Daniel 7:23-27 “Kingdom Come”
Today when I say, “The King.” Some of you might think of Elvis Presley. Some of you might think or B.B. King or Nat King Cole. Others might think of Martin Luther King, Jr. You might even think of King Kong—since this is a “congregational” church!
We do not have those good old-fashioned kings that used to be so popular, or unpopular, in the Middle Ages. We do not really have an idea out of our own experience what a king is or does. We live in a representative democracy that has its roots in standing up against a king, the King of England. Today we have a legislature, a judiciary, and an executive branch of government that take on the role of the former kingship.
To be sure, when we read about Kings in the Bible (we even have two books of the Bible called “Kings”) they are quite different from what we might even recall as the King of England. The Kings in the Bible were not just the ones who made the rules, adjudicated, and executed, they were also the ones who were the military generals. A biblical king would be the one who led his army into a battle. He was the one who people followed and knew directly! That is how we should interpret the text this morning when Daniel speaks about the coming Kingdom and Prince of Princes.
Let me ask you: “Who is your king?” Who is the one that you follow? If your king is the “Burger King,” then you are following the wrong guy! If the captain of your ship is “Captain Morgan,” then you are already lost. If the general you are called to follow is just a “general malaise,” then you will never have a victory in your life!
The King that we follow as Christians is of course our Lord Jesus Christ. His is the eternal kingdom that lasts forever. So, I was thinking about this idea of a kingdom that last forever. The vision that Daniel has tells of this in prophecy. Our Kingdom is the greatest, most powerful, eternal kingdom coming down from heaven.
I was thinking about all those other kingdoms that have existed before: how petty and small they are! I thought about the visions of grandeur that dictators have given their people. Hitler, for instance, promised a “Thousand Year Reich.” Even a thousand years is not that great! Still, people thought it was ambitious and signed on with their lives. Some of my German forbears got caught up in this. I have often wondered if they had known that the Third Reich really was not even going to last five years if they would have signed on so readily!
Who are you going to follow? Who is the King over your life? I ask this again because I know that I am going to follow the King that will lead me into eternity, not five years or even a thousand. That is not worth giving up the life that God has given me. I will give up my life for the eternal kingdom. I will lay down my life for the eternal Truth of God. I will shed my own blood for His righteousness. In addition, I will do this NOT because He expects me to die for Him, but that my King, my Lord, died for me! Who are you going to follow? The one who thinks so little of you that he expects you to give up your life for him, or the One who thinks so highly of you that He would die to save your eternal soul?! Just consider this!
I want the King over me to lead by example! Consider John 13:12 and on. Go ahead and open your Bibles to that page. You see, Jesus bends down and washes the feet of his own followers. He tells them: “So, if I your Lord have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example. . . .” I don’t want a King that just dictates to me. I want a King that is going to show me how to live by setting an example of His own life.
Since we are in John already, look
at John 17. Jesus prays for his followers. I want to follow the One who is
praying for me. Verse 22: “The glory that you have given me, I have given them.
. . .” I want to follow the King that gives me His glory in victory over
this earth!
To this point, I want to expand this homily. As I mentioned before, the kings of the Bible were chief military officers. They were the ones that led the charges against the enemy. When we claim Christ as our King, we are saying in essence that we are willing to follow Him into battle. The scripture that was read from Daniel 7:23-27 is explicit that there is a battle that is looming. The scripture tells of an earthly King who will speak words against the King of heaven. This person is going to wear us down, that is, we the people who follow the true King of heaven. However, in the end the Kingdom of heaven will prevail. All the other kingdoms of the world will be given over to those who follow God!
Who is this other person who is going to speak against God? The list of 'antichrist' candidates from the past includes, Yassar Arafat, Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates, Mikhail Gorbachev, John F. Kennedy, Henry Kissenger, Benito Mussolini, Nero, Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, Pat Robertson, David Rockefeller, Anwar Sadat, Saddam Hussein, Willy Brandt, Boris Yeltsin, and many others, now including Barack Obama. In fact, a recent Newsweek poll shows that roughly 14% of Americans believe that Barack Obama is the antichrist that will stand against God in the end time to come. I don’t believe that by the way. I am just sharing a statistic.
To be sure, every Pope that ever was has been called the antichrist. Likewise, Martin Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, the fathers of modern Protestantism have all been in turn called the antichrist as well. In other words, there has been no shortage of potential antichrists throughout history.
I will just share with you that I do not believe that there will be any question of who the antichrist will be. When that person is on this planet, I am sure that we will know who it is. There will be no question. There will be no Newsweek poll. There will be no conjecture among the theologians. We will know without doubt!
My favorite antichrist prediction, by the way, is from a pastor named Billy Talen of the “Church of Life After Shopping.” This is real! He has gone into Disney Stores and proclaimed that Mickey Mouse is the antichrist! The church stands against consumerism. Mickey Mouse is a good character to represent rampant consumerism. However, Mickey is not the antichrist. I am not sure about Goofy, but Mickey couldn’t be the antichrist!
In some ways, I think there may be too much emphasis on the antichrist today. In verse 27 of the scripture for today, we read that the “Kingship and dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole of heaven shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the Most High. Their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom.” In other words, the victory is already assured. The battle is already won for us! Amen to that!
That statement is overtly political but it is really personal. You see, the victory is won in our hearts. The battleground is in the spiritual side of life. The Kingdom of God is here now in our hearts when we accept the Lord as our true King. Here is another one of those curiosities of being a Christian: the victory is won when the people of God surrender to Christ, not when Satan surrenders. Satan never will. He will be cast down into the lake of fire. He will never surrender. Our surrender is what assures the victory over the world!
Did you ever notice in the Lord’s Prayer that the phrases: “Thy Kingdom come” and “Thy will be done” are connected! God’s Kingdom will be victorious when we let God’s Will be done in us! When we submit to His Will!
One of the responsibilities of being a pastor is that you have to face death with others. One can see that the person who has submitted his or her life to Christ, the one who has surrendered to God’s Will can face death with a sense of victory already in this life. Alas, the one who has not is lost.
The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Church in Philippi wrote (1:21), “For to me living is Christ and dying is gain.” In other words, we must live as if we are truly victorious already, assured that we are to join Christ in the heavenly realm no matter the pain and suffering that we might face in this time.
When we say that Christ is Lord
over our lives, we often forget what “Lord” means. It is a term that denotes a
kind of a property owner. A lord owned property. We still use the term
“landlord.” The Lord in heaven owns us. He has already paid the price for us.
We are His. WE belong to that other kingdom already! Praise God. The Kingdom of
God has real estate in you right here and right now.
The Kingdom of God is here now.
Your King is Jesus Christ. He is the Lord over your life. Who are you going to
follow? I want to follow the King that gives me His glory in victory over
this earth!
Amen