of our life to pray the prayer, forgive us our sins as we forgive our debtors. And He didn't want you to wait to the end of your life, but to be praying that throughout your life. because He has power as the Son of Man to forgive sins on the earth. Matthew 12.8, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus is Lord. Matthew 12.40, as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish, so will the Son of Man Be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Matthew 16, 13, Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? Matthew 18, 11, The Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost. That's my mission. Matthew 20 and verse 28, The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many. He said, Woe to him by whom the Son of Man is betrayed, lifting up His foot against the King of kings who will be seated forever upon the throne of God with all authority in heaven. All authority upon the earth. Sometimes you, as Americans, you get the feeling that there are these powers out there that we are helpless in front of. Political powers. They're moving things in directions we don't want to see things go. But all authority on earth is given to the Lord Jesus Christ. and things are going to move where He as the King wants them to go. Hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. He is describing the day of judgment when the Son of Man, Jesus who is Lord, who is now not visible and personally Recognizable upon the earth will return. And there will not be a secret rapture, let me tell you. Revelation chapter one says, Behold, he is coming and every eye will see him. And no one will miss it. when Jesus was talking about His coming again. And He was asked by His disciples, what will it be like when you come again? He said, it will be like lightning from one end of heaven to the other and everybody's going to know that it's happening. And He will come again. And all men will be assembled. And even those who have died will be raised from the dead. Both the just and the unjust to stand before Him. in judgment. That's all authority. And you will stand there and I will stand there. And it will be an awesome day. Well, our Lord Jesus Christ is King over all kings. And He will reign forever and ever. And the Old Testament talked about it. And the New Testament takes it up. And in Matthew chapter 1, Of course, we have we have that incident of the wise men coming from the east to Jerusalem saying, where is he who was born King of the Jews? We've seen his star in the east and we have come to worship him. How'd they get there? Where was the east? It was where Babylon and Persia were. Where Daniel lived. Where Daniel constantly gave revelation about the coming of the King of Kings, where Daniel wrote about Him, where he no doubt left notes in the libraries of those great capitals of the world empire. And men still studied those things in the day when Jesus Christ was born. And they came from the East to worship Him. David in Psalm 2 said this about the Lord Jesus Christ to come, quoting as if the words of God the Father, You are my Son, I will give You the nations for Your inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for Your possession. We worry about what's happening in the world, don't we? What's going to happen to all these nations that are in the midst of violent conflict at the moment? I will give you, Lord Jesus, the nations and the uttermost parts of the earth. You will possess them all. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Psalm 110, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. Rule in the midst of your enemies. And he will execute kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the nations. Psalm 22, all the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord And all the families of the nations shall worship before you, for the kingdom is the Lord's, and He rules over the nations." In Matthew 27, Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate said, Are you the King of the Jews? Jesus said, it is as you say. In Matthew 27, 22, Pilate said to the Jews, Whom shall I release to you? Barabbas? What then shall I do with Jesus who is called the Christ? And the people cried out, Let Him be crucified. His blood be on us and on our children. What an awful self-curse that was. Matthew 27, 29. The soldiers made fun of Jesus with a crown of thorns. They bowed their knee, mocking to Him. And they said, Hail, King of the Jews. And then they crucified Him and over His head there was put a sign that said, This is the King of the Jews. And even the other thieves that were crucified with Him began to say, if you're a king, why don't you come down from the cross and save us too? Well, the Lord Jesus did save one of those thieves, but not by coming down from the cross. He told them, today you will be with me in paradise. Christ left the cross and went to paradise. Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom was of this world, my servants would fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from this world. It's a spiritual kingdom. It's in the hearts of men. And He doesn't have an army that's going to violently impose His will on people. But He sends out the church with His glorious gospel. And there will be people from every nation and tribe that will come to Him. And he said, this will be going on. It will take to the end of the age to accomplish this. As a matter of fact, one of the times when he was talking about the judgment and when it would come, he would say, the gospel will be preached to every nation and then the end will come. Do you want to hurry the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ? Get the work done. Taking the gospel to other people. doing all we can to support those that are taking it to other parts of the world. We grow discouraged at what we see in the decline of Christianity in America. But I tell you, there are teeming numbers in Africa and Asia who are now turning to Christ. In the millions in China, millions. I remember before I moved to the Midwest. I still lived in Pennsylvania. We got the newspaper from Washington, D.C. They were a newspaper organization that could send someone to a country for a month and say, now when you come back, just write on the things that impressed you. When the person came back, the thing that impressed them most was Christianity is growing And this tyrannical government cannot control it. And then the second article, we're on the number of people immigrating into America from China who are active leaders and participants in American churches. Great things are happening in the world where the gospel has not progressed up to this time, but is doing so even now. The Lord Jesus Christ said, the Kingdom of God is within you. It does not come with observation. It is invisible. It is worldwide. It is eternal. And it will never end. Does it make you excited to be part of something that will never end? Are you willing that the world will not see it? at the same time you do, in the same way that you do from the Word of the living God. Revelation 5, 12 and 13, worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. Every creature in heaven, in earth and under the earth, I heard saying, Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever." I want to read, as we're getting near to the close here, a verse at the very beginning of the book of 1 Thessalonians. Paul, when he wrote epistles, Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. The other apostles went to the Jews. He went to the Gentiles. And he was the one who formed the Thessalonian church. And he wrote to the other Gentile churches about Thessalonica. And in verse 9 he says, But they themselves, when I write to them, declare concerning us what matter of entry we had to you. And how that you, Thessalonians, turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God. Great definition of repentance. You turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait. for His Son from heaven. We are told to wait for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. You turn to serve God and to wait. Now isn't that interesting? When you look at the history that goes back to when there was only one man and one woman alive on the earth and God told them about the coming of the great King. And people were waiting for him the whole time that he came, until he came. And now he's saying, now that he's come and gone to be with his father and seated on the right hand of God the Father, we are to wait for him and look for him and expect him. Do you believe that this world is going to end with Jesus coming again? And that will happen someday. And every eye will see Him. And then there will be the general judgment that will make it clear that He rules over every human being that has ever lived. And over spirits that are holy and spirits that are evil. And He is the King. And their eternal destinies are in His hand. I'm telling you, there's not a King like Him. There's not any other so great And this is the Lord Jesus Christ that we worship. And we need to understand that in the New Testament, he is the one that is the focus of attention. We need to remember that when we open his word. We're reading the word of the Lord Jesus and those that he appointed to write it, his apostles. That's the word of the great king. We are to prepare to see Him someday. Are you prepared? Have you believed on His name for the forgiveness of sins? It's the Son of Man who forgives sins in the earth. And it's the Son of Man who gives eternal life to those who trust in Him. Do you believe that our world is like that? I know that when you look at the news on television, it doesn't look that way. When you read the newspapers it doesn't always sound that way. But he is the great king and he's already won the victory and God has already crowned him at his right hand and he will reign forever and forever and of his kingdom there will be no end. Praise God for the Lord Jesus Christ. The old world emperors never dreamed of anything like a power that was eternal, heavenly as well as earthly. Jesus Christ is Lord over all of that, given that rule by the Father who made all things. Let's bow together in prayer. Lord Jesus, we do love to sing hymns that praise you. And oh, how we wish that it was evident to the world that you make every other ruler of the earth look very small. And when we sing of your greatness, Lord Jesus, that is not just some feeling that we have inside. That is a reality that has been declared to us and shown to us in your living and dying and rising again and giving us the Holy Scriptures. We do want to serve you and we do want our lives to exalt you and to give you that glory which is due to Your name. Help us, Lord Jesus, to be active all our lives long in doing those things. We pray in Your name. Amen.