Waiting For A King

Narrator: When we look at the story of Scripture, we discover that God is not distant and remote, uninterested in the activity of His creation. Instead, we see a personal God who steps down and steps in, into the story, remembering His covenant generation after generation and taking action to draw people to Himself. This is what we saw in Egypt. God came down to rescue His chosen people. When he saw the blood of the lamb they had sprinkled on the doorpost He passed over them so they could pass through the waters of the Red Sea, pass through into His promised land. It is in this promised land that we discover a small town called Bethlehem, a village hiding in plain sight on the pages of Scripture, which at first glance may not seem impressive or significant. But what we find is the unsuspecting and unassuming is the perfect setting for God to do the unimaginable. Israel's great and final King won't come from a palace or a battlefield as they might expect, but this King and His kingdom will come in the most unlikely of places and in the most unlikely of ways because when God steps down and steps in everything changes. Here is how the Lamb became King.

Pastor Jerry: So I want to tell you a story today, and I need you to put your "I can hear and listen and stay with a story hat" on. And I want to begin in a prophecy called Micah. He's a person, he's a prophet, but I want you to hear what he has to say. It's in Micah chapter number 5 beginning in verse number 2. "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son, and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth."

You see, ladies and gentlemen, it's really hard to underestimate Israel's desire for a king and a kingdom. Now when Micah was writing was about 734 BC, give or take. It was right in that time and when Micah was writing Israel was actually under the captivity of the Assyrians. Now even though they had a king in name, they didn't have a king in power because Assyria was actually controlling Israel at that time. And they had kings in name only.

Now the struggle is is that for us, now 2700 years beyond that event of the Assyrian captivity and the prophecy of Micah, it's really difficult for us to feel their longing, to feel their pain and even to feel their hopefulness when they hear a word from a prophet from God about a King that's going to come. It's very difficult being this far removed, nearly three millennia removed for us to be able to feel all of that. In fact, it's hard for us to understand how specific this prophecy was because this prophecy that Micah is communicating through God is a prophecy that is talking about a King that's going to come to a people who are longing for a real King. And he not only says where this King is going to come from, but he even gives clues as to what this King is like. But you and I, when we're reading it so long after the fact, we may miss part of the story. We may miss what the prophet is trying to tell us. We miss standing in their shoes and feeling what they feel in terms of their longing for a King that's going to come.

So, as we should do, maybe in any good story, maybe it would help us to back up from before Micah about 700 years earlier. I told you I was going to tell you a story, it's a big one. And it's a long one, and it's going to span a lot of time. If we back up 700 years from the time of Micah and the Assyrian captivity, we're back in Egypt with the children of Israel who were under the slavery of the Egyptians. They are walking around in chains having to do hard labor, it is a very difficult existence for them. But we heard last week that God raised up Moses to be able to lead them out of their captivity in Egypt and lead them on dry ground through the Red Sea and out of the reach of Pharaoh and his army who were continually oppressing them for hundreds of years.

Well, they made it out of there and then they began to make their way toward the Promised Land. And they got to the Promised Land after about a forty-year hiatus. No GPS. They finally made it to the Promised Land but Moses who led them out of Egypt was not the man who was going to lead them into the land of promise. But instead it was his protege, his mente, his apprentice named Joshua. Joshua means God saves, it's a great word. And he leads the people into the land of promise, into the land of Canaan and then begins to divide up the land of Canaan into allotments for each of the twelve tribes.

Now the interesting thing about this is that when they make their way into the land of Canaan they realize real quickly that they don't have a Pharaoh of their own. They don't have a king. And so what happened when they were dwelling in the land of promise is that they had judges during that time. No king.

Now when you read the chronicle of this in the book of Judges for instance, you find out real quickly that the time of the judges in the life of the children of Israel was not necessarily the best of times. In fact, not many of the judges were good. Some were, like Deborah, but others were really not any good at all and what you hear in the book of Judges repeated over and over and over again multiple times is the same statement.

In fact, it's the statement that ends the book of Judges and you find out from that statement at the very end of the book of Judges what that entire cultural feel was like. Here's what it says in Judges 21:25: "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit." Some of your translations will say it this way: "Everyone did what was right in their own eyes."

That's what was going on during this time. I mean Israel had no king. Israel wanted a king though. They longed for a king but they didn't have one and so everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes. They were selfishly following their own desires, they were following their own heartbeat and it was leading them into sin and into idolatry and to paganism and into all kinds of weirdness. And this is not what God had designed for them. This period of the Judges, it lasted about 400 years. This was a long period of time and in that time as you can imagine, with no king and everyone doing what is right in their own eyes, it was a bad scenario.

Well, during the time of the judges we're actually introduced to a really small town that's kind of out of the way that's really not known for very much in fact, and three different times in the period of the judges in Scripture, we're introduced to this same little town. It's a town called Bethlehem. Now the first two times that we're introduced to Bethlehem in the book of Judges, if you wanted to go back and read, you could read from Judges chapter 17 to Judges chapter 21 and you'll find two different stories that involve Bethlehem. One, the first one, is about one particular man and a Levite from Bethlehem. The second story is about another particular man and a concubine from Bethlehem. Two different stories over the course of this few chapters, both of which point to kind of grave disobedience to the covenant God Yahweh. Both of those stories do. I won't spend a lot of time with them, you can go back and read them, Judges 17 through Judges 21.

But there's a third story about Bethlehem that we don't want to miss during the time of the Judges that's very important to the whole story. Because not only did we get this story in Judges of two kind of stories of Bethlehem that didn't turn out very good, now we've got a story that we need to pay attention to. And we run into that story in the very beginning of the book that follows Judges. Remember? It goes Joshua, Judges, Ruth. It wasn't very nice of Joshua to judge Ruth, but none-the-less, Joshua, Judges, Ruth.

At the very beginning of the book of Ruth listen to what it says. "In the days when the judges ruled," so that tells us the time frame, right? "There was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man's name was Elimelek, his wife's name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there. Now Elimelek, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. And after they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband."

Understand the picture here. Bethlehem, this little town which, by the way, translated means "house of bread", bet le hem, house of bread. There was a famine in Bethlehem, or we might say it this way - there was no bread in the house of bread. And so as a result, what had to happen was this. Naomi along with her husband Elimelek, they leave and they go to find a place where the famine, maybe they could outrun it, they could live. There was something to eat. And so they go to Moab. They're with their sons, Mahlon and Kilion. While they're there Elimelek dies, Mahlon and Kilion marry Moabite women because they're trying to fit into the culture that they're in.

But then shortly thereafter, Mahlon and Kilion die and now Naomi is left by herself with no husband and no sons, only two daughters-in-law. This is a very bad scenario for an ancient woman, ladies and gentlemen because they needed the men to be able to do what they needed to do. It was a different time even then it is now. And they would potentially struggle to be able to eat and to live based on the fact that there was no husband and there were no sons, and it was just her and her daughters-in-law living in a land that's not her own, the land of Moab.

And so what Naomi determines to do is that she's going to go back to Bethlehem. Now the famine has passed and she's going to go back to Bethlehem because there's bread now in the house of bread. But she says to her daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, you need to go back and just stay here, stay in Moab, I'm going back to Bethlehem, you stay here, this is where you're from. Orpah, through tears says okay, but Ruth says to her "not a chance, I'm going with you, Naomi". In fact, the way she says it is so beautiful. She says "don't cause me to turn from going after you. Where you go, I will go. Where you live, I will live. Your God will be my God, your people will be my people." This is what Ruth said, she said I'm going to leave behind my gods and I'm going to serve the God that you serve, the God of Israel, and I want to come with you, even though Naomi said she didn't want her to.

But she did. Verse 22 tells us that. It says, "Now Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethehem as the barley harvest was beginning." So they get to Bethlehem and they don't really have much but what happens is this, is that Naomi tells Ruth to go out into the fields of the man that she knows, a man that she's related to on her late husband's side and his name is Boaz. And Ruth goes out into the field and starts gleaning from the edges of the field and she got permission to do that, Boaz said hey, it's okay but then Boaz said you know what, just let her go out in the field and harvest whatever she needs. Because he is her kinsman-redeemer, there were actually a couple of them but Boaz ends up being the one that is the kinsman-redeemer.

In other words, when somebody who is related to you, maybe through marriage and the brother dies and there is left a widow, then the kinsman-redeemer takes on the responsibility of that woman so that she is cared for and that she is loved and that she has a chance.

And so Boaz becomes that for Ruth and they end up as you know the story, they end up getting married and they have a child and the child's name is Obad. And you're thinking to yourself "and why is this a part of the story you're telling us?" Well, because Obad ended up having a son named Jesse. You say to yourself that doesn't help me either. Well, know this. Jesse is really important to the story.

Now, all the while this is going on in the time of the Judges, what is happening is that Israel is still longing after a king, crying out for a king because they don't want to be so unique, even though God wanted them to be unique. They want to be like all of the other nations that surround them. All of the other nations around them have a king sitting on a throne who's got a sword in his hand and who commands armies and has power and has resources but Israel they've got no one they can see, it's the God who is with them always but they can't see. They want somebody in flesh and blood. And so they keep calling out for that even though that's not what God desires. He wants them to be a unique people, they already have a King and that's Yahweh the covenant God of Israel.

But ultimately God grants them what they want. And He gives them a king, He says to the prophet/judge Samuel, you're to anoint Saul. Saul was a stud. That's the literal Hebrew translation. Saul was a stud. He was big, he was strong, he was good-looking, but he was also corrupt in heart. And Saul didn't turn out to be a very good king at all. And this broke Samuel's heart and Samuel, his heart broken, thinking to himself, God now you've given the people what they asked for, and sometimes they should have known what they were asking for.

But God, He has an actual plan. And just because Saul is the king doesn't mean that God is confused about the plan that He wants to involve Himself in. Listen, in fact to what it says in 1 Samuel chapter 16: "The Lord said to Samuel, "How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be the king."

Now you and I both know that Jesse is the father of a number of sons. And so when Samuel went to see Jesse he paraded his sons out in front of Samuel and said here's my guys, man, they're strong, they're ready to be king and Samuel looks them over and he's like, no, no, no. Then he kind of looks at Jesse and says do you have any more kids and he's like yeah, man, my little guy's out in the field, he's a shepherd. What's his name? David. Let me go see David. And he sees David and he says "there he is, that's the king".

And so he anoints David after God was rejecting Saul, even though Saul would reign still for some time as David grew in power. But remember this, that it's an interesting thing that God was choosing the small things. David was the youngest, David the youngest would face a giant and would not use armor and would not use swords and spears but instead a little slingshot. There was a pattern here that there were small things that were going on but David was ended up going to be the king of Israel. And finally he takes the throne of Israel and he was awarded with all kinds of pomp and circumstance, the kingship over Israel and when he is the king, God actually speaks to him and makes him a promise.

But it's interesting because God turns around the idea of what David is thinking about doing for God. In fact, listen to what it says in 2 Samuel chapter number 7. It says: "After the king David was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, he said to Nathan the prophet, "Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent." Nathan replied to the king, "Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you." But that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying: "Go and tell my servant David, 'This is what the Lord says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in?" Then later on in verse 11 it says: " The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you". Now this is really interesting because here's what David says. David says to the Lord here I am in a palace, I'm the king, I came from small beginnings, you've blessed me, I can't believe I'm sitting here in a palace made of caesar.

A palace made of caesar. It was a salad palace. A palace made of cedar. There's a difference between cedar and caesar, one you eat, one you don't. I don't know if you've ever had a cedar salad, but it's a bad salad.

None-the-less, it was a house of cedar and David says I'm living in this incredible house of cedar and yet God is dwelling in a tent. This shouldn't be. I want to build you a house and God says "Hang on, David, you're not going to build me a house. I'm going to build you one. But it's not a house made of cedar, it's a house that will be a lineage. It's a house that will be a heritage. It's house that will be a kingly line from you and I'm going to establish it forever."

So David ruled over Israel and he ruled with strength. He sat on a throne, he had a sword in his hand and he ruled in strength and Israel experienced incredible prosperity and incredible relative peace. David fought back and conquered enemies, this shepherd-king who was taking care of God's people. It was an extraordinary thing and Israel looked on David with really almost awe at least for the majority of his time as the king. But David died and Solomon his son took over. Solomon indeed did build God a house, he built Him a temple.

But then in all of Solomon's wisdom after building God a temple and consecrating that Temple for worship of the One True God, the God of not only Israel, but the God of everywhere, Solomon who was so wise ended up getting really dumb. And he married a lot of foreign women and started worshiping foreign gods and it cost him significantly. The moral fiber of Israel began to just unravel. And then when Solomon died, he had a son that was taking over but the kingdom split and it divided. Now you had Israel to the north and you had Judah to the south, two different kingdoms who were establishing different kings in their kingdoms, even though they were supposed to be one people.

And it's over the course of that time that Assyria moves in and takes over and puts in captivity Israel. And some years later, Babylon sweeps in and takes over and puts in captivity Judah. And it's during this season, this time where the people of God are in Assyrian captivity and they may have a king in name, but they don't have a king in power and a king in rulership, because they're under the captivity of the Assyrians.

It is at that time that God begins raising up these prophets who begin prophesying to all the people of Israel and the people of Judah. And they are calling God's people back to Himself saying turn away from all of your wickedness. Turn away from doing everything that's right in your own eyes, and repent of your sin and come back to the God who loves you. Stop putting your eyes on temporary kings in your area or kings that are over you and put your eyes back on the covenant God Yahweh. This is what was going on in Israel and this is where Micah entered in.

And along with Micah he had contemporary prophets who were also prophesying about a coming King. People like for instance, Isaiah. But when Micah says what Micah says here in this passage, I want you to be able to feel a little bit of how much hope he was bringing, even though at other points of his prophesy he was bringing words of condemnation, he was also offering from God some hope for the people. You've got to realize how much hope they were hearing when they heard the words that the King who was going to come, He was going to come from Bethlehem. What do you think that conjured up in their minds 300 years after king David? What do you think was conjured up in the minds of all of the Israelites when they heard "there's a King who's coming and He's coming from Bethlehem and, by the way He's going to shepherd His people." Boy, when they heard that hope began to rise in their hearts that a real King was going to be on the way, even in the midst of their captivity, even in the midst of them feeling enslaved, there was a King who was coming who was going to be like David, but greater.

You could almost hear and feel the longing of Israel when they hear the message of the prophets and the hope that the prophets bring by talking about One who is like David but who is going to be greater than David. This was the time of the captivity. This was the time when Micah and Isaiah and others were prophesying. Eventually Judah would make its way back into Jerusalem, but it would take some period of time - I mean it was roughly between 538 BC and 444 BC that Judah starts flooding back into Jerusalem.

And right at the end of that time period, one of the last of the prophets begins to prophesy. His name was Malachi. For those of you who are Italian, it was not the Italian prophet Mal-a-chee. It was Malachi. And Malachi began to prophesy and he began to call the people of God back to God - to turn from their sins, to turn from the things that they had done wickedly, to turn from their idols and to give their hearts back over to the King - the true King, the covenant King, Yahweh.

Well, after Malachi finished his prophesy and he died, for about 400 years there was silence. God was not speaking through prophets that He had raised up. Four hundred years of relative silence. But even though God's voice was silent, God was still sovereign. He was still actively pursuing what He wanted to do to make His story come out the way He designed for it to come out even though there was a silence.

You see, during this time of silence, a period that we would call the time between the Testaments - where the Old Testament was finished but it was the time before the New Testament timeframe had begun. From about 400 BC, for that 400 years or so, God was still doing some things, and there were things happening in the world under the sovereign rulership of God that were extraordinary. For instance, there was one man who came out of a Greek empire who was basically taking over and dominating the known world. His name was Alexander. Many refer to him at Alexander the Great. And what he was doing in taking over all of the known world was he was Hellenizing the world. That's just a big word that means he was making Greek culture out of everything. In other words, he was causing people to now have to learn Greek language - how to read the Greek language, how to interface in business in Greek language. He was doing all of this, as well as maybe some early ways of making destination and travel easier between the known world. This was all a part of the sovereign plan of God that eventually, when the Gospel would ring out, it would be able to run freely because most of the known world knew a particular language, and now they could just let it run. While everything was silent, God was still sovereign.

Eventually though Alexander would die and after Alexander, nations like Egypt would take over occupying Israel and then after Egypt, Syria would take over and occupy Israel. And some of the Jews that were there that were really fired up about all of this and really wanted a king and really wanted a kingdom and longed for that. They decided to revolt let by a guy named Judas Maccabeus. It's called the Maccabean Revolt in history if you ever want to read about it. And in doing so he threw off the bondage of this beginning to grow Roman Empire and the Syrians and he started to set up for himself a bit of a kingdom and a kingship even though it was never going to last. If you look at some of the names of those kings that were a part of the Maccabean Revolt time period, you'd find that a lot of their names are Greek. It just wasn't going to work for the Jewish people. This was never going to happen.

Eventually Rome realized that this could be a problem, and so Rome in its sprawling empire now took over Israel at about 63 BC and put their stamp on Israel a bit. And then sometime later, began to appoint a king in Israel that would be a leader of Israel but would be friends with Rome and that king was named Herod. Herod wasn't even a true Jew. He was only half Jewish. And he was really a great builder, but a really corrupt man. He was nuts. In Hebrew they would say mashugana. He's crazy. And he would even - to retain his power - kill his own family and did. But he built up the temple, and it became just an incredible spectacle to the world. And the temple was glorious and gorgeous and extraordinary and one of the wonders of the world.

But even as he built up the temple, everything Herod touched seemed to be involved with corruption, with a corrupt heart. Even the temple practice and the religious leaders of Israel under his purview were now experiencing their own corruption. It was just not what it should be. The truth is that Israel was languishing under the sins that it continued to experience through the times of captivity and even before - the very reasons for their going into captivity. They just seemed to have not learned what their need was.

And even though they reestablished all of the sacrificial system at the temple, they couldn't kill enough lambs to be able to atone for their sin. They were killing them often, but they couldn't kill enough to be able to atone for their sin - the sins of their leader, their King Herod, the sins of the religious leaders and the sins of the people themselves.

You see, even though Israel wasn't in the shackles of Egypt like they were in the time of Pharaoh in about 1400 BC - even though they weren't in the shackles of Egypt, they were still in shackles nonetheless - shackles of their sin. And just as badly as the people of Israel needed deliverance at that time from the shackles that bound their wrists and their ankles, so too now, in this season of silence, they needed to be delivered from the sins that had put them in this place. But through all of their longing and through all of their sin, at this point, the people were still met with silence.

You see, the need for Israel was not a deliverance from the Roman empire. The need for Israel was a deliverance from their sins.

So at just the right time in the sovereign direction of God, God had orchestrated it such that the Roman Empire had determined that there needed to be a census and that people needed to go back to their homes where they came from so that they could count them all. This was so that they could continue to dominate them. But God had different plans for how that was all going to go down as well.

But prior to them being set out, there was a young lady named Mary who was betrothed to be married to a man named Joseph. And that doesn't just mean that she was his fiancé. Betrothal was way more legally binding than our idea of being a fiancé. But they had not yet been together and consummated their marriage as a married couple would do. And an angel appeared to Mary and began to tell her what was going to transpire. But then the angel later appeared to Joseph and told him as well, because you could imagine that that would have been a hard thing for him to hear.

Here's how the story is recorded in Matthew chapter 1. It says this: This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

You see, the promised King was not coming to lift the burden of Rome's oppression. The promised King was coming to lift the burden of sin's oppression on the people of God. But you can imagine that when all of this transpired and they were making their way back to Joseph's homeland in Bethlehem, the same place by the way that an early ancestor named Ruth ended up who was not even from Bethlehem but who was from Moab and who married Boaz and had Obed who had Jesse who had David. They're going back to the same place, because that's where Joseph's family originates from.

And so as they make their way back you can imagine that when word gets to the other king that's existing during this time - Herod - that there is a child, a baby King, that is born in that area really close to Jerusalem - walking distance from Jerusalem to Bethlehem - that Herod was greatly disturbed. Herod would do anything to maintain his power and he was greatly disturbed. Listen to what it says in Matthew 2. It says after Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We saw His star when it rose and have come to worship Him." When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written: (see if this sounds familiar) "But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.'"

You remember that prophesy, right? It's what we started on and what we've been talking about the entire time - Micah chapter 5. So the religious leaders are called in by Herod who obviously doesn't know his Jewish Scriptures very well. He doesn't really care that much about them but he asks them and he says where's the Messiah King supposed to come from? And they say, well, he's coming from Bethlehem. Herod is really nervous now because king makers from the East called Magi which are basically people who anoint kings. They have shown up now in Bethlehem and they are looking for this new king. Herod wouldn't stop at killing his own family and believe me, he didn't want to stop if there was another one that was going to threaten his kingdom.

But when he asks them where this Messiah king, the shepherd king is supposed to be born, the teachers of the law point him to Micah chapter 5. But what they do with Micah chapter 5 is they don't read him the whole of Micah chapter 5, they condense it. They slam together the first part of Micah 5:2, and them slam together a part of verse number 4 and mash it together. But it's important what they left out. You see, if we look back at Micah chapter 5:2 where we began, listen to what verse 2 says: "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."

Now when you first may look at that realizing that Micah is writing - stay with me here - Micah is writing 300 years after the time of King David. You might be inclined to think when you hear Micah say that he's going to be a ruler from of old, from ancient times, that he's just referring back to David and there's one that's going to come that is going to be like David. But if you and I do that we will have missed the biggest picture here. That certainly is true, but the text itself won't allow us to just believe that, because when he says this king is from of old, from of ancient times, that's significant.

In fact, if I could bend you back from Micah 5 into Micah chapter 4, this word that used for ancient times or from of old, that same Hebrew word is used in Micah chapter 4 and it actually translates something a little more clear to me and you. And in fact, God uses it about Himself. Listen to what Micah 4:7 says: I will make the lame my remnant, those driven away a strong nation. The Lord will rule over them in Mount Zion from that day and (here it is) forever.

That is the same Hebrew word that is used about this coming King. That this coming King is going to have origins from forever. From of old. From of ancient times. This was Hebrew language that was the strongest words that they could muster in their language to say that this King will actually be eternal. That He was going to be one like David, but He would be one that would have preceded David and would live on beyond David. That is what this King is like that Micah tells us about. You can imagine how that would make their minds begin to spin.

But why would they need an eternal King? Well it's very simple. You see, it's because the rebellion against the crown that had been going on generation after generation after generation continued to outlive every earthly king. There was a rebellion that was longer than the lifespan of any king including David, as good a king as he was. And so it would be required that an eternal King would be the only one that could deal with this.

You know, it's the same thing today, ladies and gentlemen. That our sins that we are born into and that we commit when we come into this world, they're going to out run us if we leave them alone. They were the same for our parents, the same for our grandparents, and their grandparents and great-grandparents before them. Every generation has the disease of sin, and no matter even if we look to earthly rulers to try and free us from that, they do not have the remedy, they do not have the capacity to free us from the disease of sin. It's true of you. It's true of me. And it's been true of everyone. That's why we need an eternal king.

If there's anything, ladies and gentlemen, that we learn from the history of Israel and their longing for a king, and their setting up of all of these kings in Israel and Judah and going forward, here's what we can learn: that the earthly kings don't even have a remedy for their own sin, let alone the sins of the people. And I would tell you the same thing today. If you want to put your hope and your confidence in kings or leaders or prime ministers or presidents or president elects that you think are going to save you and make everything different, know this: earthly kings come and earthly kings go. The only one that can rescue us from that which pains us in the depth of our disease of sin is an eternal King. That's the only one.

That's why the eternal King can save us, and that's why the eternal King Jesus took off His royal diadem in the glory of heaven and put on the flesh of a baby because this King had to become like all of us in order to save all of us. This King had to bear the weight of our sin in order to sweep it off of our shoulders.

So this King, Jesus, was born and he grew up and he began to teach about the Kingdom of God. And He loved. And He healed. And He astounded people every time that they were around Him. And right around in the neighborhood of 30 AD at the time of Passover Jesus would make one last trip to Jerusalem. When He entered the city He entered like a king. He came on the back of a donkey, just like Saul did when he came into Jerusalem as the first king of Israel. He was greeted with palm branches, just like Saul was when he came into Jerusalem like a king. He has the scent of the smell of an aromatic king because just the night before, over the hill of the Mount of Olives in Bethany, Jesus had been anointed with very expensive perfume and as He is going down the hill, He is giving off the scent of a King. The praises are that to a King. He's sitting on a donkey like a King. He's being worshipped with palm branches like a King. That was Sunday.

But by the time Friday came around, He didn't seem to look like a King to anyone anymore, but instead looked like a lamb that was led to the slaughter. But as defeating as that sounds, it's exactly what the eternal King had planned. This was going exactly how He designed it. That's why the Scripture tells us that Jesus, in the book of Revelation chapter 13, that Jesus is the Lamb who was slain before the creation of the world. This was always the eternal King's plan.

Do you realize what this teaches us about God? Stay with me here. When we begin to understand it, do you realize what it teaches us about God? That God has a love so vast, that He initiated a rescue operation for those that had been in rebellion to the crown? For those who had chosen lesser kings or maybe even tried to crown themselves? That His love was so vast that while they were helpless and hopeless, He initiated a rescue plan that had been planned before anything was ever created. This had always been in His heart. That kind of love.

It also tells us about our condition. How deep do you think our sin problem has to be for an eternal King to leave His crown room to be born to a teenage girl in a backwater town in a feeding trough for animals? To put our flesh and our skin on, to walk around on our ground. How bad must our sin have been an offense to a Holy God that it would require this kind of love?

You see our sin, our disease of sin tries to convince us that we really don't need a king. We can be our own kings and pick ourselves up from our bootstraps. Our disease of sin tries to convince us that we don't need a savior. I'm doing fine myself, thank you very much. Our disease of sin tries to convince us that we don't need a shepherd to guide us through life, but that we can do it ourselves. But the love of God was so vast that we were still sinners, He initiated an operation to rescue us from our sin.

Think of the lengths that the King went to, to bring you into His kingdom. Born in a feeding trough, took upon Him the shame of being labeled the bastard son of Mary, rejected and despised by His own people that led Him all the way to a cross where He exchanged what He used to wear - a royal crown full of jewels for a crown of thorns, because He was taking upon Himself your curse and mine even though He was sinless. And then He endured the unthinkable, unimaginable agony of the physical crucifixion on a cross that actually paled in comparison to the spiritual anguish that the King was feeling when He became sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. All of this He knew in advance. All of this He planned in advance, and I don't know what else to say but, what a King!

You see, what we learn from this story is that a King came out of Bethlehem, but that the King was from eternity. That a King came out of the smallest of Judah but that this King's greatness would reach to the ends of the earth. That the King was from David's lineage, that the King was actually David's Lord. That the King would shepherd His people beautifully by being a Lamb that was sacrificed for them. Jesus the King. Jesus the Shepherd. Jesus the Savior. Jesus the Lamb. Behold, the Lamb of God.

Narrator: God Himself is the author of this great story. The story of redemption, the story of His love. And God writes Himself into the story at just the right time in the person of Jesus, the Lamb who became Shepherd King, the Lion of Judah. Even though this King Jesus came out of Israel, He will be the King over every king with an everlasting, never-ending, world filling, self-sacrificing, hope bringing, light shining, life giving kind of Kingdom. His Kingdom. A Kingdom flowing from His wounds. He stepped down from Heaven and into our story to deliver us. He is a King unlike any other King. Behold, the Lamb of God.