First Samuel chapter 10, our scripture reading. Just be looking at verse one for our reading. This is God's word. Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him and said, has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? You shall reign over the people of the Lord and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. This morning we appreciate the reality that if everything were stripped away, if everything were taken away from us, nobody can take you away from us. And we can say with hearts full of confidence, all I have is Christ. Lord, we worship you, we thank you. We thank you for the security we have because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And nothing can separate us from his love. Help us to know it, the height of it, the depth of it, the width of it, the breadth of it, to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. Lord, as we consider the Old Testament in this chapter 10 of 1 Samuel, teach us, Lord, about the coming kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, about kingship and lordship and what it means for us today and what it doesn't mean for us today. Instruct us now, we believe these are the very words of God. Help us, Lord, to consider it as such. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You can be seated. You know, I hate to pick on the Second Service because there's probably even more people in the Second Service, but you guys are better singers, I'm telling you. It's just a little bit more unction, to use the old Puritan word. Last few weeks we've been studying the beginnings of the king and the kingdom, themes that are oddly, if I might say it, curiously soundbites in our own presidential election. It's intriguing to me that these themes, which are being talked about today, The origins for it all come back to 1 Samuel. And it forces us, I think, to think clearly and biblically about the role of Jesus' lordship and kingship and what that means for us today, what it means for our lives, even what it means for public policy and politics today. There is a lot of confusion about all this, as I pointed out last week. So I want to do what we did last week. Frankly, we may do this every week in this series, but sort of look at the passage from a micro and a macro perspective, small picture, big picture, and just go through this verse by verse, and then we'll pan back and consider some wider application for us today in the year 2024. So verse one, the anointing of the king, Samuel took a flask of oil, we read this, he poured it over his head and kissed him. Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people, Israel? I wanna spend a little time on this anointing because it's a big deal. It's a big deal for Jesus, as we'll see, but I want you to notice in your Bibles the wording that the author uses. The word prince is used, not the word king, at least not here. Now, he will be the king, but it's significant that we understand the pecking order. The word neged, prince, is used instead of the word melek, which is king. And I think it's deliberate and it's important and significant for Israel that they still understand that Yahweh is still the king of Israel. Saul is sort of an under-king, you could say. Maybe analogous to today, we have pastors, shepherds, elders, all the same idea, but they are under-shepherds of the chief shepherd. Peter used that terminology. Jesus is the chief shepherd. You could say senior pastor. And everyone else, all the other elders, are under the chief shepherd. They're under-shepherds. unworthy, broken under shepherds, but men under authority. Saul is to be sort of a king under authority. Yahweh is the king, Yahweh is Lord, all authority is His. Jesus will say the same thing in the Great Commission, all authority is His. But notice again, in our story, the first thing Samuel does is anoint Saul. So I want to talk about this, what's happening here. The act of Samuel anointing Saul is huge because it becomes the background for Jesus and his anointing. Messiah means anointed one. Christos, or Christ, is the Greek version of the same idea. Messiah was sort of the Hebrew way of saying it. Messiah and Christ mean the same thing, the anointed one, but it's a loaded term. In fact, there's no way of knowing this, but I think it may be the most loaded term in the New Testament. New Testament uses the word Christos 530 times, and unfortunately today, many people use it almost like a last name, like a surname. But it isn't, obviously. It was an honorific title, really didn't get attached to Jesus until after the resurrection. But it referred to three things, and all of them find their background in the Old Testament. Anointed as prophet, anointed as priest, and anointed as king, just like in our passage. And what we see in the New Testament is that Jesus wasn't just the promised king, although It's very significant that he was. He was a different kind of king. He was a savior king. Not exactly what they were expecting. The reason I punctuate this is that today there's a movement afoot that greatly emphasizes Jesus' kingship, which is a good thing. This is important. But it fails to emphasize that Jesus is also the suffering servant, fails to emphasize the cross. And the Apostle Paul has absolutely no time for that kind of thinking. Now, I'll show you how this happens at the end of this message. But for now, just know that this anointing is hugely important for Jesus and frames really much of our understanding about his mission. The concept sort of gives us the furniture to understand the mission of Jesus. But in the case of Saul, the emphasis is solely on the office of kingship. Saul's being set apart, specially anointed to reign as king. And this anointing will have some similarities for when David gets anointed later on. I've got a table here that you can see or maybe snap a picture of where you see some of the similarities between the anointing, there's a private anointing, a public acceptance, and then a military demonstration. Starting at the end of verse 1, the story transitions to various signs that will authenticate Saul's kingship. People are going to be wondering, how do we know for sure that this guy, you know, is legit? End of verse 1, and this shall be the sign to you that the Lord has anointed you to be prince over his heritage. Now, very, very unusual word. An interesting point here. We need to highlight this. The prince over his heritage. He's talking about Israel. Israel is the Lord's heritage. His possession. His inheritance, the apple of His eye, as the Song of Solomon says. And even though they've rejected Him, they are still His chosen possession. They're still His people. Paul will make this statement in the New Testament, Romans 9, 10, and 11. Even though they've rejected him, they still have a special place in God's economy. And Saul is now anointed to be prince over his heritage. So starting in verse 2, Samuel explains the various signs that will authenticate or accompany this anointing. He's got to need some signs, both for himself and the nation. There's a little bit of a credibility crisis. People wanna know why is this the guy. Verse two, when you depart from me today, you'll meet two men by Rachel's tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zelza. Sounds like Zelda. And they will say to you, the donkeys that you went to seek are found, and now your father has ceased to care about the donkeys and is anxious about you, saying, what shall I do about my son? Then you shall go on from there farther and come to the oak of Tabor. Three men are going up to God at Bethel will meet you there, one carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine. When they greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you shall accept from their hand, after that you shall come to Gibeath Elohim, where there is a garrison of the Philistines. And there, as soon as you come to the city, you'll meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with a harp, tambourine, flute, lyre, before them prophesying. And the spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you shall prophesy with them and be turned into another man. Now when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do for God is with you. Now that last statement, verse seven, is key. God is with you. And the three things that are the evidence of this are there's gonna be two men who meet you at Rachel's tomb and the lost donkeys, you'll find them. The second is three men are gonna meet him at Bethel and offer him bread. And the third is a group of prophets will meet him at Gibeah and Saul will prophesy with them. Well, the story goes on in verse eight. Then go down before me to Gilgal, behold, I'm coming down to you to offer burnt offerings and sacrifice peace offerings. Seven days you should wait till I come to you and show you what you should do. Now, just if you know the story and you've read this before, there's again, a little, a smack of irony here that Saul, I mean, this kind of becomes his demise. He doesn't actually wait for Samuel, but we'll get there. in due time. So it foreshadows Saul's, how his dynasty ends. He doesn't listen to the word of the Lord. But here in verse eight, he's given the recipe for success. This is how you win. You wait until you're told what to do. Don't rush the process, just be led. Wait for Samuel to lead this whole thing. Verse nine, when he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart. And all these things came to pass that day. When they came to Gibeon, behold, a group of prophets met him. The Spirit of God rushed upon him, and he prophesied among them. Would have loved to have seen this scene. Verse 11, and when all who knew him previously saw how he prophesied with the prophets, the people said to one another, what has come over the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets? And a man of the place answered, and who is their father? Big question. Therefore it became a proverb, is Saul also among the prophets? Now I know this is like drinking out of a fire hydrant. We're moving quick. But this is kind of a weird story. And I honestly don't totally know what to make of it because we don't know exactly what's happening. There's some similar Old Testament stories like this, but we do know that he meets with a group of prophets and the Spirit of God rushed upon him and he started prophesying. And this is obviously a good thing, not a bad thing. And it's another sign that God is with Saul. But here's what's more clear to me. There's something else happening here, and it seems to be, I think, the main point. When the people see Saul with the prophets and Saul's prophesying, they're saying to one another, what has come over the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets? And a man of the place answered, who is their father? Therefore became a proverb, is Saul also among the prophets? Now, this might sound odd to us, but it's significant to the story. The story is highlighting something, and they're asking who Saul's father is, and then they conclude with the saying, with this proverb, is Saul also among the prophets? Well, the idea that Samuel is now a kind of adopted father to Saul, Saul is among the prophets of whom Samuel would be the chieftain. Just like Eli was a kind of adoptive father to Samuel, Samuel would be kind of adoptive father to Saul. Where this seems to be headed is a big deal in the New Testament. The Lord will say to David about David's son, I will be his father and he shall be my son. So God, Yahweh, will adopt David's son to be king of Israel. And at the Lord's baptism, what does the father say? You are my son. What was the sign that they put above Jesus' head when they crucified him? Jesus, the King of the Jews. All the pieces are coming together, if you can see them. Verse 13, when he had finished prophesying, he came to the high place. Saul's uncle said to him and his servant, where did you go? And he said, to seek the donkeys. And when they saw they were not to be found, we went to Samuel and Saul's uncle said, please tell me what Samuel said to you. And Saul said to his uncle, he didn't tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He told us plainly that the donkeys had been found. But about the matter of the kingdom of which Samuel had spoken, he did not tell him anything. So Samuel's uncle said, where'd you go? What'd you do? Where you been? What did Saul tell you? And Saul doesn't tell the whole story. And the author says in verse 16, but about the matter of the kingdom of which Samuel had spoken, didn't say a peep, didn't say anything about it. Well, we've got to consider this statement the matter of the kingdom, and this is where it goes macro real quick, even though they don't see it. This matter of the kingdom is the biggest news in world history. It's the biggest news in the Bible. In fact, you could easily say the main meta-narrative of the Bible. You could trace it with soteriology, salvation, but really I think the main theme of the Bible really is the theme of the kingdom. Saul has no idea how big of a deal this is. And when Jesus starts preaching, he will say the kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus will preach the gospel, good news, of the kingdom. In fact, turn your Bibles to the New Testament. Turn to Mark chapter one. Gonna hop around a little bit just to get our bearings. I want you to connect the dots here. Mark chapter one. Verse 14, now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Now turn to the last few verses in the book of Acts with me, Acts 28. Kingdom becomes a huge theme in the Gospels, obviously, and my own opinion is that it wasn't some reimagined version of the kingdom that was talked about in Daniel and even in 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel. There's very much a continuity with the kingdom from the Old to the New Testament. A kingdom isn't suddenly just spiritual, for instance. It's a physical kingdom they were expecting. Now, there's some differences, and we'll talk about those, but this is a major, major theme in the Bible. So, end of Acts, 28, verse 30 and 31, he, Paul, lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him. Now, stop right there. Everyone look at me. What is Paul proclaiming? What's he doing? Verse 31, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember what Christ means? It means Savior, King. with all boldness and without hindrance. And that is how Acts ends. Acts ends with Paul welcoming all who came to him. What's he talking about? Well, it's the same thing Jesus preached about. He's proclaiming the kingdom of God, telling people about the kingdom of God, teaching them Jesus is Lord, he's the anointed king, he's the savior king of Israel, and he's doing it boldly, and he's doing it without hindrance. That's how Acts ends, ends with Paul proclaiming the same thing Jesus proclaimed. Now, turn back a few chapters to Acts 13. Paul's given a really broad overview of the Old Testament, summarizing the Old Testament. And notice how he explains it. Our 1 and 2 Samuel is key to this. Fascinating to me. Acts 13, verse 16. Paul stood up, motioning with his hands, said, men of Israel and you who fear God. Those are God fears, Gentiles. Part of the synagogue. They loved the God of Israel, but they weren't full proselytes. They weren't Jews. Cornelius would be an example of a God fearer. Men of Israel, God fears, listen. The God of this people, Israel, chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt. And with uplifted arm, he led them out of it. For about 40 years, he put up with them in the wilderness, love that, and after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. All this took about 450 years, and after that, he gave them judges, okay, until Samuel the prophet. The book of Ruth is snuck in there, but really it goes chronologically from Judges to Samuel. Then they asked for a king. That's what we've been studying. And God gave them Saul the son of Kish. That's our passage. A man of the tribe of Benjamin, notably, not Judah, for 40 years. And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, I found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart who will do all my will. Of this man's offspring, God has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus, as he promised. So Jesus is the savior. He's also the promised king, because he's the son of David. He's going to be a Davidic king. Now, we'll come back to this, but I want to keep moving with our story. But I want you to see just in the New Testament how big of a deal this is, what we're studying. It's the foundation, the building blocks. Verse 17, the story shifts a bit, and we see the inauguration of King Saul. Verse 17, now Samuel called the people together to the Lord at Mizpah. He said to the people of Israel, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt, delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you. But today you have rejected your God who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses. And you've said to him, meh. Set a king over us. Now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your thousands. Really important and Samuel kind of just gives him a little bit of a jab. Just for the record, you guys have rejected Yahweh as your Lord, as your king. You've rejected his authority. Now the Lord in his genius engineering and sovereignty allows it. He even engineers it for blessing. But Samuel does not mince words here. They've rejected God as their king. They want a human king instead, just like the other nations. We want to be like the other nations. They are the definition of peer pressure. You need to see here that God's choice of Saul is a kind of judgment. He was selected by lot. You can look these up and see them. Archeologists have found these blocks with white side, dark side. If the dice are too black, it means the answer's no. If it's too white, the answer's yes. If it's white and black, it means try again. But all this to say they go through this process, and it's God's determination. It's providence. But there's different kinds of judgments from God. And I guess you could call it active judgment and passive judgment. I'm making up terms here. But active judgment would be like the book of Revelation or the plagues of Egypt. It's God pouring down his wrath. But there's also a passive judgment. And you can read about that in Romans chapter one. And it's sort of like the gardener that stops gardening. and sort of hands people over to what they want. This is what you want. You can have it. And that becomes in itself a kind of judgment. God takes his hands off the wheel. Well, that's kind of what's happening in our passage in 1 Samuel. It's like what C.S. Lewis said in his book, The Great Divorce. There are only two kinds of people in the end, those you say to God, thy will be done, and those to whom God says in the end, thy will be done. God is, in a sense, giving the people what they want. It's the people's choice, not God's choice. It's an act of judgment. Later on in the book of Hosea, the prophet Hosea will say, the Lord will say, I gave you a king in my anger. So God's judgment at times comes through elections. Verse 20, then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by Lot. And he brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its clans, and the clan of the Matrites was taken by Lot, and Saul the son of Kish was taken by Lot. And when they sought him, he could not be found. So they inquired again of the Lord, is there a man still to come? And the Lord said, behold, he's hidden himself among the baggage. It's almost like a comedy. Saul's hiding in the baggage, which the word is weird. We don't know exactly what it means, but he's hiding. And it's almost like you've asked for a king, here he is. He's hiding. He's a coward. And he's not very discerning. If you think about it, I don't know if this is intentional, but the story starts out with Saul looking for some donkeys. And the story ends with a lost donkey hiding in the baggage. And now the people have to inquire for their king instead of the king inquiring for the people. All of it I think is a little foreshadowing of what's to come. Brendan quoted Calvin a few weeks ago, when God wants to judge a nation he gives them wicked rulers. Well that is certainly experientially true. This is what you've asked for. Well, here he is. He's hiding in the baggage. In fact, the language here is even more direct. Remember, Saul's name literally means asked for, requested. There's a play on words here. They're asking for something that can't be found. They're asking for a king when the Lord is their king. Verse 23, great. thing for us to remember too. Verse 23, they ran and took him from there. And when he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward, really tall. And Samuel said to all the people, do you see him whom the Lord has chosen? There's none like him among all the people. And the people are pumped. They shout, long live the king. They're happy, they got what they asked for, the election is decided. Notice the election is decided both by the people and by God. His sovereignty isn't mitigated by human buffoonery, praise the Lord. He's the divine engineer, the divine architect, And let's look at the last three verses. Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship, and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before the Lord. And then Samuel sent all the people away each to his own home. Saul also went to his home in Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched. But some worthless fellows said, how can this man save us? And they despised him and brought him no presents, but he held his peace. So Saul, at this point, has mixed reviews. Some people say, long live the king. And others say, how can this man save us? And frankly, the worthless fellows were right, not to despise him necessarily, but to question his fitness for the job. OK, that was a breath full. You can take a breather. Let's pan back now. We've looked at this story. in more detail, but I want to pan out and consider some observations for us about king and kingdom. Number one is that Saul was to be a man under authority. Look back at verse 25, Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before the Lord. I want to talk about this in a minute, but the idea here is that Saul is to be a man under authority. He is under God and under his law. He's not a law unto himself. Huge point. So this idea, this passage, has been foundational. Now you may know this, I really didn't. It's been foundational not only for our country, but for others as it relates to the church and the state. Really interesting, this passage. In fact, Richard Phillips, I'll let him explain in his own words, he says, this passage has played an important role not merely in Old Testament Israel, but also in church and state relations ever since. John Knox pointed to this passage to show that earthly monarchs are not laws unto themselves, but are themselves subject to God's law. So, when Mary, Queen of Scots, committed adultery and abetted the murder of her husband, Knox called for her arrest and execution. Even more significant was the influence of Saul's coronation and Samuel Rutherford's 1644 classic, Lex Rex. This was, that was the name of Rutherford's book. Rutherford wrote Rex Lex, which means in Latin, law of kingship. To oppose the idea of Rex Lex, the king was a law unto himself. Rutherford's book was based on Deuteronomy 17, which we'll look at in just a second. Probably the very Bible verses that Samuel had set before Saul referred to Samuel's placing King Saul under the authority of God's word. Rutherford asserted that the kings of Scotland did not have the right to make laws that were contrary to scripture and declared that when a king conducted himself lawlessly, his rights over the people were forfeited. You can probably think of a number of modern examples of this, but Rex Lex's biblical model of separation of powers and social covenant was influential among the founding fathers of America, think Jefferson, and also provided a biblical rationale for colonial American Christians and the rebellion against the lawless English monarch. John Robbins has described 1 Samuel as, quote, the oldest textbook in political freedom. pointing out that by placing human society under God's law, the Bible furnishes us with the principles we need to defend a free society. Lex Rex became the furniture of the U.S. Constitution. So this passage has an interesting history, and it sort of undergirds the notion that our country has embraced, that rulers cannot and must not be a law unto themselves. Leaders must submit to, in our case, the Constitution, and we've agreed that as a society, this is good and right to come under the law, and our leaders cannot become laws unto themselves. That's, for Saul, the main point of verse 25. Saul needs to understand his job description. Because, you know, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and people, it's not too long before they get a little sniff of power, and, you know, they gone, they're out of there, and they're untethered, uncontrolled. Turn your Bibles to Deuteronomy 17. Deuteronomy 17, verse 14. While you're turning there, we just had an interesting discussion at our elders' meeting today about Christian nationalism, which I touched on last week. And I'm going to touch on a little bit more today, but it's interesting right now the arguments being used, and it becomes really tricky to parse this idea of Christian nationalism. There's a bad version, which we mentioned last week. But what's happening right now is tough for us because the left is basically saying any kind of morality, if you're pro-life, you're a Christian nationalist. This is how it's being framed. So any kind of morality is being couched in those terms, and it becomes tricky for us to know how do we articulate that? What do we agree with? What do we don't agree with? Anyway, that was kind of a random side note. But Deuteronomy 17, verse 14. This is the law for the kings. When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me, well, that's exactly what happened. You may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. Okay, this is allowed. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you who's not your brother, verse 16. Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses since the Lord has said to you, you shall never return that way again. And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver or gold. Really interesting. And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, the Torah, approved by the Levitical priests. and it shall be with him and he shall read it in all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes and doing them that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers and that he may not turn aside from the commandment either to the right to the left so that he may continue long in his kingdom he and his children in Israel. So so much to comment on here but he cannot get rich off being a king. Think of modern politics today. People have not had any other career, but politics are unbelievably wealthy, but that's a side note. He cannot amass wealth. He's not to be like other kings and have multiple wives and make worldly alliances. He's to be different. And he's to write his own copy of the Torah, verified and double-checked by the Levites. and he's to know the law and uphold it and come underneath it. That will be their constitution. He's a man under authority. Will Saul be a man under authority? The answer is a resounding no. He is not, not for long at least. He shows no real interest in God's law. He displays no real interest in obeying God's word and he ends up being a king just like the other nations. And to a lesser degree so does David. All right, second point of application, other than just the significance of coming underneath God's law, number two, there is a coming kingdom. This past week I was talking with our own Rick Carmichael, who I see in the back, on this topic of the kingdom, and kind of a complex issue to grasp. And Rick, if you don't mind me quoting you here, Rick, but he sent an email that summarized it really as good as anything I've ever read. And so here's a good summary from Rick on the kingdom of God. It includes, and he listed five things. Number one, the universal rule and reign of God as the sovereign king over everything he's created and sustains in the universe. Right now he is the king over the universe. That's one sense in which this is used. Number two, the people of Israel. God's chosen people from all the peoples of the world to be his covenant kingdom people. That's true. They haven't been replaced. Number three, in anticipated future millennial or messianic kingdom in fulfillment of the promises of a Davidic king and the Son of Man. We'll read about this in 2 Samuel chapter 7, one of the most important chapters in the Bible. There's a future physical kingdom where Jesus is ruling the nations on this earth as he does in heaven. Number four, an inaugurated reality fulfilled already in Jesus Christ who preached the gospel of the kingdom, the message that gives rise to and results in people of the kingdom and those who oppose God's rule. You've heard us say, the kingdom is already and not yet. That was coined from George Ladd, and really it's been widely accepted. There's a sense in which the kingdom is already. There's a sense in which the kingdom is not yet. Well, in what sense is the kingdom already? Well, spiritually, the sons and daughters of the kingdom are here. And if you're a Christian, you live your life in obedience to the king. You live by those kingdom principles. Matthew 5, 6, and 7, the Sermon on the Mountain, we operate by different rules. We have a different kind of allegiance. Now, we are citizens of this world, too, and we're active in that, but our primary allegiance is to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the King. Number five, a hope for the not yet aspects of the kingdom reality in Jesus to be completed on his return. So we're waiting for the consummation of the kingdom. Physically, it's not here. We're waiting for it. Jesus will bring it. He taught us to pray. Pray your kingdom come. May your will be done. There's a Christian writer who gave a good illustration I thought I'd share. He says, as a child, I lived in an area of southern Missouri where electricity was available only in the form of lightning. We had more of that than we could use, but in my senior year of high school, the Rural Electrification Administration extended its lines into the area where we lived, and electrical power became available to households and farms. When those lines came by our farm, a very different way of living presented itself. Our relationships to fundamental aspects of life, daylight and dark, clean and dirty, work and leisure, preparing food and preserving it, could then be vastly changed for the better. But we still had to believe in the electricity and its arrangements, understand them, and take the practical steps to involve in relying on it. You may think the comparison rather crude, and in some respects it is, but it will help us to understand Jesus' basic message about the kingdom of the heavens. If we pause to reflect on those farmers who in effect heard the message, repent, for electricity is at hand. repent or turn from their kerosene lamps and lanterns, their iceboxes and cellars, their scubbards and rug beaters, their woman powered sewing machines and their radios with dry cell batteries. The power that could make their lives far better was right there near them, whereby making relatively simple arrangements they could utilize it. Strangely, he says, a few did not accept it. They did not enter the kingdom of electricity. Some just didn't want to change, or others thought they couldn't afford it, or so they thought. Even though the physical kingdom won't come until Jesus brings it, the electricity is here, you could say. And you can enter spiritually now through faith and repentance in the Lord Jesus Christ. The last thing I'll mention, maybe the most important for us today, 2024, is there is a coming Savior King, and I emphasize that on purpose. There's a growing movement, and I'm probably way too in touch on some of these movements and what's going on, but there's a growing movement that I'm observing that proclaims the slogan, Christ is King. Maybe you've seen this, billboards in various cities. I alluded to it last week, but it's part of a growing Christian movement that's a species of Christian nationalism. And I'd say not the good kind. And again, this is tough to parse. As I mentioned earlier, Christ does mean king. He's the King of kings, and he's the Lord of lords. And that's true now. But something that's often lacking in this movement is an emphasis on the cross of Christ. I read an article a few months ago that illustrated this perfectly. I sent it to our elders. But the author is part of the Christian nationalist movement and his critique is what he coined loser theology. And he said this, I'll just quote him in a few things. And you try to figure this out and discern what's off here. His opening line was, why do evangelical Christians have so little power in our society? And I remember reading that, thinking that honestly sounds more like a question from a French philosopher. Sounds more like Foucault than it does a quote from the Gospel of Matthew. Power in society? Is that the ambition? Is that our mission? Is that the Great Commission? He went on to say, it's good for Christians to have power. It's good and right for Christians to acquire power, gain influence. This includes political power. He says, we need men and women of action, lion-hearted, bold, and gutsy Christians wielding power in the world for the glory of God. If we do not, our inevitable defeat will lead to a godless, miserable, pagan hellscape that we can barely imagine. Well, in some ways, he's probably right. That's what Jesus promised. I can resonate with some of what he's saying, but his message is totally missing the balance, and I don't want us to miss the balance either. Many people are missing the balance. Jesus was crucified on a cross. He specifically told his disciples to not thirst after political power because his kingdom is not of this world. And he promised the same kind of mistreatment that he experienced. He did not exhort us to be powerful in society. The cross wasn't just a means of salvation, it was a model of discipleship. People are increasingly calling this loser theology, but I'm afraid that's the message of the cross. So much of this, I think, comes back to our eschatology. Eschatology really matters, and for these reasons. And I think if we think we build the kingdom, then the temptation becomes, for young men in particular, to beat our plows into swords. As I mentioned last week, Jesus brings the kingdom, not us. So how do we live? Well, we live under the reality that Jesus is the Christ. He is the King. We live under that reality now. We submit to his lordship even now, even though we're waiting for the consummation of the kingdom, the physical kingdom. We seek the kingdom of God above all else. Seek first the kingdom, Jesus said. But the title Christ doesn't just mean king, it means savior king, suffering king. He's the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy, the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. And the suffering, we mustn't forget, is key to his mission. It's key to his mission. This is what his disciples didn't get, and some still don't get. The point of telling Peter is not To not suffer and go to the cross was satanic. Peter, get behind me, Satan, he says. He must go to the cross. I'll close with just an article that Kevin DeYoung shared a number of years ago, and it was titled, Politics is Hell. Can I get an amen? I'm just kidding. He says, imagine your life were an open book. Every conversation recorded. Every errant word written down. Every gaffe broadcast before all. What if everything you ever did was fair game? What if every action and every decision were held up to the severest scrutiny? What if all your last minute apologies fail to satisfy? How would you feel to realize someone knew everything about your past and someone was chronicling everything about your present? How would you like to face a barrage of questions for every inconsistency in your life? What a fearful proposition. Anything you ever say or ever do can and often will be held against you. It's a scary thought to think that your whole life could be an open book with defenses that do not hold and stories that don't stick and excuses which only make things worse. That's politics, he says. And that's the day of judgment without the blood of the cross. And he's right. Kingdoms come and go. But God is sovereign, we are not. And I'm going to do the best possible thing I can do for our nation right now. Best possible thing I could do is say, hear ye, hear ye. Jesus is the king. He's coming again to establish his kingdom. Repent and trust in Jesus and all your sins will be washed away and you can be included in his kingdom and have that gift of eternal life. So come to Jesus, trust in Jesus, give your life to Jesus, live your life in obedience to the King. Turn your eyes away from pseudo-saviors and look to Jesus who will not disappoint. You and I are going to stand before the Lord soon and give an account for our lives and the way to salvation is not through a moral code or conservative values, the way to salvation is through the person and work of the Lord Jesus, the King. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. Shocking how relevant it is for us today. Help us to be balanced and courageous and fearless and bold and to emphasize the right things. Emphasize what you would have us emphasize. Lord, help us to allocate our emotions accordingly and not get too worked up about this election. Help us to care far more about the kingdom of God. Help us to seek first the kingdom of God. Lord, if there's anyone here who's not a part of that kingdom spiritually, who's outside that kingdom, Lord, show them the pathways of repentance and trust and obedience to Christ and the fact that you have provided freely, all by your grace, entrance into your kingdom. We give you thanks for your word and the Lord Jesus Christ, amen. Thank you for listening to this sermon from Littleton Bible Chapel. At LBC, we are passionate followers of Jesus proclaiming Christ and his word. For more information about LBC, please go to littletonbiblechapel.org.