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Let's begin our study by reading some of the scriptures from the New Testament. The first of them is to be found in the first epistle to Timothy, chapter one. First Timothy one and verse three. uh Chapter one, beginning at verse three: As I exhorted thee to tarry at Ephesus when I was going into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge certain men not to teach a different doctrine, neither to give heed to tables and endless genealogies to which minister questions, so do I now. Verse fifteen: faithful is the saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. How be it for this cause I obtain mercy, that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all his long suffering, for an example of them which should hereafter believe on him unto eternal life. Now unto the King, eternal, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Chapter six of that same epistle. Chapter six and verse 13. I charge thee in the sight of God who quickeneth all things, and of Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession, that thou keep the commandments without spot, without reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in its own time he shall show, who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable, whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom the honor and power eternal. Amen. First Corinthians chapter four. First Corinthians chapter four and verse eighteen. Now some are puffed up, says though I were not coming to you, but I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, and I will know not the word of them that are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. The epistle to the Romans in chapter fourteen. The Epistle to the Romans fourteen and verse nine. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. But thou, why dost thou judge thy brother? Or thou again, why dost thou set at naught thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then, each one of us shall give account of himself to God. And let then God guide us in thinking of his holy word. I'd like to begin this afternoon's session by a small study of words, and then proceed via a personal confession to our particular topic in the first part of this session, which is the sovereignty of God in the affairs of the local church. When we use the word sovereign in the English language, we are not far, are we, from thinking in terms of a king. You may please to find other synonyms to express the same idea. You may talk of lords or of despots, but in the good old English tongue, king is as good a word as any you'll find to express the idea of sovereignty. You have asked me this afternoon to talk to you about the sovereignty of God in relation to the affairs of the local church. It is perhaps a little unusual to find the term king associated with the affairs of the church, and this brings me to my own personal confession. There was an old Englishman, on the first occasion of his visit to this place, to indulge in a little reminiscence. I was brought up by Christian men, most of whom are now gone. I honor their memory and thank God for all that they gave me. They gave me as their best. They taught me many excellent things, but also among the things they taught me was this, that the kingdom of God has nothing to do with the local assembly. The kingdom they urged upon me was this, that the kingdom of God has nothing to do with the local assembly. The kingdom they urged upon me was totally a Jewish matter, and that we ought, in our thinking and knowledge, to keep things touching the kingdom of God quite separate from things touching the church. And I imbibe those ideas. I have since come to understand the background of their thinking in that form. Who should find their thinking of? Well, just allow me to explain, and kindly listen sympathetically, as to why they came to that note. They themselves have been brought up in an atmosphere of theology in which great confusion was allowed in matters relating to Israel and the church. And the church was commonly thought of as Israel, and the distinction between Israel, God's earthly people, and the church not clearly made. They had come to know better and to distinguish quite clearly in their thinking between Israel, God's earthly people, and the church. And they had seen, quite rightly, in my estimation, quite clearly, the significance of Pentecost. That the day of Pentecost and its happenings were not just another slight extension in what God had been doing all down the ages anyway. They had come to see that the day of Pentecost witnessed to something unique in all the history of mankind and in God's dealings with men, the coming to reside here upon earth of the Holy Spirit. They were reacting also to the idea common from the Middle Ages onwards that there is no future for Israel because Israel now is the church, and the church is Israel. They had seen it, quite rightly in my estimation, that God yet has purposes of grace towards that nation, that there shall be a coming kingdom of Christ upon the earth. And for these reasons, they had been led to a position where they would have denied that the kingdom of God had anything to do with the church. The church, they affirmed, had a heavenly calling. The kingdom of God had to do with the earth. God bless them. I hallow their memory. On this last point, I must therefore disagree. You may test their thesis at any time you wish by reading through your New Testament Bible and marking what it has to say about the kingdom of God. We have read this afternoon from the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, and a more Gentile church you would not have found in all the area of the Mediterranean in those early Christian days. Here then Paul talking to that largely Gentile church, and hear him affirm that in the affairs of the running of that local assembly, they were to experience the kingdom of God. I'm coming to you, he said, and when I come, I shall know not just the word of them that are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in words, but in power. It will help us, perhaps, to remember that when the New Testament talks of the kingdom of God, it is using the word not, uh, always to indicate some territory, in the sense that you might talk of the United Kingdom, a certain small island out there in the East Atlantic. It is talking more frequently of the rule of God, the government of God, the kingly power of God in exercise. And so, far from it being true that the kingdom of God has nothing to do with the church, here Paul, I say once more, reminding the believers in the assembly at Corinth that the rule of God, the kingly rule of God, is something that has very, very much to do with the local assembly, and will, if they do not repent, be felt and experienced in their midst in terms of discipline. Paul likewise talking to the believers in Rome in his chapter fourteen of his letter to the Romans, talks about the matters that are commonly called matters of indifference, matters in which everybody has to make up his own mind before the Lord. He reminds his fellow believers that it is to God that we must give account. In these matters, therefore, we are not to judge one another. We're certainly not to despise one another. We are to feel our solemn responsibilities as individuals before God, to make our decisions before God, as men who must eventually confess direct to God. That the question at stake is his Lordship. For this end, Christ died and rose again that he might be Lord, not anybody else. And therefore, when it comes to matters of indifference, we are not to judge one another. We're not to spend endless hours discussing is it right to eat pork or not eat pork? Is it right to eat meat or not eat meat? For the rule of God, says Paul, the kingdom of God, that is the rule of God, is not in that sense concerned with petty regulations of food laws and other such things. The rule of God is directed to those higher spiritual concerns, righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. We rightly therefore talk of God's kingdom, God's rule of authority in the affairs of the local church. Of course, that is what you might have expected if you had begun your reading about the Christian church from our Lord's statements thereon recorded for us in Matthew chapter fifteen and Matthew chapter eighteen. When Peter confessed our blessed Lord as the Christ, the Son of the living God, you will remember that our Lord responded by saying, blessed art thou Simon Barjona. Flesh and blood does not revealed this to you, but my Father which is in heaven. I say unto thee, thou art Peter. Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against us. Give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of of heaven. Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Let us try and catch the wonder of those words. The disciples had recently been much upset, so Matthew tells us, at the news that Herod had beheaded Messiah's forerunner, John the Baptist. It seemed to their hearts nothing short of a disaster. Almost a valid objection to Jesus' claim to be Messiah. That John Baptist, his forerunner, should be executed by that foul despot Herod. For after all, John Baptist was the Messiah for our earth, coming officially in the name of the Messiah. And in the name of the Messiah, he had gone boldly to Herod and denounced his immorality and demanded of him repentance. For the coming kingdom of God, John had preached, was not merely a matter of improving the National Health Service, producing better grapes and feeding the multitude through free grants of corn, eminently good as those things are. The kingdom of God was concerned with moral things and spiritual things. And in the name of the coming of fire, John had insisted in his thunderous voice that Herod should repent of his immorality and prepare himself for the coming rule of the kingdom of God, which would draw near. Herod had defied John and defied God and defied the coming Messiah and had executed John and left the early apostles flabbergasted. How then could Jesus be the Messiah if he couldn't even protect his own forerunner, John the Baptist, from execution? But hear now the tremendous statement of our Lord, consequent upon Peter's confession. On this rock I shall build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. Of Hades. Say, what are they? Some people hold that the gates of Hades is a Hebrew metaphor for the power of Satan. They observe that in the ancient world, the gate of a city is the power of Satan. They observe that in the ancient world, the gate of a city is the place where the elders of the city sit, and therefore is a metaphor for the government of that city. And they suppose that when our Lord said that the gates of Ha- Hades, the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church, that he was having reference to Satan and Satan's power and government and machinations, and assuring his people that the soap, the pot, the wild, the government of Satan should not prevail against the church. That is the fourth key. Myself, I think this is not perhaps what scripture means. Scripture doesn't normally represent Satan as being a king in hell. He will be a prisoner there, not a king. Hades is the invisible world, is it not? Where men go when they die. And reading the terms in their simplest of forms, our Lord was announcing this. And he was now setting up a church, and the gates of death herself should not prevail against their church. Why not? Why? Because his church is an institution that links together the seen and the unseen world. That has come forth between earth and heaven, and heaven and earth. The Messiah himself would one day die at the hand of men, and yet by the determinate counsel of God, and rose from the dead and ascended to that heavenly realm. And as Lord and living head of the church, he would conduct the government of that church. And in his person and by his spirit, the church would have concord and contact with heaven, and heaven would have concord and contact with earth. This would be, in that sense, irrelevant. It remains gloriously true. The enemies of the church may do their very worst. They may torture, they may kill, they may execute the forerunners and all the other soldiers of Christ. What does it do to execute a servant of Christ here in this world merely transforms him to another department in the subplain kingdom. You haven't done anything worth speaking about, effective for your cause, if you are an enemy of the church and you execute a believer. The church is a kingdom that, uh, goes beyond death. It draws and hedges the other side of death, and death has no more power on him. Died to sin once, he lives to God, death has no more dominion over him. All who are in his church have been translated into the kingdom, into the kingly power of God's son. Already their citizenship is in heaven. This gives force to our Lord's observation in chapter eighteen of that Gospel of Matthew, where he reminds us of the solemn joy that there is and the practical implications that there are in being a member of his church. For not only where churches gather, but even where uh two or three are gathered together in his name. That's distinct from the church. There he is. The great link between heaven and earth, between the church and God. So that, if two or three of you shall agree on anything, said he, touching the rule of God, it shall be done of him, done of my Father which is in heaven. It is a solemn, it is a glorious thing to be a member of this kingdom. You will recall how Christ began to train his apostles before he left them, to live in the church age when thus heaven and earth could be in contact. In chapter fourteen of Matthew, for instance, after he had fed the multitude, our Lord sent the disciples away in a boat, while he himself went up the mountain for prayer. And it was dark. And there were the apostles in their boats, and Peter was there taking the lead as usual. Not buffeted by wind and waves and not making all that much progress. And our Lord, in the darkness of the night, up the mountain, away from them, but praying, and doubtless praying for them. And in the middle of the night, he came to them, walking on the water. It wasn't a thing they told all and sundry and began to preach abroad, for if they had done it, the world would have thought them lunatic. It was real nonetheless. As they saw the Jesus of Nazareth that they knew as a real man who walked on terra firma, they saw him in the dark of that night walking on the way. And Peter, if not the others, are empowered for the moment to do what his Lord did. Walk on the water in turn. If you cannot see in that a preparatory experience to prepare the apostles for their life in the church, well, I should personally hold the private rule that you are impoverished thereby. For our Lord has now gone up another mountain, and in the world is night, and the apostles and a good many more thousands are traveling across the ocean in their boat. And from time to time, they know what it is to have the Lord come to them. I will not leave you often, he says, I come to you. Did he not do so in his resurrection during the forty days? Not always, not every day of the week, not every second, but now and after a while again. He came to them. Rather than their kinds of sorrow, like Mary, or in their theological difficulties, like the two on the road to Emmaus, or in the frustrations of their work, like the fishermen in the boat on the lake of Caesarea. Suddenly they became aware that the risen Lord was with them, and John nudged Peter, and Peter nudged John. And with bated breath they said, that's the Lord. All around the ages, not every day, but from time to time, has he fulfilled his promise, and he who has arisen and ascended that he might intercede for his people comes to them. And empowers them to begin to live as he lives. You will remember how, on another occasion, he went up the mountain with three of his apostles and was translated. And coming down, was presented with a crowd and a father and a boy, and the father was saying, look upon my boy, he is demon possessed, and I brought him to your disciples, and they couldn't cast out the demon. And our Lord cried and said, oh, how long shall I be with you? Why couldn't you cast him out? Well, they've gone up a mountain, and now the Lord is away. Had the Lord been with them, they would doubtless have brought the boy to the Lord, but the Lord had gone up the mountain, so what could they do? Oh, how slow you are, said Christ, when will you get it? I am going away one of these days. That's going to make no difference. Though I'm going up the mountain and going up until my second coming. You ought, by faith and on earth, be able to exercise Messiah's power in his absence. It seems to me thus that the church is, uh, the place on earth at this moment. The government is known, the government of God is and should be known and recognized and enjoyed and heard. You will come to the same conclusion if you come to that, uh, symbol and ceremony that lies at the heart of our Christian gathering. The Lord's Supper, as it is called. Central to the observation of the Lord's Supper is, as we all know, the taking of bread representing our Lord's body, and then the taking of a cup. Here once more the words that describe that cup. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. The new covenant, not a new covenant, the new covenant. The word seems to me inescapable, in spite of that theological background in which I was brought up and which I have already confessed to. Ideas of worship at the Lord's Supper have naturally come about. I would say nothing to restrain them. Of course, on that occasion, we remember our Lord's great sacrifice. We remember the Lord himself. But as we take that up, we must not vanish from our ears our Lord's own description. This is the new covenant? A covenant in Holy Scripture is an instrument of government. When it is a covenant between a king and his subjects. On that, I must not now state a word. Every time we should, uh, have to consider ancient Canaanite covenants, covenants between emperors and their vassal kings. All the old covenants that God made with the children of Israel, that in outward form follows the same legal terminology as those ancient imperial covenants between the Canaanite emperors and their vassals. But we may content ourselves at this juncture with taking simply the words of the new covenant that we celebrate at the Lord's Supper, and it is concerned with what? I will write my law on their hearts, and on their minds will I show them. The new covenant that we rightly celebrate so regularly is our Lord's instrument of government of his people. He has guaranteed that by his spirit he will write his laws on our hearts, that make us what we should be by his spirit, obedient subjects of his image. The sovereignty of God then in the local church. Let us think how we can frustrate it. In the first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul spends the first four chapters dealing with that evil that had begun to turn its head in Corinth, the evil of denominationalism. I use that in its strict terminology. The grouping of Christians into groups and calling them after names that are not common to all the people of God. I would have you understand that I'm not campaigning for these brethren when I say that. For unless you use that term as covering all children of God, you are committing the same sin as denominationalism, are you not? And And what what have you is done wrong with with these these prayers? terms? Well, Paul finds four whole chapters full of wrong things with these. And one of them is this, that it frustrates the deliberate strategy of God. Call myself after Paul, or Paulus, Call us or or seek Cephas. us. It's It to should frustrate. take a deliberate strategy on the part of God to call us to sky. You see your calling, brethren, that not many noble, not many wise after the flesh have been called. For God has deliberately called the things that are not, that therewith he might confound the things that are. That no flesh should glory in his presence. For it is of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who is made unto you wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, and is made those things to you by God himself. And twice over he says, it is of God that you are in him. It is by God that these things are made thus real to you. Why is God that no flesh is glory in his presence, that as it is written, let him that glory, glory in the Lord? God will have us all see that direct link of faith, of trust and loyalty that must exist between the individual believer and God. If it was the clever logic of some preacher that put me in Christ, then I might feel secure for five minutes that I should always be in fear unless somebody else with a cleverer logic came and put me out of Christ. If it was his oratory, if it were his anything that ultimately put me in Christ, however could I see it occur. Whatever God's servants do, and God be praised for them. When it comes to putting a man in Christ, it is God who does it. Let our very church organization reject that glorious fact. If it was Christ who died for us, then let Christ be supreme. But I'd never arrange our churches or call them after any names or be guilty of any organizational ploy that obscures that great fact. We can't upstate the government of God by failure to cooperate with him. If we would discern ourselves, we should not be judged. In his kind sovereignty, God allows us the initiative. Discern yourself, my bower. Judge yourself. Not merely when you perceive you have done something wrong, so then, of course, you must confess it and seek the Lord's grace. But surely standing here as I am now, I must know it unless I'm altogether a fool, morally. I must know that as I stand here, there are many things in my life, many attitudes that are not worthy, are not yet as they should be. I must therefore discern myself. I must pray God with the farmer, search me and try my way and see if there be any wicked way in me. I take that holy cup that the Lord's cup are the cup of the new covenant, and hear him say, I will write my laws on your heart. And thus I cooperate with him, saying, Lord, show me, is there something in my heart that still goes against your laws? Is there some attitude of my spirit that contradicts your commandments? Show me, Lord. Help me to judge it. Help me to seek your spirit's power to correct it. Suppose I fail to discern and come idly and take that cup of his covenant that expresses his government, but, uh, I myself am not concerned too seriously to see that his kingdom in my life extends. And am I forsaking his purpose? And he in his faithfulness, according to his covenant, will take me in hand and discipline me. For he's made the covenant. He will write the law. He will do it with my cooperation if he can, but if he can't, will do it. I can also, can I not, frustrate his government in the lives of other people, if I'm not careful. Some of the early Christians were very good at that. I think some of the later Christians are as well. They were forever poking their fingers into other people's lives where they ought to have kept the fingers out. Now, there are some things where God's word is abundantly clear, and God has said it. Over that there is, or should be, no dispute. There are other areas of life where God's word has not declared itself explicitly and in detail. And those areas, it seems to me, have been deliberately left. It is not that God forgot and didn't foresee things like televisions and whatnot, and therefore forgot to tell us whether we ought to have them or not have them, whether we ought to eat beef or vegetables, or this or that or the other. There is a multitude of things upon which God has chosen not to speak explicitly. What for? Why, because in these things, in different things as the theologians, uh, describe them, in these things God's desire is that each individual should be exercised in heart and come to his own personal decision, solemnly and responsibly before God. That in the making up of his mind over all these details, the man might have personal practical experience of the government of God in his life. Might say to himself, well, look here, one of these days I've got to answer for this before the Lord. Now, my brother A says it's right, my brother B says it's wrong. I can't please those. What does the scripture say? Well, I can't find a verse about this, uh, in the Bible, so now what? So now it's a matter I must care about. I must look for guiding principles. Extremely keep the faith of the Lord. And when I come to my decision, whether my brother thinks it right or wrong, it must be a decision that I'm prepared to stand by in front of the Lord himself when at last I meet him, for everyone has given account of himself to God. Suppose I get before the judgment seat and the Lord points out to me that the thing I allowed was wrong. I better be able to say, but Lord, you know, I, I, I did think about it, I prayed about it, and when I decided to do it, I, I did honestly think it is what you would have me do. This is a man who has to reply that I couldn't care less, I didn't think it mattered whether I thought your will over this or not. So that in these smaller things, we get practice at taking life's decisions constantly to the Lord, as men who are responsible and must give an account of themselves before God. Now you see what happens, my brother. Here am I trying to make up my mind. I've got my son wrong, you see. I think I mustn't eat beef, and so I'm going without beef and think it's a great sacrifice, but I'm going without beef, genuinely to please the Lord, and some brother comes along, he is of the strong variety, and he puts his finger in my life, and he pushes the old meat down my throat. And I got a conscience about it, but he tells me I'm stupid. Or it may be the reverse way around, man. He tells me not to do something that before the Lord I have every liberty to do, but he has a conscience and expects me to have. And he so believes that his decision is right that he forces it on me and thinks thereby to make me more godly. He's done the opposite, hasn't he? For now, instead of taking it before the Lord, responsibly before God, as a man that must give an account to God at large, I now am doing it to please my brother. It has weakened my conscience instead of strengthening it. We must be careful, therefore, not to frustrate the government of God in other people's lives in this area. Finally, let me call your attention briefly to one of the themes of Paul's first letter to Timothy. This too, you will remember, was written about the affairs of a local church, the church in Ephesus. It begins with a glorious inscription of praise to God as king, and ends with a magnificent tribute of praise to God as king. In the affairs of a local church, it is the rule, the kingdom of God is to be experienced. Godliness is indeed be considering always and in all circumstances and situations the mind and the will and the character of God. Godliness is a term that means literally to reverence well, but normally implies reverencing God well. And therefore, to be godly, given any situation, I am not merely to leave my Bible shut and simply philosophize after the manner of men. Having overseen what the problem is, I am expected to turn round and consider what God has said. Consider the attitude and the character of God in this particular. And then I am so to respect God's attitude, will, and character, and word, that I, in my turn, interpret that in my particular circumstance. In it, I shall have the supreme example of our blessed Lord himself, who, when he was here on earth, perfectly interpreted the will of God, uh, run a church? How will God get rebel sinners to obey him and behave in an ordered kingdom? There were some in Ephesus said that what you want to do, Paul, my man, is to preach the law for salvation. You see, Paul, old chap. You've got a lot of trouble on your hands in some of your churches, and it tends to frustrate me. But you don't preach salvation by grace. Oh boy, isn't that silly? What if you tell people that they are saved and they can know it, and salvation is not by works, it is by grace? Why call, my dear man, to have the people painting the town red and misbehaving all over the place? Because you've gone and told them they're saved. Now, if only you preach the law for salvation, I'll share. Do these. Keep them on their toes, Paul. Never let them know their faith. Make out to them that this, unless they keep the whole law, then they'll be lost, and you'll get them to behave. Will you? Let himself be a shining example of the matter. How does God enforce his rule in a human life? There were days when Paul of Patmos thought that salvation depended as a work of merit upon keeping the law. And in those days, he was rebel number one, the arse sinner and rebel against God. God. So much for that kind of preaching of the law. He never converted the devil into a saint yet. Has made a man more proud than ever and more independent of God. How will God turn a devil into an obedient devil? Or is he not a king? Oh, I think of that five feet nine and a half of girl that was called Carson. In all his religious pride, rebelling against God to the point of persecuting God's own son. How will God crush the man's rebellion and bring him to heel? All tells us, all the attitude of God as king and his ways with rebels. This is the way, God, that's a pattern in my case for the rest of you. The grace of our Lord is exceedingly abundant through faith and love that is inside people. Our blessed Lord interpreted the heart of the eternal king towards the rebels call of heart and overwhelmed the man and brought him to his knees by his infinite self. That's how worlds are made. The word is subject to the people. That doesn't mean, of course, that saints in the kingdom of God can do what they will. That same chapter tells us that such is God's kingship, that if people misbehave and deter, God himself reserves the right to use his arch enemy, Satan, to discipline disobedience to leave. Great is the mystery of godliness. The mystery of our Lord's life as it portrays the principles of godly behavior. Into the details of that mystery we have not now time to go, obviously. I I saw sorry to ask for your consideration, but through that epistle by Paul to Timothy, you will find this theme recurring. Be the particular problem what it is, be it the ordering of the lives of those who bear rule, bishops and deacons, be it our attitude to the multiracial society in which we live, be it our attitude to the body and the things concerning the body, marriage and food, be it a question of family relations, support of widows, reverencing of elders, and us and us, be it a matter of our business lives, those that are rich and those that would be. Notice the fine distinction. In all these matters, godliness consists in consulting what is God's mind, attitude, will, and character. And how has that been demonstrated and revealed and exemplified in the behavior of objectiveness? Finally, seeking by his grace to follow that example and reproduce in our churches godly behavior. For the Lord Jesus is coming. I charge you, says Paul writing to Timothy, I charge you to keep this commandment without thought. I charge you before God, before Jesus Christ, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good in heaven, keep the commandment without thought until his appearing. We serve the blessed Lord in the day of his rejection. In the church, we know his government as we know his presence. The world rejects him. One day he shall come again. Happy those servants, for when he comes, he finds them standing loyally for him. Can I tell you a story? And I will have done. My brother, I think, will spare me five minutes or 2 and a half. King David, so said the first of the kings, was getting very old, and they covered him with clothes to beget no heat. King David was a dying. And when King David was a dying, decrepit and cold in his bed, one of his sons called Adonijah thought the moment had come for him to grasp the throne. So he got a lot of his cronies, and also he went with a high priest or two to have a celebration. And a lot of men were persuaded to follow Adonijah, although there was no word from the king that Adonijah was to be the successor. And Sheba, the mother of Solomon, heard about this, and she went into the king through the good offices of Nathan the prophet. And they said, is it your pleasure, O king, that Abijah should be king in your stead? And the old king David said, no. They said, how is it then that Adonijah has gone off and proclaimed himself king? Will you not do something about it, your majesty? And old and cold as he was, he did, he gathered his remaining strength up into the bed, then commanded his servants, and they brought out the royal mule, and they sat Solomon thereon, and they ran through the streets, and they had it cried, Solomon is king. At that moment, Adonijah's party was going on the other side of the valley. When the sound of the coronation ceremony came to their ears, and the men put down their drinking glasses, and they began to turn pale. They were following Adonijah. The way out in the hills of Jerusalem, there came the voice, Solomon is king. Well, King David might have been old, but he was acting. And then put that exasper and turned tail and shrunk away. Fancy being found with Adonijah and all his pretenses, and the king appointed by Zandis coming to meet them. That's past history, isn't it? You are not now to think of some poor old wooden King David in a bed. You are to think of the only blessed and only potentate king of kings and lord of lords. He has decreed who should be king. And in the church we serve him. We serve him by faith and know his presence by faith. The glad day of his manifestation is coming. For the King eternal, invisible, the only wise God, the blessed and only potentate, has decreed that his blessed son be king, and one day he shall reveal him to the universe as king. Oh my daughter, where will you be found and on whose side? And the blessed Lord is manifest at the command of the king. Apple those servant servants at with any any time. power will The fine find, shall shall be. be found in him standing loyal and doing his will.