Every time Christmas is upon us. But I would submit to you that the vast majority of evangelical Christians in the United States do not believe what this hymn says. It's a beautiful hymn, so we're going to sing it until the cows come home. But I wonder if we actually believe what it says. Listen to the fourth verse again. No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found. And in the fourth verse, it says, He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness and wonders of His love." Let me ask you a question. Do you believe that the modern evangelical Christian accepts the fact that the Lord Jesus makes first of all, is here to reverse the curse, even that physical curse of the thorns that cover the globe, but also that He rules the nations, and that the nations will, in fact, prove the righteousness of the Lord Jesus and the wonders of His love. Because most of the time, if you were to listen to most of the preaching, perhaps on TV, even some of the good preaching, those very, very, very few good preachers that you can hear on television or on the radio, those very few that you hear that are good and solid, that believe the true gospel, they would tell you that until Christ returns, what we are probably going to see is an overarching decay in the world, and that Christianity will kind of spiral out of control. That Christ's kingdom is merely something that's spiritual, but we ought to expect more and more persecution as the days go on. And interestingly, I actually saw an interview with Ben Shapiro. Do you guys know who Ben Shapiro is? He's the short Jewish guy on a Christian radio show, and they asked him, why don't you accept Jesus as the Messiah? And one of the things he said was, well, because Jesus didn't bring peace. And if Jesus didn't bring peace, then therefore He cannot be the Messiah. How would you answer that? I might ask, would you have a way to answer that if someone said, well, Jesus didn't bring peace? Look at the world. Look around you. Would you know how to answer that? Because every year we sing these songs and we say that Jesus is the Prince of Peace and that He's come to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found, and yet most of what we hear we don't believe in. We have this hymn in our hymn books, but most evangelical Christians in the United States do not believe what it says. And so if we don't believe it, we ought to remove it from the hymnal. But if it's true, we ought to believe it, and we ought to sing it with gusto, should we not? And we should love it, and we should have faith in what God has said. So the question is, What does the Bible actually say about this? Is Christ actually the Prince of Peace? And if so, like that old commercial said, where's the beef? Well, we might ask, where's the peace? So, here's where we're going. We're going to look at an exposition of the text. Then we're going to draw some doctrines out of the text. And we're going to answer a few objections, and then we're going to see how this doctrine impacts the Christian life. So, our text starts out with, For unto us a child is born. Well, at this point in Israel's history, as Isaiah is prophesying, Ahaz is the king. And Syria, who would have been the world power in this time, had just come upon Judah and is about to attack, so they think. This was the arch nemesis of Israel, by the way, in these days. And they are seeking to come and make an attempt to overthrow Judah. And Ahaz is the king. And chapter 7 is the background to this, these few verses. Let me read them to you real quick because Syria comes and is about to destroy Judah, so they think, and God says, Don't worry, I'm going to protect you, I'm going to deliver you from the hand of the Assyrians, and here's what He says. Moreover, the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God. Ask it either in the depth or in the height above." Meaning, I promise you, I'm going to deliver you from these people. Ask what you want to see and I'll prove to you that I'm going to keep my promise, whatever you want to see. And Ahaz said, I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. Then he said, Hear now, O house of David, is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, which means, Very good. Very good. Good job, children. Very good. So this is the background to the passage. Notice the arrogance and pretended humility that King A has here. By the way, don't ever ask God for a sign. But if God tells you to ask Him for a sign, you better ask for a sign. And Ahaz pretends some sort of piety, and God says, are you really going to tell me you don't want to test me when I just told you to ask me for a sign? So what Ahaz ends up doing is testing the Lord, and the Lord wasn't very pleased with his response. He actually broadens the scope, not just to Ahaz himself, because he says, here now, O house of David. So he broadens this promise and he says, a virgin will conceive and bear a son. And we know that this refers to the Lord Jesus. We hear that over and over again. And so what he does is he gives them a promise that will happen very far in the future, rather than giving them something that they could have then and there. to know that the Syrians would not have victory over them. And chapter 9, the verses that we read, our text for this morning is an elaboration on that promise, that son who would be conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin. It's an elaboration on that. And He's called a child and a son. And so note that later on in the passage, he's called Mighty God. And this is the doctrine that we believe, meaning that Christ is both fully man and fully God. He's not what some... say that Christians believe where He's half man and half God. That's not a Christian doctrine at all. We don't believe anything like the ancient Roman gods that there was some sort of demigod or anything like that. We believe that the Lord Jesus was fully God, 100% God, having all the attributes that God the Father Himself had, and yet also having all the attributes that a human has. He was fully human and fully God, and yet at the same time, those natures retained in themselves what they were. In other words, the human nature didn't become God's nature, and that God's nature didn't become a human nature. They didn't mix together or mingle in any way. He was one person with two distinct natures. It is a mystery that we will never fully comprehend and yet it's a mystery that we are to believe because it's biblical. He has two natures and yet Christ is one person. And it says that the government will be upon His shoulder. Now this word government means rule, His dominion, His power, everything will be upon the shoulders of Christ. And there's really two kind of interpretations of what is meant by His shoulders here. It could just simply mean, it's an image of saying He is upholding The rule or the dominion or the government or the power on his shoulder is meant to be an image. But it could also mean something that we see later on in Isaiah in chapter 22, where the keys of the house of David are given to a man named Eliakim. And it says that he bears those keys on his shoulder. Now an interesting fact that the keys to the house back then were not little piddly things this big that you stick in a doorknob. were about this big in those days and they had to be born on one shoulder. And in fact, someone who guarded the keys was often a warrior type and could even use those keys as a weapon to defend the house. This is a position of prominence, to hold the keys upon one shoulder, and it means that you are a warrior and often someone very powerful already. Whichever way you understand this, I think it's giving the same image either way that the power of Christ, the authority of Christ, His rule and dominion, He bears it as a king bears a kingdom. And it says that His name will be called." Now you know, I think I've said this over and over again, and I think it's really important for us to understand that when you see a name in Scripture, particularly a name for God, God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit, this is not merely something that you call God. that the names of God give us insight into His character and His attributes. The names of God tell us who God is. And traditionally, theology is done, partly at least, by a study of the names of God. Because knowing God's names teaches us who God is. So when it says here that His name shall be called, anytime you see that with reference to God, you ought to know, you ought to listen very carefully, because this is going to tell us who God is like, who Christ is going to be like. It says He is a wonderful counselor. This speaks to His wisdom and His merciful grace that He gives us to help in our time of need. He is called Mighty God. His power, His strength, His divinity. He possesses all those attributes that it is to be God. Christ possesses those. He is infinite in His holiness. He is infinite in His love. He is merciful and gracious. And of course, the subject, let me not skip over that, I'm sorry, he's called the everlasting Father. We don't need to misunderstand this saying that Christ, or the Lord Jesus, is being confused with the Father, because there is only one God, eternally existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, the Father is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Son or the Father. They are all distinct, and yet there is one God. What this actually is referring to is that He is the Father of what is everlasting. He is the Father of eternity, or the Originator of eternity, meaning that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the Creator of all things and Himself is eternal." If you ever encounter a Jehovah's Witness, they will tell you that the Lord Jesus was the first created being. This is not true. Christ Himself is the originator of eternity. He cannot be both eternal and a creature. He is the everlasting Father, the Father of eternity. And then, the subject of our sermon, He's the Prince of Peace. And remember, We're talking about a kingdom with a very faulty and frail king, King Ahaz, and he's saying that this king that's coming, the son that will be born, will be the prince of peace. Speaking of a king and his dominion. And Calvin notes that the word peace often denotes Prosperity. Now immediately, when I use the word prosperity, I know that what, at least some of you, probably pops into your mind is the false prosperity gospel that many of our TV preachers proclaim today, like Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar. Many of these gentlemen teach that Christ came just to make you rich and never get sick. And that is a false gospel. That is not why Christ came. But oftentimes when the Reformers or the Puritans or many of the godly men that spoke of prosperity in the past, they simply meant that in society you would be able to live as a Christian with freedom and in all likelihood without persecution. That's what they meant by prosperity. They did not mean billions upon billions of dollars in many, many, many mansions here on earth. That's not what they meant by prosperity. That's a modern invention of a false gospel that we often hear on TV. So when you hear prosperity or you hear me speak about prosperity, please don't extrapolate that or include it with what is commonly spoken of as prosperity today. Think of being able to live as a Christian with liberty. That's what we mean. And so, this is talking also, though, about peace among nations. Not just peace with God. Not just the peace that we have with God in salvation. Now, it's true that we do have peace with God because of what Christ has done. But that's not merely limiting the peace that Christ brings to our individual salvation. He is talking about national, worldwide scope. He says, "...of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end upon the throne of David and over His kingdom." This is not an immediate, visible rule at a particular point in time as the Jews anticipated. No, this is an increasing kingdom with slow, continual growth over time. This is what Isaiah is speaking of. and He says to order it and establish it with judgment and justice. This is not a kingdom of total chaos and anarchy. This is a kingdom built according to the righteous law of the Lord Jesus, and it says, from that time forward, even forever. So we can't merely relegate this to the second advent of Christ. And here's how we know that. When the angel actually comes to announce the coming birth of Christ to Mary, here's what he says. He says, "...and He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end." Those were the words of the angel that came to Mary. So we can't merely relegate this something to the second advent. That's a direct quote of this passage when the angel says, this is the king that's going to rule over the entire world. And it begins at the Messiah's coming to earth. And that is the beginning of the last days. Now you say the last days, because typically when we think of the last days, We probably think of the last days right before Christ returns, and we think everything's going to be awful and terrible, and then Jesus will come back and fix everything. But actually, in Genesis 48, when Israel is blessing His sons, a passage that I bet you've heard many times, He says, let me tell you what's going to happen in the last days. And then he says a lion will come from the tribe of Judah and the scepter will not depart from him. And he refers to him as the lawgiver that would come. And that, again, is alluded to at the birth of Christ. This is the lion that would come from the tribe of Judah. Here is the One. Here is Christ the King in the last days, as Isaiah says. And also multiple times in the New Testament, both Peter and also the author of Hebrews refer to the time in the first century that the Christians were living in as the last days. He says in Hebrews 1, He has spoken to us in these last days by His Son. So these promises are to have the fulfillment at least beginning in the days of the first century. And the last phrase from verse 7 in Isaiah chapter 9, it says, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Now the Lord of hosts is a way of referring to God as the Lord of armies. Think if you were in Isaiah's day and the great world superpower comes upon tiny little Judah, and you think, there's no way we're going to be protected from this. And then he says, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this, reminding you that Christ has millions upon millions upon millions upon millions of armies of angels at His disposal, to protect you whenever He sees fit. Christ, excuse me, the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this. This is a promise. The Prince of Peace will come, the government will be upon His shoulders, and He will bring peace to all the world. In fact, Earlier in Isaiah, He had even promised already that they would beat their swords into plowshares, giving this picture of a time when the King, the Messiah, would come, and they would no longer need weapons of war, that they would use those weapons of war for productivity. And so this is a promise that was given centuries before Christ came, but it was for the time when Christ came. It was for the reign of the Messiah, not merely relegated to the last days, meaning the last days right before Christ would return. It was relegated to the last days of beginning when Christ came, stretching all the way until His final coming at the end. So let's discuss the doctrine that we see in this, okay? Because I really believe that the large majority of the American church doesn't really believe this. But let's discuss the plan that we have in Scripture. What are we going to expect when the Messiah comes? Let me give you a few things. First, that salvation would be accomplished by Jesus. That's prophesied over and over again in the Old Testament. And we know that this happened. We know that Christ lived a perfect life, perfectly obeying the Father, that He went to the cross and took the wrath of God for us, that He was buried, that He rose again on the third day, that He ascended up into heaven. And that as He is seated at the right hand of the Father, that He actually sent His Spirit and baptized the church with gifts to empower them for the work of ministry or service. So we know that. We know that those things have already been accomplished. But also, what is proclaimed in the Scriptures is that the Spirit-blessed Gospel, as proclaimed by the Church, Christ grows His Kingdom in this way, by preaching of the Gospel, and through evangelism, and even by living the Christian life. Listen to Isaiah 11.4. a few chapters after this, he says, "...but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide equity for the meek of the earth." Listen, "...he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips He shall slay the wicked." It is not with swords or guns or shields or anything like that that Christ rules and reigns. It's through the breath of His mouth, through the preaching of His Word and through the Scriptures. Revelation 19 picks up on this as well. Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on him was called Faithful and True. And in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns, and had a name written that no one knew except himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, that's the blood of His enemies by the way, and His name was called the Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses." Now listen to what it says. This is a picture of the Lord Jesus in His kingdom. He says, now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword that with it He should strike the nations, and He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords." was out of His mouth that came the two-edged sword that He strikes the nations. This is how Christ defeats His enemies. This is how Christ rules the nations, through His Word, through that which comes out of His mouth, through His Word and the preaching of that Word. It is not to be built by political manipulation, some sort of top-down approach. Nor is it to be built in the way that historically Roman Catholicism taught or that Islam teaches through bloodshed and conquer. It is to be built by the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ and His Word as His church lives out His law among themselves. But not only this, the Bible teaches that the gospel is going to spread over time. Isaiah 9, 7, as we just read, says, of the increase of His government, there will be no end. This is something that is going to spread across the globe. Ezekiel 37, 26 teaches of the covenant of peace that will come, and he says, I will establish and multiply them, and I will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. Note that this covenant that would come, covenant of Christ, the new covenant, is something that is going to be multiplied, Ezekiel says. But Jesus picks up on this in His parables in Mark chapter 4. He preaches the parable of the sower, where a sower goes out and sows seed, and this grows over time as the farmer goes to sleep. And then He teaches the parable of the mustard seed, that this tiny little seed that is put in the ground slowly over time grows into be one of the largest plants. This is something that all throughout Scripture is taught. And yet, in the first century still, they believed that this was going to be an instantaneous taking over of the world when the Messiah would come. And He says, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how the prophets spoke of the Kingdom, nor is that how the Prophet, the Lord Jesus, spoke of His Kingdom. It was to take place slowly over time. And then, those changed hearts are going to produce changed lives, and eventually, all nations will come to know the Lord Jesus. You know, Habakkuk, this is one of my favorite verses in all of Scripture. Habakkuk 2.14 says, For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. How much water covers the sea? All of it. There's no part of the sea that doesn't have water on it. And yet he says the land is going to have the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as much as you see water in the seas. If you go out to Tybee today and you were to look at just the miles upon miles of water that you see at the beach, and you see no land there whatsoever, that's how much the knowledge of the glory of the Lord is going to cover the earth one day. That the whole earth will know Christ. And you know, Christ actually speaks of this in Matthew chapter 13. He tells the parable of the wheat and the tares. And remember, a tare is something that looks just like wheat, but is not actually wheat. And He says that the field in which the wheat and the tares are, He calls the world. It's not merely, it's not just the church. We're not just saying that the church has the wheat and the tares. Christ is saying that when He returns, when He comes back at the end of time, to finalize everything at the final judgment day, that the whole earth will at least look like wheat, though there will be unconverted men among us. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that he must reign till he has put all his enemies under feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. This is the proclamation of the kingdom that you get all throughout the Bible. It is not something that Christ comes and perpetually fails from the time that He begins His kingdom till the time that it's consummated at the end. It's continual failure, continual failure. Although that's what's preached oftentimes today. That is not the picture that you get from Christ, from the apostles, from the prophets, or anywhere in Scripture. It's a kingdom of continual slow growth over time. And in fact, that's exactly what we've seen. A kingdom that began with just a handful of people has grown to the farthest ends of the earth. So what about some concerns or maybe some objections? Because we still think, well, Prince of Peace, there's a lot of bad that goes on in the world, isn't there? So let's look at some objections. Probably the main objection would be, well, the world looks so bad. And that's a powerful argument, isn't it? I mean, that would give me pause, right? Well, let me give two responses to that. The first thing I would say is that if the Bible teaches it, Should we not trust what the Scripture says more so than we trust what our perception of current events are? Amen? Okay, that's a fair thing to say, right? Even if the Bible teaches it, even if we don't perceive it to look that way right now, then we ought to believe it if the Bible teaches it. But let me say something I think is a little better answer argument to that. While there is persecution today, the truth is that the persecution that is today is not what it was in the first century and even at the time of the Reformation. And I don't in any way want to minimize the sacrifices that our brothers and sisters in Christ are making in China or are making in Iran, many who are tortured for their faith, but yet if you understood that the Emperor Nero lit his garden with the burning bodies of Christians, you would say, well, we don't see that today, do we? We don't see that very much today. And if you understood the intensity of the persecution under the Emperor Diocletian, and also in France, even at the time of the Reformation, five centuries ago. Have you ever heard of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre? When the Roman Catholic ruler in France had virtually every single Protestant slaughtered in about the space of a month. That was five centuries ago. Yes, there is persecution today, and we ought to pray and remember our brothers and sisters who are suffering, but we do not yet in our time see this type of persecution. And so, I would also like to point out the fact that usually someone who makes that argument is someone who is sitting in an air-conditioned room with a leather-bound Bible, having for roughly two centuries had no fear whatsoever of any type of persecution. Now, it may get worse before it gets better. I wouldn't deny that. The way our nation looks right now, yes, things may get worse before they get better. But yet, the upswing for the last two millennia, we do see a continual growth of the gospel and a continual growth of peace despite the opposition. So doesn't the Bible say, though, that persecution will increase? Well, the answer is no. The Bible doesn't say that at all. But it does say that there will be persecution. Think with me real quick about marriage. Forget we're talking about the kingdom. Let's talk about marriage, okay? No pastor worth his salt is going to tell you that your marriage should be continually filled with utter misery every day. Right? But neither is a good pastor going to tell you that your marriage is going to be rainbows and butterflies, right? No, what he's going to tell you is that you can have a blessed and fruitful marriage under Christ, but it's not going to be rainbows and butterflies. It's going to require work. It's going to require denying of self. It's going to require confession of sin. It's probably going to include a few tears as well, but through it all, living according to God's Word, you can have a blessed and fruitful marriage under Christ and His Gospel. Well, the same can be said of the Kingdom. That yes, there will be persecution. Yes, there will be tears. There will be opposition. There will be the forces of darkness seeking to work against the Kingdom. But that does not mean that through all of that, the Kingdom will not grow. One of my favorite passages in Scripture is It's repeated in Acts and it says, "...but the word of the Lord went forth unhindered." Nothing could stop the proclamation of the Gospel, no matter what happened. So the next objection I want to look at, and I believe this is probably the most important objection, so if you've checked out a little bit, and if you're nodding off, check in here very quickly. Isn't this, this is what some have said to me before, isn't this the social gospel? Aren't there heretical groups that teach that the world is supposed to get better and better and then we usher in the kingdom of God? Well, the answer is yes and no. Okay, yes there are heretical groups that teach that conditions are going to improve, but no, what I'm espousing is not a social gospel. Now let me explain this, what I'm talking about, because some of you may not be totally familiar with what I'm referring to, but you need to be familiar with it because someone is probably at some point going to bring this up to you. So with the rise of modernism, or we might call it liberalism in the 19th century, late 1800s into the early 19th century, there was a very strong view in the church that conditions would improve. However, they had different reasons for believing that. What the liberals said, who denied the doctrines that we believe, said that we would basically make the world a better place and thereby usher in the Kingdom of God. And this is actually being rehashed by a new group called Seven Mountain Dominionists that come out of the New Apostolic Reformation. And basically, the New Apostolic Reformation is essentially the Word of Faith movement of yesterday. Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, but it's got... Newer music, skinny jeans and man buns. That's essentially the New Apostolic Reformation. It's young guys that look like girls teaching the same things that Joel Osteen and Benny Hinn have taught. So that's the NAR, okay? But the group of seven Mountain Dominionists come out of that and they teach that we basically make the world a better place and thereby usher in the Kingdom of God, the same rehashed liberalism. Alright? And so, here's the difference. In large part, these groups that I'm referring to don't teach the doctrine of sin, they don't believe in the necessity of the atonement and cross of Christ, they don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, and they don't believe in the Kingdom the same way that we do either. In short, They believe something completely different about Christ and the gospel and the future. They believe basically that we work to make the world a better place and thereby usher in the kingdom of God. And the biblical view is that Jesus died to save sinners and that as the gospel goes forth and changes hearts and changes lives, how could we not expect to see the world around us change? I am not saying that all poverty and all socialism, excuse me, that all poverty is going to be eliminated by Christians, but I will say this, and I believe all of us in this room could probably testify to this, every church that I've ever been a part of, if there was a need among the saints, it was met. If there was someone who was poor and could not afford groceries, that need was met. And so, if we expect the gospel to grow, how could we not expect that the poor would be taken care of in time. Now, how could we not expect that love also would grow, that obedience to Christ would also grow, that taking care of orphans and widows would also grow? How could we not expect that if we expect to see lives change in time? So the other view has no gospel and cares primarily about promoting health and wealth in the hope that Jesus would usher in his reign. And the only similarity between them is really superficial because there's really not any similarity at all. The social gospel is man-centered and works driven, while the biblical view is Christ-centered and gospel-driven. As one preacher said, I believe it was an old Puritan preacher, he said, holiness is not the way to Christ, Christ is the way to holiness. And we might say something similar about the kingdom of Christ, that peace is not the way to Christ, Christ is the way to peace. As the gospel goes forth and grows, so will peace on earth. The last objection, does anyone even believe this stuff? Because all we hear is about how bad things are going. Thank you. I see that hand. Does anyone believe this stuff? Am I just coming up with some wild-eyed, newfangled idea that no one has ever believed before? Well, first of all, let me say, even if I was, you ought to believe the Scriptures no matter what they say, even if we don't have a great record of it in the past. But set your heart at ease, since the apostolic church, there have always been Christians who have held to this. And we could be here for hours reading quotes from Christians all throughout church history who believe this. But what I only want to show you is that there is a stream of this thought throughout church history. So I'm just going to read to you a handful of quotes or facts. Origen, roughly in AD 200, expected that Christianity, by continual growth, would gain dominion over the world. And Augustine, who is probably the most influential Christian theologian in the history of the church, other than maybe Calvin, He believed that history would be marked by the ever-increasing influence of the church in overturning evil in the world before the Lord's return. Likewise, there were several in the medieval era that anticipated this gospel growth, even though, in the medieval era, the importance of the Scriptures was lessening. And then with the Reformation, it should be no surprise that with the revival of the Scriptures, there would also be a revival of the glorious gospel hope. And Calvin's commentary on Isaiah is overflowing with just some of the most beautiful pictures of the gospel growth and producing gospel peace in all the world. And of course, many of the Puritans espoused this view as well, including probably the most influential American theologian, Jonathan Edwards. He held this victorious view of the gospel growth. In fact, let me say this, Jonathan Edwards said that one day, that Africa would produce great works of theology. Now remember, this is in the late 1700s, when there was not a strong presence of Christianity in Africa. And he would have been probably thought of as nuts to say something like that back then. Has anyone ever heard of Comrade Mbiwi? He is called the African Spurgeon. He pastors a massive church in Africa and believes a lot of the same doctrine that we do. That would have been laughable in Jonathan Edwards' day, to have something like that happen in Africa, knowing the state of things there. in our own lifetime, we see something like that happen. We do see great works of God and works of theology being done in Africa. We see this before our very eyes, something that would have been laughed at 200 years ago. It's just amazing to me, God's promises being fulfilled. And then even in our own day, the late, great R.C. Sproul would have held a very, very similar view to what we're saying. But of course, the Westminster Divines, they spoke about this in the larger catechism, about God bringing His kingdom across the whole globe. But it's not popular today. It's not popular. You know, I was actually speaking to a pastor one time who was ridiculing me for believing this, and I said, well, don't you believe that the Westminster Divines believe this? And he said, well, yeah, I mean, I believe they believed it, and he was ridiculing me for believing it. And I said, well, didn't you swear an oath to uphold and defend the Westminster Standards? And he said, yes, he did. And yet, that is nothing biblical is in vogue today, is it? Nothing about sin and nothing about the Gospel is in vogue today, and yet, it's what the Scriptures teach. So we are bound to believe it. Okay, so there's a few objections I hope I may have cleared up. I want to talk for a few minutes about the impact that this doctrine, the doctrine of the Kingdom of Christ having continual growth and spreading over all the world can have on your life. Alright, but before I do, I want to mention something because at the end of the day, you might disagree with me of everything I might have said up to this point, or maybe someone who ends up listening to the recording might disagree with everything I've said up to this point, but what often happens in conversations is that they'll say, I don't agree with your doctrine, but I do believe in how you live. In other words, I do believe that we should be working for the Kingdom of God. I do believe that we should be proclaiming the Gospel and seeking to make it known throughout the world and having every area of life coming under the Lordship of Christ. So they'll agree with what's called the orthopraxy, but disagree with the orthodoxy. Well, the problem with that is, Orthopraxy, what we practice, what we do, is built upon the foundation of orthodoxy, what we believe. In other words, so we read in the Ten Commandments earlier, and God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord thy God which hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. So what we do, what we live out only worshiping the true God has a foundation or a reason for it. And that is that there is only one true God who brought us out of the land of Egypt, who delivered us and redeemed us. So every orthopraxy, everything that we do, every law of God, the way that we live, has a foundation to it. You can't say, you can't hold the position and say, well I agree with the orthopraxy, but I don't agree with the orthodoxy. Because if that's the case, you have no foundation. It can't be one or the other. It has to be that they're coupled together. It follows then that if you agree with the orthopraxy, then you must agree with the doctrine as well. Otherwise, it has no foundation. So, here's what I'm getting to, what I would like you to see, the impact that this has on everything that you do. So, everything that you do in life matters. Now, this might seem It probably seems a little bit irrelevant, but think about the prevailing theology for a minute. So the modern view of end times is that things are supposed to get worse and worse and worse and worse, and that Jesus could come back any second. So essentially, What I heard sermon after sermon after sermon growing up as a little child, that Jesus could come back any second, so we need to get as many people saved as we can before we die and before Jesus comes back. Now, I want to see as many conversions as possible. I want to see droves of people coming to Christ. But that kind of theology has no basis to give you any sort of long-term plan. There was a very popular radio preacher of yesteryear, and he was very popular among family members that I know, named J. Vernon McGee, who said this statement. He said, Why polish the brass on a sinking ship? Think about that. Why in the world would you polish the brass on a sinking ship? And his point was, things are going to get worse. Why in the world would you work to try to grow the kingdom and make things any better in the long run? Because it's all just to use a modern expression, going to hell in a handbasket. Well, if that's the view of the kingdom, then he's right. Why would you? There is no orthopraxy, a good long-term orthopraxy built upon that doctrine, is there? No. But yet in the scriptures we're taught things like Deuteronomy 6, that that you ought to teach your children the law and the word of God throughout their generations and that we ought to have some sort of plan and some sort of view to the future for our children because Christ is continually growing his kingdom and it impacts every area of life and every little task that you do matters from, I mean, changing diapers and cooking dinners. Ladies, even those diapers that you change, you could think, oh, I got to change another diaper. I have to cook dinner because the children are going to starve if I don't cook dinner. Think of the impact that you have on the kingdom, ladies. When you change that diaper, you are training up a warrior for Christ's kingdom that will help advance the gospel. You're doing that. You're feeding warriors and training up people who are going to take the gospel to the nations down through their generations. And even if you don't see that, and you have grown children that may be wayward, or sometimes if you've got little children that are wayward and you think there's no hope for that child, remember that the gospel is our hope, not our children or our own works, but everything that you do matters. Men, in your work, no matter what it is, if it's building a shed at the house, cutting the grass, Everything that you do matters. God put Adam in a garden before the fall, before there was sin, and told him, get to work. Cultivate this garden. Gave him manual labor to do, and that is part of the way He was to take dominion over the world. Your work matters. Everything that you do in life matters. It's not just the pastor that matters. Everything that you guys do on a daily basis matters. Do it to the glory of God. Everything in life matters. And the last thing I just want to say is that you have hope for the future because even Let me explain. I'm sorry. The word hope, we often use it just to mean, oh, well, I hope so-and-so does what they're supposed to. That's not what I mean. I'm talking about a confident, joyous assurance, knowing that God is working out His promises in the world. And we are given a promise in these pages of Scripture that the gospel will go to every corner of the globe and that men and women will believe the gospel. And we do see things improving across the globe. Again, it might be three steps forward, two steps back, five steps forward, four steps back, but in the upswing we see the proclamation of the Gospel happening. And think of these words. When you're discouraged about maybe your own sin, or maybe your own children, or the spiritual state of your friends or family members, think of these words, of the increase of His government and peace, there will be No end. You see how it guarantees the success of evangelism, a multi-generational legacy eventually in time, though we may not see it now? Do you see why the Proverbs 31 woman, it says that she laughs at the time to come? Because she has confidence that her God is going to take care of her and her family as she lives out the Christian life. And so when you sing joy to the world at this time of year, believe it. Believe those great hymns and know that Christ is conquering the world by the power of His gospel. And as Isaiah said, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. Why? Because Christ is the Prince of Peace. Amen? Amen. Please take a minute to prepare yourselves for the Lord's Supper.