NAMES AND TITLES OF CHRIST
KING OF KINGS
DR. JIM DIXON
LUKE 19:28-44
MARCH 23, 1997
In the year 1013, a man named Sven Forkbeard led his Viking soldiers across the English Channel and conquered England, and Forkbeard became the King of England, although his reign was very brief because he died two weeks later. Then Forkbeard’s son ascended the throne. The son of Forkbeard became one of the greatest kings of English history. One of the greatest rulers of world history, the son of Forkbeard was named Canute. King Canute ruled England. He ruled Scotland. He ruled Denmark and Norway and Sweden. King Canute was a Christian king. All of the Norse kings of England were nominally Christian. But, you see, King Canute was genuinely Christian. He had been reared in the Norse religion. He had been taught to worship Wotton which was the Anglo-Saxon title of the Norse God Oden.
He had a miraculous conversion experience. King Canute received Jesus Christ into his heart, embraced Him as his Savior from sin and the Lord of his life. He lived all the years of his life seeking to honor Jesus Christ. He only lived 36 years. During those years, he built churches and King Canute sent missionaries throughout the known world.
Now, in the year 1025, King Canute was at Southampton, the seaport in Southern England. Norsemen had come to see him there, to greet him. When they greeted him, they gave him the title “King of Kings and Ruler of Both Land and Sea.” When they addressed him in this way, King Canute began to laugh. He took them to the coast, and they looked down on the waves that were crashing on the rocks. In a kind of strange moment, King Canute began to shout. He rebuked the waves. He commanded the waves to abate, to cease their rush to the short. Of course, nothing happened. With a big smile on his face, King Canute turned to the Norsemen, and he said, “You see, I am neither King of Kings, nor do I rule both land and sea.” He went up into the village square where there was a statue of Christ, and King Canute said, “This is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.”
Throughout history, there have been many monarchs, many kings, many queens who have acknowledged the supreme majesty of Jesus Christ. One such queen was Queen Victoria, who ruled the British Empire for 64 years, longer than any other British monarch. She was just a teenager when she ascended the throne, though she had wisdom beyond her years.
The year was 1837 when she received her coronation in Westminster Abbey. During that coronation there was a performance of Handel’s Messiah. When they came to that wonderful part of the Messiah where they began to sing, “King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Alleluia, Alleluia,” Queen Victoria got down on her knees in honor of the Son of God. Later in her life, later in her reign, she said that of all the titles of Christ, her favorite title was this, “King of Kings.” Perhaps for monarchs, perhaps for kings and queens, the title of Christ, “King of Kings” has special meaning. But it should have some meaning for you as well. It should have some meaning for me.
This morning, we examine the biblical meaning of the title “King of Kings.” What does it mean? It means two things biblically. First of it, it means that Jesus Christ will rule the nations. He is King of Kings. Therefore, He is King of Kingdoms, and he is destined to rule the nations of this earth.
Now, you can travel to Orlando, Florida, and you can go to Disney World. You can go in Disney World to the Epcot Center and at the Epcot Center you can see the World Showcase, the showcase of nations built around a lake one mile in circumference. You can walk around that lake and you can go to national pavilion after national pavilion. You can go into the French pavilion. You can eat at a French restaurant served by people indigenous to France. You can go to the Moroccan pavilion, and you can eat Moroccan food served by people born in Morocco. You can go to Japan, or China, or Germany. It’s an incredible experience.
You can see exhibits and go into museums, and you can watch films and movies that are designed to help you understand the beauties of each individual nation. It’s a great experience to walk around that lake and to visit all of those nations. It’s kind of a celebration and there’s this sense of symmetry as you walk around that global village. There’s a sense of unity. Of course, it’s all put together by the Disney Corporation. Each nation’s pavilion opens at the same time, closes at the same time. They all abide by the same rules and rules are established by the Disney Corporation. A global village, but it’s not real. It’s just Disney World. We all know that in the real world, things aren’t like that. There’s not a common set of rules that the nations abide by. There’s no sovereign global government over the nations. The nations do not necessarily get along.
Political scientists used the word globalism to refer to sovereign one-world government. Political globalism refers to sovereign one-world government. We live in a world where there is no globalism, no political globalism. There is no sovereign one-world government that rules over the nations of the earth. There is, of course, the United Nations, but it is relatively politically impotent. So, we live in a world where there are sovereign nations but no a sovereign one-world government. We live in a world characterized by nationalism rather than globalism.
I don’t know how you feel about that. I mean maybe you like nationalism, or maybe you would like to see globalism. Maybe you would like to see a sovereign one-world government that just controlled everything. Biblically, the Bible tells us that in this fallen world, in this sinful world, God doesn’t want globalism. God actually wants nationalism. All you have to do is to look back to the book of Genesis in the 11th chapter at the whole story of the Tower of Babel. If you understand that story, you understand that God didn’t want humanity to be united with one language and one center. God didn’t want humanity to be united with one language and one government and so God scattered humanity over the face of the earth, so there would be many nations, many languages, many governments.
Why was this? Because the world is fallen. Centralization is more dangerous than dispersion. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It’s better to have power dispersed amongst nations than to have power centered in one global sovereign government in this fallen world. Now, there are many problems with nationalism. Certainly, from time to time throughout history, nations have gone amok. But the problems of nationalism pale when compared to the problem of globalism in a fallen world.
The Bible tells us that as we approach the consummation of this age of the world, an individual will arise that the Bible calls “antichristos,” which is the word meaning Antichrist. The Antichrist will arise, and he will seek power over every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He will seek to establish a sovereign, one-world government. He will seek to move our world from nationalism to globalism. He will head an alignment of nations. He will be energized by the demonic power of Satan himself. He will seek to deceive the nations and the Bible says he would deceive, were it possible, even the elect and he will seek to rule all the nations of the earth. He will lead the earth into a hideous battle at the consummation called Armageddon.
If you look in Daniel’s prophecies in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, you see in the 7th chapter how Daniel, through power, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was allowed to look through the portals of time and see the future kingdoms of the world. He saw them rising out of the sea of humanity like hideous beasts. He saw kingdoms rising from kingdoms. Then as he looked through the portals of time, he saw the Antichrist who, in the Bible, goes by many titles – Son of Perdition, Man of Lawlessness, Little Horn – many titles. He saw the Antichrist hideous and strong seeking global domination, but it didn’t end there because in that vision in Daniel chapter seven, the prophet looked further through the portals of time and saw the end of the age of the second coming of Jesus Christ. He saw a heavenly personage called the Son of Man presented before the ancient of days, given power, all power in heaven and earth, and then coming on the clouds of heaven to rule the nations of the world.
In Daniel, chapter two, you see that through visionary insight, through visionary revelation, there was a glimpse of the future kingdoms of man again. The vision took the form of a statue of a man. This statue of man was built out of many elements, gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay. Daniel understood that these future kingdoms of men were mixed in elements because the future kingdoms of men would have varying levels of strength and weakness. But then suddenly in the vision, there comes a stone, a stone not carved of human hands. That stone comes crashing into the image of man and shatters the image with its gold and silver and bronze and iron and clay. It all falls to the ground and then the stone begins to grow, and the stone becomes a great mountain enveloping the earth.
The stone, Daniel is told, is the kingdom of the Messiah and Messiah would rule ultimately the earth itself and shatter the power of the nations. That’s why, in the New Testament age, one of the titles of Christ was “Lithos,” a word meaning “stone.” He was the promised sone that would shatter the nations and the power of the nations, destined to reign.
As Jesus came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, they knew Him to be the Christ. They believed Him to be the Messiah, the Stone from heaven, the Son of Man who would come. They really believed that He would usher in a new millennium, and He would shatter the power of Rome and He would free the Jews from the shackles of Rome, and He would establish a one-world government and usher in a new age. Of course, it didn’t happen that way because they didn’t understand the dual nature of biblical prophecy, that the Messiah was to come first as a suffering servant, Isaiah 53. Then the Messiah would come a second time to reign over the nations. He would come the first time to deal with sin and then he would come again to reign and rule. We get a glimpse of His second coming in the Book of Revelation, the 19th chapter.
I think most of you understand that in the biblical world, and particularly the world of the Middle East, when a king came to a city or a village, and the king was coming in peace, the king came on a donkey. This was typical of the biblical and ancient world. When a king came in peace, the king came humble and riding on a donkey. That’s how Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. The crowd shouted, “Hosannah, Blessed is the King! Peace in Heaven! Glory in the highest!”
In the biblical and ancient world, when a king came to conquer, when the king came in wrath, when the king came to rule, he came on a white horse. He came on a white steed. That’s why in Revelation 19, through the apocalyptic language of scripture, we have this description of the second coming of Christ, which you have heard before. The Apostle John writes, “Behold, I saw heavens open. And behold, a white horse. And He who sat upon it was called Faithful and Ture. In righteousness, He judges and wages war. His eyes are like a flame of fire. On his head are many crowns, many diadems. He has a name inscribed which no one knows but He himself. He is clad in a robe dipped in blood and the name by which He is called is The Word of God. The armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen white and pure follow Him on white horses. From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to judge the nations. He shall rule them with a rod of iron. He shall tread the winepress of the wrath of the fury of God the Almighty on His robe and on His thigh a name is inscribed, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”
You see, He will come to rule the nations. If you’re looking at the world today and it’s scary to you; if you’re looking at the nations and everything seems so chaotic, so tragic and perhaps so confusing and maybe a little hopeless, take heart because Jesus Christ is coming again. King of Kings, King of Kingdoms. He will rule the nations.
But there’s a second meaning of this title and really it’s more important for us today. The second meaning of this title is this: He is the King of Kings, and He wants to rule your soul. He is King of Kings, and He is destined to rule the nations. He is King of Kings, and He wants to rule your soul.
The name Charlemagne means Charles the Great. Most historians agree Charles the Great was the greatest ruler of the Middle Ages. He was deemed great in both war and peace. He ruled a vast empire. Charles the Great, Charlemagne, was nominally Christian. He was baptized as a Christian. He was crowed Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day in the year 800 AD.
Charlemagne fought, as did Constantine before him, under the sign of the cross, and when he conquered nations and peoples, he forced them to receive Christian baptism. He sometimes drove his enemies into the sea or into various bodies of water and he told them if they didn’t receive Christian baptism, he would kill them. That is how, for want of a better word, Charlemagne converted the Saxons. He drove them into the sea and told them that if they were not baptized into Christianity, he would kill them.
We shouldn’t be too quick to judge Charlemagne because he lived in a barbaric time. We’re always so tempted to impose the standards of our time upon prior times. God will judge Charles the Great. God will judge Charlemagne. When Charlemagne died, he commanded that his body be placed in the earth, that his body be buried sitting on his throne, that his body be placed on the throne and the throne be placed in the earth with his imperial crown on his head, the imperial sword at his side, the royal mantle over his shoulders and the Holy Bible open on his lap to the gospels.
All things were done as Charlemagne commanded and he was placed in the earth seated on his throne in the year 814 AD. He body remained like that for 186 years until the year 1000. At the new millennium, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III commanded that the body of Charlemagne be exhumed. His body was taken out of the earth, and they found a skeleton still on the throne, the imperial crown still on his skull, and they found the Holy Bible on the bones of his lap open to Matthew’s gospel, the 16th chapter, still legible. According to the emperor, Otto III, the bony finger of Charlemagne, the tip of it was pointing to Matthew 16:26. That may or may not be true, but his we know: we know that Matthew 16:26, quotes the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeit his soul?”
We don’t know whether Charlemagne forfeited his soul. That is for God to judge. We do know this. It is possible for a person to forfeit his or her soul. The Bible tells us that. We forfeit our soul when we refuse to let Christ reign over it. What is the meaning of the word soul? What does the Bible mean when it speaks of the soul?
The biblical word is the Greek word “psyche.” This word was sometimes used by the Greek to refer to the mind, sometimes to the emotions but generally the word psyche was used to refer to the human will. It was used to refer to the throne room within you, that place where you express your moral autonomy, where you make decisions, where you express volition.
Jesus Christ is King of Kings, and He demands to reign over your soul, to reign over your will, to come into the throne room. If you’re a Christian, if you are truly a Christian, you’ve asked Jesus to be your Savior from sin by His atoning sacrifice on the cross and you’ve also invited Jesus Christ to come into the throne room to reign over your soul so that you might live like this, not my will but They will be done. In fact, so that you might live in such a way that your will more and more would be His will.
Of course, there is a great problem. I mean when we accepted Christ a savior, when we invited him to come into the throne room, he came in by his Holy Spirit—into the throne room—but there’s a problem because the throne room is cluttered. There’s this process. I mean that’s the beginning of a great pilgrimage, an incredible journey where we learn to let Christ reign over our will. This is a journey the Bible calls sanctification as we grow in our submission to the reign of Christ, having invited him into the throne room.
I think here in America comment I think in this nation, it’s particularly difficult because I think for most people the throne room is particularly difficult because I think for most people the throne room is particularly cluttered. That’s why many people won’t embrace the gospel of Christ because their throne room is just so cluttered in our culture, not fertile seed for the gospel. Many Christians have a hard time really living for Christ because the throne room is so cluttered with false gods. There’s a lot of worry and anxiety and stress in the throne room.
In the year 1967, a Senate subcommittee concluded that by the year 1995, the average American worker would work 22 hours a week, 27 weeks a year, and retire at the age of 39. Now here we are in 1997, three years from the new Millennium, and many of you are probably thinking well what happened? In fact, a recent Gallup poll showed that the average American worker in the 1990s is working 20% longer each week than the average American worker did in the 1960s.
There’s now a crisis in the realm of time. People just don’t have enough time. The conclusions of the Senate subcommittee by the way, seemed reasonable at the time. I mean they’d reached a post-industrial age. There was all this new technology, and it was the dawning of computers and satellites and robotics and all the wizardry of the 20th century technology had reached fruition. It seemed reasonable to conclude that the workforce would become more efficient, the gross national product would increase almost exponentially and the work week which shrink. It seemed reasonable. It just didn’t happen. It didn’t happen.
Today, people are working longer and harder than ever and they just don’t have enough time. We coop our kids. The average dad gives 20 minutes a day to his son or daughter. The only people who seem to have time are the kids and they spend three to five hours a day watching TV. Time magazine recently concluded that in the new Millennium beyond the year 2000, the most precious commodity is going to be time. People will reject money for time. People are going to want more time according to Time magazine.
I don’t believe that for a second. I think people will never have enough time because of money. You see, there’s this God that our Lord Jesus Christ called mammon and we live in a culture that has invited this God, mammon, into the throne room. People just never have enough. I mean there are some who believe that the word mammon was a title for the ancient Canaanite God of wealth but this we know. The word mammon used by our Lord Jesus Christ refers to money, wealth and materialism. Jesus said you can’t serve both God and mammon but where you’ve invited minimum into the throne room. Therefore, we will never have enough time. we’re always just going to keep working harder even if we get more. The truth is we do have more. We live in bigger homes, we have more cars, better cars. People and prior centuries even in this nation would have loved to have had the things that we have today but we want more. We can never have enough because of this God comment mammon
If we ever reach the point where we reject mammon, there’s other gods. I mean if we have the time, we can use that time to worship the God Hedone, the God of pleasure. So many gods. There’s eros and brachus. We invite them into the throne room. the throne room is so cluttered. And, of course, the tragedy is that these gods produce stress. They produce stress and they never satisfy. Perhaps we even get mad at the true God because we’re so stressed and we’re so unsatisfied in how could he allow it? But, you see, Jesus wants to rein in purity in the throne room he wants to clean it out.
What a radical difference that would make if we let him come into the throne room and just clear it out and really begin to reign. I mean it might radically change our lifestyles, change the way we use our time, the way we use our money. It might change our not list. Surely it would. Radical changes.
You know, Jesus said don’t be anxious about your life, what you will eat, what you will drink. He gave the example of the birds of the air and the lilies of the fields. He said don’t be anxious but seek first the Kingdom of God. That Greek word for Kingdom means reign. Seek first the reign of God and everything you need will be added unto you.
So, as we look at this title king of kings, here is an invitation. One, to invite Christ into the throne room and two, if you’ve done that, to begin to let him clean the throne room out, removing all the stuff, all of the false gods that produce all of the stress that he might reign. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.