: The Role of Jesus Christ in the Coming Kingdom of God

Well, good afternoon, everyone. Very happy festival day to all of you. I wanted to thank the choir for that very beautiful music. It was performed very well and with beautiful words from Isaiah chapter 35, which talk about God's coming kingdom, God's millennium. And there will, as we know, be great joy in the desert and elsewhere as well. And that's because good news is on the way. Real change is coming.

Christ is returning to this earth. Now, I'd like to ask the question, what will Christ be doing in His coming kingdom? Just what will He be doing in the millennium? What roles will Jesus Christ fulfill in the coming millennium? Well, I have several roles I will talk about. But I want to, first of all, just turn to Revelation chapter 11. And we'll start in verse 15. Revelation chapter 11 and verse 15. And the seventh angel sounded. There were loud voices in heaven, angelic beings saying, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. So both our Lord, in this case, is God the Father and then Jesus Christ. And He shall reign forever and ever. And the 24 elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, we give you thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the one who is and who was and who is to come, because you've taken your great power and reigned. The nations were angry. We know many scriptures about the beast power being very, very angry at the return of Christ. And the nations were angry, and your wrath has come.

And the time of the dead that they should be judged, and that you should reward your servants, the prophets, and the saints. And now the saints, that's you and me, brethren. That's you and me. Christ is coming with this reward, He says. And those who fear your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth. If we just think a little bit about this earth, it's in pretty sad shape.

It's being polluted, but with all kind of chemical poisons, toxic chemicals, plastic waste. There's this huge island, if you want to call it that, of plastic floating in the Pacific, the Great Pacific garbage patch, which is causing all kinds of problems to the earth. But then bombs going off, explosions. People are trying to destroy this beautiful earth that God has created. And Christ is going to come and destroy those who are trying to destroy not only the earth, but the inhabitants on the earth as well.

So again, the question, what will Christ be doing in the coming millennium? So I will start with one point, first of all, in that He is coming to marry His bride, the church. He's coming to marry His bride, the church. Let's turn to Revelation 17, and we'll get the context in verse 13. The context here are the 10 horns, the 10 kings, the beast power, and they are of one mind, and they want to give their power and authority to the beast.

And these individuals will make war with the lamb. They'll try to make war with Jesus Christ. That's Revelation 17 and verse 14. And the lamb will overcome them. It'll be a very short battle, not really a battle, it'll be a slaughter, really. For He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are called and chosen and faithful. Now the call, the chosen, and the faithful, that is the bride of Jesus Christ.

Christ is coming to marry His bride. I will read to you Isaiah 61.10. You don't need to turn to it necessarily, but it's a very picturesque snapshot of the marriage. And I'll read just the first part of Isaiah 61 and verse 10. This is his bride, the church speaking. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, O my soul. Shall be joyful in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

A very beautiful picture of the bride of Jesus Christ. And so as a bride of Christ, we are going to be permanently clothed with the garments of salvation. We'll be able to live forever, and the robes of righteousness, holiness, cleanliness, goodness. That's what the husband is going to be deck us with. Let's go to Revelation 19 now, Revelation 19 and verse 7. Let us be glad. This is still talking about the marriage of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, to the church, His bride.

Let us be glad, rejoice, and give Him glory. This is Revelation 19, verse 7. For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife, that's you and me, brethren, has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. So we are in the process now of doing righteous deeds and righteous acts, and God and Jesus Christ are taking note of that.

He's working with us to build holy, righteous character in us. So again, this point I'd like to emphasize is Christ is coming to this earth to become our husband, to marry His bride. So let's go on now to the next point.

I have a lot of points, by the way. I don't want to tell you what I may have. So I'll just try to remember just to say the next point, that way you won't start counting. Whenever I give a sermon on points, I either get ahead or behind the audience, or maybe I change points as I go, and I don't know it.

And they come back and say, now what was your point this and point that, and I don't know what it was. So I'll just usually say the next point. So I'll just say this is point two. Point one was He's coming to marry the bride. Point two, in addition to Him being married to the bride, Christ is coming as King of kings and Lord of lords.

He is coming as conquering King. And He's gonna deal with the wicked nations in the only language that they know, and that is force and power and might. Revelation 19 again, and verse 11, verse 11, and I saw heaven open and behold a white horse and he who sat on him was called faithful and true. Our Lord, our Savior is called faithful and true. And in righteousness, He judges and makes war. Christ can make war in righteousness because He has the power to resurrect those that He has killed in battle. And He'll bring them up in the second resurrection and give them their first chance to understanding the plan of salvation. Continuing on about Christ in verse 12, His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. And He had a name written so that no one knew except Himself, and He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called the Word of God.

And so let's talk a little bit about this robe that is dipped in blood. Why and what is this robe dipped in blood? Let's, we'll be going into Isaiah several times. I do wanna go to Isaiah right now, chapter 63. Let's find out about this robe that is dipped in blood.

Isaiah chapter 63, in verse two. Why is your apparel red? Same place, same thought. And your garments like one who trods in the winepress. I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me, for I have trodden them in my anger. And I've trampled them in my fury. You think God is not angry with the sins that are filling this world and this country today, the terrible sins of homosexuality, transgender, child abuse, so many things, elder abuse.

He says, I've trampled them in my fury. Their blood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my robes. Now He mentions in these two verses the word winepress, and the word winepress is mentioned in at least three places in Revelation. And what it is, it was an instrument, an instrument that they would throw the grapes from the harvest into a large area, and then people would actually step on those grapes and match them down. I read somewhere where they didn't have shoes or sandals on because if they had shoes or sandals on, they would crush the seeds of the grapes, and then that would make the wine bitter. So they figured out, well, we'll just do this barefoot. So they would walk around and we've seen cartoon figures doing that kind of things. To us it looks a little humorous, but that's what they did. And then it would be worked towards or flow towards a vat kind of in the middle of the winepress, and then an implement would squish it even further, and it would come out, if they were red grapes or purple grapes, they would come out as red grape juice, which would be turned into wine. So the winepress is a symbol of God dealing with the wicked and shedding their blood. Again, I've trampled them on my fury, their blood has sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my robes. Here's the church's teaching on this and from the Bible reading program. Christ's garments are stained with blood because of the vengeance He has taken on the enemies of His people, something He had to take care of by Himself since no one was found to help Him. And we read that in verses two, verse two. So the winepress imagery, squeezing out the blood of grapes as a figure of judgment can be found in other places as well. Joel chapter three, Lamentations chapter one, and then at least three places in Revelation. So that's what that blood is, staining the blood of the wicked on His garments. So now to keep going back to Revelation 19. Let's go back to Revelation 19, and we'll take a look at verses 14, and verses 14, 15, and 16.

And the armies in heaven clothed in fine linen white and clean followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, Revelation 19.15. So 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 and 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. Jesus Christ is coming as a conquering, as the conquering King. So the next point I have, moving on to the next point, as what else will Christ be doing? What role will Christ be performing? So the third point, the next point I have is, He is coming to give us a spiritual body. Let's read about that spiritual body. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. And frankly, the older we get, the more excited we get about getting a spiritual body. So in chapter 15, and we'll start in verse 38, but God gives it a body as He pleases and to each seed its own body. He's talking about grain, wheat grain, corn, whatever. And verse 39, all flesh is not the same flesh. There's one kind of flesh of men and then of beasts and so on, fish, birds. Then there are celestial bodies, the heavenly bodies, the terrestrial bodies, the planets, the earth. But the glory of the celestial is one and the glory of the terrestrial is another. And whatever these bodies are, these heavenly bodies, these earthly bodies, whatever they are, they all exist for the glory of God, for the glory of God.

There's one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars. For one star differs from another star in glory. They keep finding bigger stars, bigger and bigger stars. So also verse 42 is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown in a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. Can you imagine that coming up in a spiritual body? There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.

We're gonna be given that spiritual body and that's gonna be great. And like I said, the older we get, the more we look forward to that spiritual body. You know when riyangi, seen kids, they're running and they're running full speed and then they trip and fall in on the carpet. Get back up and take off like nothing ever. Usually they just get up. Maybe they wanna cry or do cry or maybe they bruise themselves. But generally they don't even know they fell down. They just get up and take off again. You or I fall down on the carpet. We need help to get back up. So we do look forward to that spiritual body that we will be resurrected with. That would be so fantastic.

So let's go on and let's go back now to Isaiah and review more of what Christ will be doing in the coming millennium. So Christ is coming, I have my next point here, to teach us, well actually we're learning that now, but to teach to the world his way of life. He's gonna be teaching God's way of life. Isaiah chapter two and verse one.

Isaiah chapter two and verse one.

We see that God's way of life will be taught. And we should know, I think we do realize how much people don't know about the Bible anymore. They just simply don't know the word of God very much at all. But here in Isaiah chapter two verse one, the word that Isaiah the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, Isaiah two and verse two, now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain, the government, the kingdom of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains or the smaller kingdoms and nations. And it shall be exalted above the hills, the lesser nations. And all nations shall flow to it, shall flow to the Lord's house. Many people shall come and say, come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house from the temple of the God of Jacob. And he will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Now what I wanted to focus on here is they will be saying, come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. People will want to travel even long distances to get to Jerusalem, to worship God in Jerusalem, to worship Jesus Christ.

Who will be God reigning on this earth. And we know that during the Feast of Tabernacles they'll come from afar to learn about the ways of God. So come, let us go up. They will be glad to travel long distances to come and to worship Jesus Christ. Okay, let's move on to another role. I just said Christ is coming to teach God's way of life. That was the next point. Another point that he will have, we'll find this in Isaiah nine and verse six. Isaiah nine and verse six. And let's read this here. And it's because it's about the government. The government that he is coming to bring. Isaiah nine and verse six. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulder. And his name will be called wonderful, counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace. Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. There'll be no end. Upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to order it and to establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. Government and peace forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

Let's go back to verse six and just pick up a couple of things here in verse six. The government will be upon his shoulder. The commoners will tell us that upon his shoulder, his magister shoulder here, magistrates were given a symbol of authority, a key or a rod was laid on their shoulders. And that means they were in charge of that situation. If you wanna just hold your place here, let's jump over to Isaiah 22, 22, kind of an easy scripture to remember. It is talking about Jesus Christ and we'll play a little game here. As I'm reading this verse, I try to think of the verse in the New Testament that says basically the same thing. So Isaiah 22, 22, the key of the house of David, I, God speaking, will lay on his shoulder. The key of government will be laid upon the shoulder of Jesus Christ. So he will open and no one will shut and he will shut and no one will open.

Where is that found in the New Testament? Anybody know? Revelation, thank you. The key of the house of David. So the government of God will be placed upon the shoulder of Jesus Christ and he would be called all these fantastic names. I do wanna comment on the term Everlasting Father. And of course we know that Jesus is not God the Father. We know that.

And maybe we're surprised to learn and this is from our, again, our Bible reading program. Some may be surprised to learn that like God the Father, Jesus is the Father of all creation. Jesus is the Father of all creation and God the Father created all things through Christ. And I will read that in Ephesians 3 and verse nine. I will read that in Ephesians 3 verse nine. And to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ. So Christ Jesus is the Father of all creation. And again, but the main point I wanted to make here is the government of God will be upon the shoulder of Jesus Christ to perform that role. And then it's talking about the wonderful phrase of the increase of that government and peace. There will be no end. Can you imagine that?

No end, just get better and better as time goes along. Okay, so let's talk then about peace for a little bit. The peace that Christ is bringing. He's bringing, he'll be bringing in utopia, utopia.

And I get kind of fascinated with words and there's all kind of utopia, I should say topia words. Topia means place. So utopia means no place, by the way. It means no place. And we'll explain that in a minute. But then there's dystopia and dystopia means bad place.

So there's a lot of places on this earth right now that are in a state of dystopia, bad place. Then there's cacotopia, cacotopia. That's extremely bad place. Caco or cacos in the Greek means evil, evil.

And so extremely bad place.

Things are as bad as it can possibly be. But utopia, let's go back to utopia because Christ is bringing in utopia and it literally means nowhere, no place.

Ooh in the Greek meaning no, topos place. And Sir Thomas More, apparently he was the one that came up with this name. And it was meant a place of ideal perfection. And there have been apparently many books written about utopia. We talk about it. There have been people who have tried to establish utopian societies that have already failed. And many plans for perfect societies were rather impractical and actually failed. But again, utopia is a place of ideal perfection, especially in laws, government and social conditions. But it's not found on the earth yet. That's the bad news. It's not found on the earth yet, but it is coming to this earth. Christ Jesus is coming to bring true and lasting utopia. So let's go to Isaiah 11.

Isaiah 11, this is just one of many verses that we could turn to that talk about this. Isaiah 11 verse nine, they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, as the waters cover the sea. Now that is utopia. That is real utopia. God's millennium, God's kingdom will truly be a good place, a great place. So this point here that I have, Christ is coming to establish world peace and utopia.

What is next as Christ establishes his reign? Well, he's coming to establish righteousness on this earth. It really is a fascinating study, Bible study. If you look up scriptures that talk about Christ's kingdom, Christ's coming kingdom, you'll often see scripture at the same verse or the same section talking about righteousness as well. So let's turn now to, well, we're actually, we're here, Isaiah 11, we'll start in verse four or verse one.

There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, perfect wisdom, a perfect understanding. The spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight is in the fear of the Lord and he shall not judge by the sight of his eyes, nor decide by the hearing of his ear. He won't just judge by hearsay, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity or fairness, decide with fairness for the meek of the earth. He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips, he shall again slay the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his loins and faithfulness, the belt of his waist. So again, his reign, his rule will be marked by righteousness. And again, it's very encouraging to see how many times that word righteousness occurs. Isaiah 32 and verse one is a good example of that. Isaiah 32 and verse one, behold a king will reign in righteousness. That's Jesus Christ.

And princes, that's you and me, brethren, will rule with justice. So Christ is coming to reign in righteousness and we're gonna be privileged as the bride of Christ to assist him in his holy and righteous rule. Righteousness has a lot of definitions or synonyms. I won't try to read them all that I have here, but goodness, that's another synonym, goodness, virtue, uprightness, decency, noble-mindedness, I could just go on and on and on, noble-mindedness, innocence, blamelessness, we get the point. Isaiah 32 and verse 17. Isaiah 32 and verse 17, speaking again of the coming kingdom.

The world tomorrow, the millennium, the work of righteousness will be peace and the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever. Quietness and assurance forever. And people will live or dwell in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings and in quiet resting places. And then he goes on and talks about other issues and things as well. But what a beautiful world it's going to be. It won't be the gunshots we tend to hear. I live in St. Louis too, maybe I shouldn't say that, but I live just kind of outside. I live in a nice little neighborhood, but every now and then, seems like some crazy things. Thankfully, that we hear about more than we actually experience. We read about it or we hear about it.

Thankfully, don't experience it. And for that, we're very, very grateful to God. Well, let's move on to, actually we're still with the subject of righteousness, but let's move to the Psalms. Let's go to the Psalms. Chapter 45, just a fascinating concept here. Psalm 45, again, speaking, God speaking to his son, you're thrown, oh God. This should be verse six. Psalm 45 and verse six, you're thrown, oh God, is forever and ever. A scepter or a staff of rulership, a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom.

You love righteousness and hate wickedness.

Therefore God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. Jesus Christ loves righteousness. He loves it. And he will perform his government in righteousness. And Jesus hates wickedness. He hates wickedness. Now, brother, I hope that we're all like Christ, right? We're working to be Christ-like. And hopefully we love God's righteousness and we hate Satan's righteousness, I should say Satan's wickedness, his wickedness. Now, one week from the eighth day, in eighth days this Thursday, Satan begins rolling out his pagan hollow days starting with Halloween.

It's supposed to be Hallows' evening. It's supposed to be his spirits come out in the evening, wicked spirits come out and all that garbage. But he starts rolling out his plan. Halloween, Christmas, New Year's.

Then we have Valentine's Day. And you might as well say even St. Patrick's Day because there's a lot of sin committed on St. Patrick's Day.

A lot of drinking and carrying on there as well.

And bad things happening. But all these days of Satan are glitzy, they're bright lights, they're exciting.

They get to do anything you wanna do, and it's of the devil. And these hollow days are of the devil. And hopefully we do hate the days of Satan and obviously we're here so we love God's holy days. So anyway, the point of this particular point is Christ is coming to establish true righteousness. So what else is Christ coming to do? Let's go back to Isaiah, again Isaiah 33 this time.

And what else is Christ coming to do? He's going to combine all three branches of government into one office. And he's going to hold that one office. Isaiah 33 and verse 22, for the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our team.

He will save us, he will save us.

Now many of the nations of the world have three branches of government. One branch we know of the king or prime minister or president, that's the executive branch, okay. Then there are judges or the judicial branch of government. And finally there are the lawmakers, officers who make new laws. And that's called the legislative branch of government. In our country we call it Congress. But Isaiah 33 and verse 22, he's our judge, our lawgiver, our king. So God's going to give to Jesus all three of these roles. Jesus Christ has already given the law and that was summarized, is summarized by the 10 commandments.

And he will judge those who disobey the law and it's certainly a part of that judgment is he's going to offer just like he has to you and me, he's going to first offer mercy.

He's going to offer ample opportunity for mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment, says James. And he will offer mercy first of all.

And I believe most people will take that and accept that mercy. And then as king of kings and lord of lords, that's the executive branch, he will carry out any needed government policies. So this point, this role of Christ is he will be all three branches of government. You talk about an efficient government, can't get any more efficient than that. Okay, continuing on. Next is what will be his method of operation? How will he lead? Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 10. We love this verse, we sing this verse, it's just beautiful verse.

A couple of verses here, Isaiah 40, 10 through 11. Behold the Lord God shall come with a strong hand.

I love to read that part of Revelation where the beast and the false prophet, they get together all their armies and they're going to fight Christ. Oh, it sounds kind of scary. Now all of a sudden they're grabbed up and thrown into the lake of fire. It's all over with before it starts. You know, he's so powerful, they don't have a chance. And so he's coming with a strong hand and his arm shall rule for him.

Behold his reward is with him. He's coming to bring his reward and giving it to his bride. And his work before him, we're part of that work right now, dear brother. We are part of that work right now. He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs with his arm. This is the heart of Christ that we heard about in Mr. Shabe's sermon yesterday. He will gather his arm, land with his arm, carry them in his bosom and gently lead those who are with young.

How many world leaders do you know treat their subjects in this way? I would say none, absolutely none. This will be the method of operation of Jesus Christ. Gently leading those with young, carrying his lambs in his bosom, taking care of them, being very, very careful to take care of and to nurture them. Okay, let's move on to another point.

In his process of governance, he will not get discouraged. He will not get discouraged. Let's go to Isaiah 42.

And we'll look at Isaiah 42. And verse four, now, sometimes people might be doing a job, they might be trying to help people and try to help people and try to help people. And they don't see a whole lot of progress. They don't see a whole lot of progress, maybe yet. But anyway, Isaiah 42.4, he will not fail nor be discouraged. He's not gonna give up halfway through the millennium. He'll say, oh, wait, I can't take this anymore, no. He will not fail nor be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands or the islands far away shall wait for his law. So even far away island dwellers will hear and obey God's law because Jesus Christ is not gonna fail or get discouraged. Now, he's also coming in another role he will have or another duty that he will be glad to do. He's going to magnify God's law, magnify God's law.

Isaiah 42 and verse 21, Isaiah 42, 21, the Lord is well pleased for his righteousness sake, there's that word righteousness again, and he will magnify the law and make it honorable.

Christ said, think not that I've come to destroy the law of the prophets, I've not come to destroy but to fulfill. And he said, it's surely not one jot or one tittle will pass from the law until I'll be fulfilled. And so we see that Jesus Christ magnifying God's righteous and wonderful law. He will magnify the law and make it honorable. People will come to you young people, and I'm sure it's gonna happen to you, and they're gonna try to tell you the 10 commands are abolished. They're gonna try to tell you they're done away with. That's just simply not true. Instead of being done away with, God magnifies. Jesus Christ magnifies the law of God. Don't listen to people who are trying to tell you that by some clever argument, Mr. Robinson made a lot of statements the other day, his Bible was saying, well one I thought was so interesting, he said, you can make the Bible say anything you want it to say. I mean, you can twist scriptures in any way you want to twist them to a person's destruction, to a person's destruction.

But the point I want to make it here, Christ has come to magnify the law and make it honorable.

Next point I have is Christ is coming to release the prisoners, to release the prisoners. There are many, many people in jail right now, around the world by the way. As a 49 and verse eight, thus says the Lord in an acceptable time, I have heard you and in the day of salvation, actually it should be an A day of salvation, and you can check that by, if you have Bible, blue letter Bible on your iPhone, the app, boy, get that on your phone, that's a whole library of Bible and commentaries right on your iPhone. And you can get a Hebrew and Jelenia and it will show you that there is no definite article in that particular section there. And in day of salvation, because we know this is not the only day of salvation, the main number of people that will be called to salvation is in the great white throne period, we understand that. So in day of salvation, I have helped you, I will preserve you and give you as a covenant to the people to restore the earth and cause them to inherit the desolate heritages that you may say to the prisoners, go forth, and to those who are in darkness, show yourselves. There talks about the pastures being, being verdant pastures, even on what were formerly desolate heights, there will be green pastures, that was the last part of verse nine there. But I wanna focus on the prisoners that will be told to go forth, those who are sitting in darkness, show yourselves, coming out of jail, coming out of prison. There are people that have been in prison because they goofed in their lives, they made mistakes, some people that are in prison unjustly, unfairly, they got the wrong person, and that's a very true reality as well. But then there are guilty prisoners who are in jail because of that, but Christ is coming to offer clemency and give them a fresh start and forgive them and give them mercy and give them a fresh start.

Just a side note, so we have in Illinois, we have a baptized, well it has more than one baptized member in the prisons in Illinois, I'm sure in many states that's the case. And this one man that I visited is in there for a long time, he's in there for life. And he'd been in prison already for 40 years, about 40 years, and Mr. Nathan Ekkema has been working, the pastor there in central Illinois has been working on a clemency paper or a clemency appeal, and it is, it did a thorough thorough job, took a lot of time to go through the paperwork on that, but it has been presented to the clemency board there in that prison or in that system, and they're gonna go ahead and review it with probably a few days.

If not this week, maybe next week, they're gonna review it. And if they accept his plea, he knows he's guilty, he's not trying to deny that, but he is baptized, he's had exemplary efforts and been a good prisoner, a model prisoner. And if they approve it, then it goes to the governor. And if he approves it, then the man will go free. Now even this may take years, but he is so hoping to be set free. And I would mention his name, but you might just keep that thought in mind and then maybe ask, you know, pray for God's will to be done for him. He would sure love to get out and get free.

But you know, when Christ returns, he's gonna set them all loose and give them a free, you know, a fresh start. Offer them repentance, offer them forgiveness, give them a fresh start. So Christ is coming, that's the point I have here, to release from captivity political prisoners, slave laborers who are there, he got a breakup concentration camps. There are some places in this world where there are some pretty horrible prisons. Christ is coming to tell those prisoners, go forth. Okay, let's go on to another role of Jesus Christ.

And believe it or not, it's the last one I have.

So this role of Jesus Christ is he is coming to accept the worship of kings and queens.

Kings and queens are gonna submit to Jesus Christ because he's the king of kings and he's the Lord of lords. They will submit to him and they will figure out who's boss pretty quickly. So let's go to the Psalm, Psalm 68. These words are true. These words are going to happen.

Psalm 68 and verse, we'll go to verse 28.

68, 28, your God has commanded your strength, strength and oh God, what you have done for us. And verse 29, again, this is Psalm 68, 29, because of your temple at Jerusalem, kings will bring presence to you. Rebuke the beasts of the reeds, the herd of bulls with the calves of the people till everyone submits himself with pieces of silver, people bringing their tithes and offerings to Christ at his temple. Scatter the peoples who delight in war, envoys will come out of Egypt. Ethiopia will quickly stretch out her hands to God, sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth. Dear brethren, that day is coming. You sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth. Oh, sing praises to the Lord. Now let's go to Psalm 72 and verse, just a couple of verses here.

Psalm 72 and verse 10, the kings of Tarshish and of the Isles will bring presence. The kings of Sheba and Seba will offer gifts. Yes, all kings shall, all kings shall fall down before him.

All nations shall serve him. Christ is coming to accept the worship of kings and queens as they submit to Christ. Verse, that's verses 10 and 11. Okay, now, Christ will be praised daily because of this. And we've been talking about kings, but what about queens?

Well, queens submit themselves to the rule of Jesus Christ. Well, I have a rather modern example of this very thing by rather modern, it took place in the 1800s.

It took place in the 1800s. So that's, you know, that's rather only a couple of hundred years old. This I just find so amazing what this queen, this queen of England who ruled at that time the greatest empire ever, the great empire that England ruled, that England was a ruler over. So I'll just read this. This is from Halley's Bible Handbook, and it is verified in at least one other source. So we have two witnesses to it. It is related to Queen Victoria, deeply touched by a sermon on the Lord's second coming. Now I want to stop there a minute. In the 1800s, mother England believed in the return of Jesus Christ. Now they don't even believe in Christ, let alone his return. So a couple of hundred years ago, Mary old England, empire England believed in the Lord's second coming. So she was deeply moved by this sermon, and she told the preacher, I should like to be living when Jesus comes so that I could lay the crown of England at his feet.

Can you imagine that?

The most powerful ruler in the world wanted to live long enough to place the crown of England, of that great empire at the feet of Jesus Christ. She saw the power in the return of Jesus Christ, and to her it would have been a great honor to lay this royal crown of the empire in front of Jesus Christ. So that brings us to the last scripture of the day, and that's gonna be Philippians chapter two.

Philippians chapter two, and it's talking about, let this mind be in you, which is in Jesus Christ, it is in Christ Jesus, and that's verse five. This whole section is on humility, humility with a point to it. So Philippians two, Philippians two and verse five, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, sitting right next to God the Father for all of eternity, he did not consider robbery to be equal to God. He didn't have to hang on to that, but he made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, a due law, it's the most humble, lowly, foot washing slave, that's the role that Christ fulfilled.

And coming in the likeness of men, and being found, verse eight, in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted him, and giving him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of those in heaven, the angelic beings, there are pictures in Revelation, the angels falling down at the throne of God and worshiping. Of the things in heaven, and of those on the earth, that's you and me now as a bride of Christ, we're gonna be ahead of the game, we get to worship Christ now, we get to worship God now, the time is coming, great white throne judgment, everybody will get that chance, but our chance is now of those on the earth, and of those under the earth, those in the grave, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

So brethren, the time is coming, the day is coming, when the whole world will be worshiping not only our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but obviously first and foremost, our heavenly Father. But joyfully as the bride of Jesus Christ, dear brother, our time is now, as the bride of Christ, we get to worship God now, we get to pray in Jesus name now, we get to worship our heavenly Father, and be so thankful to our Lord Jesus Christ for what he has done. So let's be sure we make the most of our opportunity to worship God now.