This sermon delves into Revelation 19, highlighting the worship in heaven, the anticipation of the marriage of the Lamb, and the ultimate reign of Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords. It contrasts the fallen earthly monarchies with the promised eternal kingdom of God, emphasizing the need for individuals to choose to live under the righteous rule of Jesus. The message underscores the current state of the world under Satan's influence and the hope for the future when Jesus will establish His kingdom of light and peace.

Let's turn now in our Bibles to Revelation chapter 19 and we will read this morning the first 16 verses. I'll read the first and the outnumbered verses. Pastor Brian will lead the congregation in the reading of the even-numbered verses. Revelation 19 verses 1 through 16. Shall we stand for the reading of God's Word. And after these things I heard a great voice of many people in heaven. They were saying, Hallelujah, salvation and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God. For true and righteous are his judgments, for he hath judged the great war which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they said, Hallelujah, and the smoke rose up forever and ever. And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshiped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen, Hallelujah. And a voice came out of the throne saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thundering, saying, Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. And he saith unto me, Write, blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God. And I fell at his feet to worship him, and he said unto me, See thou do it not. I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And he that sat upon him was called faithful and true. And in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. And he had a name written that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood. And his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations. And he shall rule them with a rod of iron. And he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. Let's pray. Father, as we read of these events that are soon to take place, our hearts are stirred with excitement as we contemplate that day when our Lord Jesus Christ shall come. Come again to this earth as King of kings and Lord of lords. And the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Messiah. And he shall reign forever and ever. Lord, we pray that you'll bless our study today as we contemplate and as we look at the coming King and his reign. In Jesus' name we ask these things. Amen. You may be seated. Tonight Pastor Skip will continue our journey through the Bible. We are presently in Ezekiel chapters 21 and 22. So we would encourage you to study these. Join with us tonight. Let's go together in our journey through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. This is chapter 27. Thus saith the Lord God, remove the diadem, take off the crown. This shall not be the same. Exalt him that is low, abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more until he come whose right it is, and I will give it to him. When God first established the nation of Israel, he established it as a theocracy. It was to be a nation that was ruled by God. Moses was the human instrument through which God ruled. God spoke to Moses, gave him the law, the commandments, the judgments, the statutes. But the people all understood that Moses was only God's representative. That God was ruling over the nation. It was a theocracy. At the death of Moses, of course, Joshua took over the leadership. And again, as Moses reigned over the people in such a way as they knew that God ruled. There came that period of judges where God would raise up godly men to draw the people again back to the consciousness of God reigning and ruling over the nation. However, there came that time, during the time that Samuel was a judge, that they came to Samuel and they said, we want you to appoint over us a king to rule over us like the other nations. Samuel was very disheartened. He was grieved. And God said to Samuel, don't grieve, Samuel. They haven't rejected you. They have rejected me from ruling over them. And so God commanded Samuel to anoint a king to rule over them and guided him unto Saul. Tragic day in the history of the nation when they went from a theocracy to a monarchy, a king ruling over them. Samuel did anoint Saul, but Saul was a disappointment. It seemed like he had all of the right things to rule as God would have him to rule, but he soon was lifted up with pride. And he no longer listened to God. In fact, Samuel rebuked him and said to him, because you have rejected God from ruling over you, God has now rejected you from ruling over his people. You see, it was God's desire that Saul rule, as did Moses and others, that the people would still know that God ruled. It's awfully hard for man to rule. It seems like every form of government that man has ever developed soon deteriorates and becomes corrupted, filled with graft, because men have pretty much proven themselves incapable of ruling over their fellow men. Now the time of the monarchy has come to an end. The kings have pulled away from God, from the commandments of God, and God here announces the end of the monarchy. There in verse 26, the Lord said, remove the diadem, take away the crown. There shall not, they shall not be the same. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it. It will be no more. That is the monarchy, until he comes, whose right it is, and I will give it to him. So the monarchy, the family of David ruling over the nation, has come to an end. Jokaniah, the descendant of David, has been taken unto Babylon as a captive. The Bible speaks of him declaring, he is a despised, broken idol, a vessel wherein is no pleasure. Therefore he and his seed are cast out and cast into a land that they know not. Oh earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. Write this man childless, a man that will not prosper, for none of his seed shall prosper or sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah. At the time that Jeremiah is giving this word to the people, Zedekiah, the last king in the line of David, is having his eyes put out. He will be put in chains, and he will be brought to Babylon also, and the nation of Judah shall cease to be, as the remnant of the people scatter throughout the world. It is interesting that at the time that Zedekiah is being deposed, God is saying, remove the diadem, take off the crown. I will overturn, overturn, overturn. Yet it is also interesting that God had made a promise to David. A promise that a descendant of David would always reign over the throne forever. But that promise of God to David was not of this earthly lineage that ended with Zedekiah. God did promise David that if his children would remain obedient to God, that they could have a continuous dynasty. As David spoke to Solomon when he was dying, he said to Solomon, the Lord has told you, or told me that he would make me a house when my days are fulfilled, and I would sleep with my fathers. He said, I will set your seed after you, which will proceed out of your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. But it was predicated upon the obedience. David said to Solomon, I'm about to die, so be strong. Show yourself to be a man. Keep the commandments of the Lord your God. Walk in his ways. Keep his statutes and his commandments that were written in the law of Moses, that you might prosper in all that you do, wherever you go, in order that the Lord might keep the word that he spoke concerning me, when he said, if your children will take heed to their ways, to walk before me in truth with all of their heart, and with all of their soul, then there shall not fail of thee a man on the throne of Israel. Notice it was conditional upon his children remaining obedient unto God, but they didn't. And thus God said, remove the diadem. Take away the crown. I will overthrow, overthrow, overthrow it. Talking about the kingdom, until the day comes, when he who is the rightful king will reign, and I will give it to him. The prophecy is actually that the Messiah would be a descendant of David. And David understood the prophecy to mean exactly that. That he would be in the lineage that would bring forth the Messiah. Psalm 132 11 declares, the Lord Unto us a son is given. The government will be upon his shoulder. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. And of the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no end. Upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it and to establish it in righteousness and in justice from henceforth even forever. For the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. In Ezekiel 34 23, the Lord said, And I will set up one shepherd over them. He will feed them, even my servant David. He shall feed them. He shall be their shepherd, and I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David, a prince among them. I the Lord have spoken. The prophet Amos said, In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen. I will close up the breaches thereof. I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old. That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all of the heathen which are called by my name, says the Lord that will do this. When the angel announced to Mary that she had been chosen by God to be the human instrument of bringing God's Son into the world, the angel said, Behold, you will conceive and bring forth a son and call his name Jesus. He shall be great. He shall be called the son of the highest, and the Lord God shall give to him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. So the prophecies of the king that would come from David, the king whose right it is to reign, will be fulfilled when Jesus comes again to reign over the earth as king of kings and as Lord of lords. As we look at our world today, we see how desperate we are for a righteous king to reign. We see how that each form of government through the history of man has ultimately fallen into ruin and decay because of draft, because of corruption. I'm prone to agree with former President Reagan who said, Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is our problem. Again, he said, The most terrifying words a person can hear is, I'm from the government and I'm here to help you. The democratic form of government that was established by our constitution is perhaps the best form of government that man ever devised, whereby man could rule over his fellow man. It took about 200 years for this form of constitutional government to become corrupted and filled with graft and all as we see it today. Unelected judges discovered that they could change the law and set their own laws by the way they interpreted the constitution and interpreted the laws that have been established. So they interpreted the constitution, which guaranteed us the freedom of religion, to actually mean freedom from religion, and thus they declared that it was unconstitutional to have the Ten Commandments posted on the walls in our public schools. The interesting thing is that James Madison, our fourth president, who was known as the father of the constitution, declared, We have staked the whole of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves and to control ourselves and to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God. Now this is the father of the constitution, and yet they take a phrase that was in a letter of Jefferson where he spoke about his fear of the separation of church and state, taking, not taking, in other words, the continuance of the separation of church and state in a letter of Jefferson, not in the constitution at all, and though they would have you to think that it was and to believe that it was the way they were interpreting the constitution. But Thomas Jefferson, so often quoted by the liberals today in that phrase, separation of church and state, as though it was a constitutional amendment, he actually said that he was worried that the courts would overstep their authority and instead of interpreting the law, would begin making law. The rule of a few over many. Isn't that interesting? His real fear was not really the maintaining of separation of church and state so much as it was judges interpreting the law, which of course they have done, and thus defeating the law. Patrick Henry, you've probably heard that name. Your kids probably haven't in our revised history books. But he was one of the founding fathers, as we well know. He said it cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians. Not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Interesting that 53 of the 55 framers of the constitutions, of our constitution, were members of churches in the colonies. John Jay, the very first Supreme Court justice, said, Americans should select and prefer Christians as their rulers. But how far we've come from the ideals and the ideas of our founding fathers. And look at the problems that we have in our nation today. The broken homes. The uncontrollable gangs ruling neighborhoods. Moral standards being set by Hollywood stars. Look at the world that we live in today. A world that is filled with threats of wars, of wars themselves, of terrorism. Rogue nations now being armed with weapons of mass destruction. Look at the morals. A program this week on TV talking about Cambodia, where five-year-old girls are being sold into prostitution. Our world is drowning in pornography. I think it's a shame when Carl's Jr. has to revert to pornography to sell hamburgers. I think that we should boycott Carl's Jr. until they remove the pornographic ads. There is that persistent pressure from the gay community to legalize the same-sex marriages. And on that score, thank you. Last Sunday, we told you that the Assembly was going to consider a bill that would legalize same-sex marriages in California. You responded, and your response paid dividends. That bill was set down in the Assembly. And we thank God for that. God said he was going to overturn, overturn, overturn until he came whose right it was. That is, the right to reign over the earth. God will overturn, overturn, overturn the governments of man. But one day, he will come whose right it is to reign. And he will establish God's kingdom upon the earth. And of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end upon the throne of David to order it and to establish it in righteousness and in justice from henceforth even forever. What people fail to realize today is that in reality, Satan is the ruler of this present evil age. Jesus calls him the prince of this world. Paul calls him the god of this world. And that he is still ruling in the world in which we live today, so that all of these problems that we see, it is wrong to try to blame them on God. The wars, the atrocities, the rapings, and all of it. To try to blame this on God is folly. These things exist because man has rebelled against God's reign and God's authority. Man has set God's commandments aside. Our judges have said we're not to have them in our classrooms. And thus, we have the moral decay. We have the corruption in our society today because Satan is ruling. God allows him for God's purposes to rule. I believe that we might see how corrupt and how rotten and how evil a world can become where Satan is in control. In those pockets where Christianity has taken a foothold and there's a strong group of Christians, we see there a light. We see there a hope. But you go into the world where Christianity has not had a strong influence and you think things are bad here, they're worse there. They are unlivable conditions. But you see Christ came to establish God's kingdom. There are only two kingdoms. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. And each one of you are in one or the other of the kingdoms. You can't be in both. Jesus said no man can have two masters. He'll love the one and hate the other. He'll hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Satan. But it is your choice. Do you want to live by God's rules mastered by the Lord? Or do you want to live a life that is mastered by Satan who uses this fallen world and the corruption of our flesh and be controlled, enslaved to your bondage to your flesh under Satan's control? Your choice. And God has given us that capacity of choosing the kingdom in which we wish to live. Now when God first created the world, it was God's. He created it. God put Adam and Eve upon this earth, gave it to them. But Satan came in and deceived man and he rebelled against the law of God. And it was very simple at that time. Just don't eat of that tree in the middle of the garden. How simple can the law of God be? But he rebelled against the authority of God. And in so doing, left the kingdom of God and went into the kingdom of darkness. But in so doing, turned the world over to Satan. So that when Jesus came to redeem the world back to God, Satan took him to a high mountain, showed him all of the kingdoms of the world, the glory of them, and said, I will give these all to you for they are mine. I can give them to whomever I please. Notice Jesus didn't dispute that statement of Satan. But he came to redeem the world back to God. He paid the price of redemption. He died there on the cross to redeem the world. And now by your submitting your life to Jesus Christ as king of your life, crowning him as king of your life, you go from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Now know that the kingdom of darkness is going to be destroyed. God said, I will overturn, I will overturn, I will overturn. He's going to overturn the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. The kingdom of life. The kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ will be an eternal kingdom of the increase of his government and peace. There shall be no end. That is why wisdom would dictate to you to surrender your life to Jesus Christ. To renounce the works of darkness and to determine to live in obedience to the commands of our Lord. Which basically again Jesus simplified him. He just said, love the Lord your God with all your heart. Love your neighbor as yourself. And if we will determine, yes I will love God with all my heart. And I'll let God's love work in my life and through my life to love my neighbor as myself. But you see as a kingdom now and as a citizen of the heavenly kingdom, it all of a sudden makes you an alien in this world in which we live. And you know more and more I'm feeling like an alien. I'm feeling like I don't belong here. I don't belong in the corruption that I see going on in the world around me. I'm almost to the place of Habakkuk where he said, Lord don't let me see anything else. I can't take it. Things are going down the tubes and you're not doing anything about it God. And it looks like our world is just in such a chaotic state that it's hard to really see and to deal with the issues that we are facing within the world in which we live today. Jesus said, if the world hates you, just know that it hated me before it hated you. John wrote, don't be surprised my brothers if the world hates you. Now soon God is going to overturn the kingdoms of this world and he's going to turn them over unto the rightful king, the one who came and purchased redemption for the world. Jesus is the rightful king. He told us, pray thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. If ever there was a time when the church needed to pick up this prayer and begin to pray that prayer, it is today as the world is crumbling under our feet. You can expect every form of man's controlled governments to be overturned and the king who will come will set up a righteous reign. Oh, what a day that will be. You may have become wearied with the injustices in this world, the evil and the wickedness that is all around us, but take heart. The rightful king is coming whose right it is to reign and he shall reign forever and ever. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Amen. And those who have chosen to live in his kingdom, they will live and reign with him world without end. God said, these are faithful and true sayings. Father, we thank you for that wonderful hope that we have for the coming kingdom, for the coming king, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Lord, we are encouraged by the final words of the scriptures where our Lord has declared, behold, I come quickly. And we respond, Lord, with John, even so come quickly, Lord Jesus, as we look at our world, Lord, we see the signs that you said would precede your return. And that makes us quite excited. That thrills our hearts to know that the long night is about over. A new day is soon to dawn, the day of the Lord, the day of our Lord's kingdom ruling and reigning over the earth. Lord, I pray for those today who are lost in the kingdom of darkness and debt, whose lives are being controlled by the powers of darkness. I pray, Father, that you will show them today. The possibility of a totally changed life. That they can be free from those chains of sin that has held them and is holding them in bondage. And that they can know the glorious liberty of living in your kingdom, Jesus as Lord of their lives. And may this be the day, Lord, that they move from that kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of your dear son. For his name we pray. Amen.