Kingdom of God and the Lamb Rev 22:3

Welcome to All Things Fulfilled. I'm William Bell, and this morning we're going to be looking at the Kingdom of God and the Lamb from Revelation chapter 22 and verse 3. So, appreciate everyone being here. Hope that you're having a great day. Now, on last week and weeks before, we've looked at the River of Life, talked about the Tree of Life, and today we're going to look at the Kingdom or the Throne of Life. The Kingdom is the source of life because everything proceeds from the throne of God. And because it is life, it also means that it's resurrection life. And that's a point that many people often either fail to recognize or accept, and that is the fact that the Kingdom is also life. In addition, and at the same time, it's also resurrection. And we'll talk about that a little bit in the message. That's another of the jointly shared concepts that we have in the book of Revelation as we've talked about. We talked about the Temple of God and the Lamb, the Light of God and of the Lamb, and the Tree of God and of the Lamb, showing that this refers to the source of immortality and life that we have in the scriptures. And now, we speak of the Kingdom of God and of the Lamb. So, first, we should understand that the Kingdom was prepared before the foundation of the world. That concept also has a little bit of differences of opinion around it. It means, to some, that it was prepared before the age of Moses began. In other words, stemming from prophecies like the promise that was made to Abraham, which was a promise, actually, of the New Covenant, according to Acts 3, 25 and 26. But others believe that it was God's purpose, or God purposed it before the creation of the physical universe, prepared before anything that applied particularly to the national Kingdom of Israel. Now, the promise of Abraham was, in fact, the promise of the Kingdom. Paul wrote in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 8 that God would justify the nations through faith, he said, and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the nations through faith preached before the Gospel to Abraham. And, of course, the Gospel is called the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. And, again, that shows that we're talking about the Kingdom, even when you speak about the promise made to Abraham or the Gospel. Our text, by the way, is Revelation 22 and verse 3, and there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him. And that shows that when the Bible speaks of the throne we have in the eternal Kingdom. Now, as he says the throne of God and the throne of Christ, this would be what we call from hermeneutic studies, which is nothing but the science of interpretation, we would call that a synecdoche, because the throne is that which stands for the entirety of the Kingdom. So everything that we would understand about Kingdom would be involved in that particular concept of the throne. And, as such, we see that it is shared by both. In Ephesians 5 and verse 5, the text says, For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God. So both in the epistles as well as in the book of Revelation, we see this concept. Another text from Revelation would be Revelation 3 and verse 21, where it says, To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with me in my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my father in his throne. And then, of course, you have Revelation chapter 11 and verse 15, where when the seventh angel sounds, the text says, There were loud voices in heaven, and the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. So all of those passages show this co-regency, this joint reign of both God and Christ, and of course that continues in the text of Revelation 22 and verse 3. Now the Kingdom, for some, is that which is delivered up and everything is wrapped up. In other words, everything comes to a consummation or an end in the book of Revelation. However, that's not what the Bible teaches. We've seen passages over and over again that tell us, for example, in Isaiah 9 and verse 7, as well as Luke 1, 32 and 33, and with that we can couple Ephesians 3 and verse 21, but they all talk about the Kingdom having no end. And you can't turn around and say it has no end and then say it has an end. Those are two incongruent concepts. They are 180 degrees apart. They just don't work. In Ephesians chapter 3, verse 21, he says, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. That's the King James Version. And so once again, we see that it is an eternal, unending Kingdom because it is the nature of God, because it is life. And in essence, what people would be saying in arguing that the Kingdom comes to an end is that God and Christ come to an end, because ultimately they represent the Kingdom of God. They are the light. They are the temple, et cetera. And what we're seeing, however, when the scriptures talk about the deliverance 24, which says, then comes the end when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God, when he shall have put down all rule and authority and power. That's speaking of the fact that he's putting down the enemies. As he says in verse 26, the last enemy that was being destroyed at the time of the text being written, the last enemy being destroyed is death. And so this is all about the putting down of his enemies. So you have to see that correlation between the delivering up and the putting down. It is the putting down that is expressing what's involved in the delivering up. And that's the way that we should understand that rather than a giving up. The word that's even used in the text, paradidomi, is a word that does not mean to abdicate, to give up the Kingdom of God from that perspective. Several times in 1 Corinthians, we have the term used. You can look at it in 1 Corinthians 11 in verse 1, when Paul talked about delivering the traditions that he had been taught. And when Paul said that he delivered to the Corinthians the traditions, it didn't mean that he no longer followed them. In addition to that, he talked about the, in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 23, that which I received from the Lord Jesus, I delivered to you. He wasn't saying that once he taught the Corinthians how to observe it, that was all that was involved, that it was no longer to be observed. And so that word doesn't mean that. It's simply talking about delivering up in the sense of conveying something from one state to another or from one person to another without abdicating that. If you study that term out through the scriptures, you'll see that that becomes very, very clear. Now, what then did he mean by delivering up? As I've shared before, you have the text in Colossians chapter 1 and verse 13, where it says that he had delivered us from the power of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. So there is a deliverance from the power of darkness, from the realm of the Satan, from that which was evil, from death, et cetera. And that's why you see death in that text, the last enemy, which being destroyed is death. So it's being delivered up from that state of sin and the strength of sin, those powers which prevented access to God and now delivering them back up to God and to his reign of righteousness. In verse seven and eight, the people of Israel cried out and complained saying that they wanted a kingdom, just like all of the nations which were around them. And Samuel took that rather personally, feeling rejected as a result. And God told him, he said, Samuel, you know, don't be all distressed and depressed about this. He said, well, they have not rejected you, but they've rejected me that I should not reign over them. God's reign for Israel from heaven and asked for a king, like all the nations round about it. He granted that and gave going to happen to them once they received their king. And it came true just as he stated, even the first king failed him, but all of the kings failed him in the sense that none of them were, you know, without sin, none of them could reign right. So even though there were some kings who did much better than the rest, but those were fewer than the ones who did well, but some of them were just downright evil to the point that he had to just shut it down and say, regarding, you know, one king when he carried him off to Babylon, that this was not going to ever happen again with a king reigning on earth. And so that's one thing that we have to consider. And so from that, we see that Christ became a curse in order to deliver men from the curse. In Galatians 3 and verse 13, he says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Now, of course, you know, he's talking in that statement concerning Israel and the law that had been given to them, which they had fallen under. And so Christ became a curse so that he could deliver them from the curse. He says that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the premise of the spirit through faith. And so Israel agreed to keep that law that God gave to them, according to Exodus chapter 19 and verses five and six, when God told them that, you know, he had delivered them, that he wanted them to be a kingdom of priests and that they were to indeed obey and keep his covenant to that. They said, you know, everything that you said, we will do. And again, in Deuteronomy chapter 27 and verse 26, where the Bible says cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of this law and all the people shall say, amen. And of course they agreed to do that, but they failed to do that. And of course fell under the curse. Another thing about the kingdom, especially in the sense that the kingdom is that of God and Christ is the fact that it is the resurrection body of first Corinthians chapter 15. And I'm just amazed how there is very little emphasis placed on verse 50 from the perspective of speaking about the resurrection body in relation to the kingdom of God. Paul said in that text, flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of God. Neither does corruption inherit incorruption. Well, if you're doing a study of the text, you will see that incorruption holds the same exegetical value and position as the kingdom of God and vice versa. The kingdom holds the same value as the spiritual body, as the immortal body, as the incorruptible body. They are all talking about the same as the heavenly, et cetera. And so why would we make the kingdom of God something different than it always has been relative to the kingdom that Christ came to establish? Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. So he's speaking about those who were under the law and those who were living according to their own strength and power in that old covenant. And as such, they could not inherit the kingdom of God. They had to die to that old system and be raised up in the kingdom, which was their resurrection. And verse 28, when the scripture again is talking about a distinction between the covenants, for you have not come to the mountain that burned with fire and blackness and smoke, et cetera, so much so that Moses even said that he trembled. But he said, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the spirits of Jerusalem, to the church of the living God, et cetera, to God, the father of all. That's a contrast between covenants. It's a contrast. But then he talks about a contrast between the two worlds as far as heaven and earth. And he points out the fact that the old heaven and earth was already being shaken in that context. Clearly not a reference to the physical world or material cosmology. He's not referring to that. He's talking about that old covenant system that was typified by the temple and the Levitical priesthood, et cetera. That's what he's dealing with. And he says that one was already being shaken. And by the way, it could only be shaken once more. So there is no more shaking of anything after that relative to the covenant of God. And so you can't shake down the new covenant because there is no more shaking. There was only one shaking going on. But notice what's happening in verse 28. He says, therefore we receiving a kingdom. Now they were still in their natural biology. They were still in their flesh and blood bodies in terms of their biology, but they were receiving the kingdom of God. Therefore we receiving a kingdom, which cannot be moved, which cannot be shaken. Let us serve God acceptably with grace. And so that description in that context, it's a contrast between the old covenant, which we see in Revelation chapter 21 and 22. Another aspect of the king after the order of Melchizedek. I hope that looked like my screen is frozen. I hope your screen is not frozen and that everything is being recorded. Okay. And if not, I think we have a backup recording going, but just to let you know, if you're experiencing any problems there, I don't see any comments this morning, but Christ is priest and king after the order of Melchizedek in Hebrew seven and verse one, the Texas with this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the Kings and blessed him to whom also Abraham gave the 10th part of all first being translated king of righteousness and also king of Salem, meaning king of peace without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the son of God remains a priest continually. Now he's contrasting again, the old covenant status with that of the new in speaking about Melchizedek, who was both king and priest, which was not the case under the Levitical priesthood. And the Levitical priesthood was passed down through genealogy. It was very important to establish that if they couldn't go back at least four generations to establish their pedigree as a priest, then they were disqualified. But here the text says, Christ has neither a mother he's without father without mother that through the line of the Levitical priesthood. He didn't come through that genealogy and therefore take the son of God. He remains a priest continually. That also means that he didn't die because that was another purpose of father and mother to procreate so that generations could continue from, you know, through the family line from one to the other. And Israel had a way of preventing the generation from dying out if they were compliant to the laws that were found in Deuteronomy 25, five through 10. Some claim that Zerubbabel fulfilled Zechariah 12 and 13, and that he reigned as king over Judah. This claim is made to make the case that the new covenant began in the days of Jeremiah. When we read in Jeremiah 31 verse 31 and following where God says, behold, I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant they broke, even though I was a husband to them. But this is the covenant I will make after those days. I will put my laws in their minds, write them in their hearts. They shall be my people and I will be their God, et cetera. So we see that also in Hebrews chapter eight and verses six through 13. And in that text it says a new covenant he has made the first obsolete now, meaning at the time Hebrews was written, no man's hand is nigh unto benediction in order to eliminate any relevancy of the new Testament and therefore to pretty much just destroy the ministry and the work of Christ and the fulfillment of the prophets. In first Peter chapter one and verse 10, the scripture speaks about the prophets saying that, you know, they were searching what manner and what manner of time the spirit was indicating when it testified beforehand, notice the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. The glories that would follow are the glories that refer to the kingdom. When you look in Matthew 22 and also Mark 10, I think it's Mark 10, maybe verse 37 and Matthew 22 and verse 21, the disciples asked the question, they said, Lord, you know, grant us that we may sit the one on your right hand and the other on your left in the kingdom. The other text that's a parallel to that, they asked the other on your left in your glory. So glory and kingdom refer to the same. So when the prophets saw the sufferings of Christ, they foresaw that the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow, they were looking at the kingdom where Christ comes in his glory. They weren't looking at coming out of Babylon. They look far beyond that. And it says, you know, they were not aware of the manner and the time, particularly of which they spoke, you know, and the Holy Spirit was actually revealing to them that those were the things that were meant for Peter and for his generation. Let me go over there and read that text very quickly. In first Peter one verses, let me get the first Peter instead of second Peter to make it a lot easier of this salvation. And notice what he's speaking about of this salvation. That's very particular in terms of the salvation. He had already spoken about it in verse five, saying that it was ready to be revealed in the last days, not in the days that were prior. And therefore he says of this salvation, the prophets have inquired and searched diligently or carefully who prophesied of the grace that would come to you searching what or what manner of time the spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow notice to them. It was revealed that not to themselves. Now notice that to them, it was revealed that not to themselves. So it wasn't revealed to the prophets about this grace that was coming about these sufferings that were coming about these glories that were coming. The time was not in their day to them. It was revealed that not to themselves, but to us, that would be those in the first century, particularly to Peter and his audience where these things are or were being fulfilled. He says, but to us, they were ministering the things which now that's present time from their perspective in the first century have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you. Now, how many of the apostles preached in the time of the coming out of Babylon? Not a single apostle preached then, not a single apostle lived back then. He says, who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit, that's the outpouring of the spirit on the day of Pentecost. This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel sent from heaven, things which angels desire to look into. Now watch, therefore gird up the loins of your mind and be sober, rest your hope fully, excuse me, upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the unveiling, the apocalypsis, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which is exactly what we're talking about in the book of Revelation. So it's not possible that these things were fulfilled in the time of Zerubbabel as far as the coming of the kingdom and the glories were concerned. And, you know, what are some of the reasons that people take that view? And, you know, largely this is probably coming from, you know, Jewish thought, who in many cases rejected, you know, Christ from the beginning. And so that line of reasoning would be following some of the same, but one of the reasons is because they talk about the signet ring. Zerubbabel would be as signet ring. He didn't even say that he was a signet ring, he said he was one and that's, see, meaning like in Song of Solomon 8, so used in Haggai 2 and verse 23, when it says in that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will take Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, says the Lord, and I will be like a signet ring for I have chosen you, says the Lord of hosts. And so just indicate that he would be like that and would have a role that important, but he was a sovereign among them. Furthermore, when we look at that, we have to consider the prophecy or the adage that God pronounced on Jonah or Dick in chapter 22, his father was the son of Jeconiah. And for this reason, he was disqualified. As a matter of fact, it says in that prophecy that no man of his seed would prosper on the throne ruling in Judah anymore. And he was therefore the seed of Coneya. So how could he be the one that would sit on the throne? When you look in Jeremiah 22 and verse 24, it says, as I live, says the Lord, though Coneya, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet on my right hand, yet I would pluck you off. Is this man, Coneya, a despised broken idol, a vessel in which is no pleasure? Why are they cast out he and his descendants and cast into a land which they do not know? Verse 28, O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. This thus says the Lord, write this man down as childless, no heir to the throne, a man who shall not prosper in his days for none, none of his descendants shall prosper sitting on the throne of David and ruling any more Judah. So all those human kings finally came to their end. And Coneya were not a sultan after that reign upon the throne. The reason is because of a priest. The Bible says, then speak to him, say thus says the Lord, you see the tribe of Judah, the priests of the tribe of Levi. In Zechariah 6, 12 and 13, the one who was the branch would be a man whose name is the branch from his place. He shall branch out. He shall build the temple of the Lord. He shall build the temple of the Lord. He shall bear the glory and shall sit and rule on his throne. So he shall be a priest on his throne and the council of peace shall be between them both. In the context of Zechariah chapter six, we do have a context that speaks about the symbolism of the crown to the priest. Under the law, you could not. However, in this context, he talks about a crown, but he doesn't show that the crown was put upon Zerubbabel rather he shows that it was placed upon Joshua. And that has symbolism for it says, and I know we're out of time here. So this will be the last point. We'll get a chance to finish this. Then word of the Lord came to me saying, receive the gift from the captives from Haldai, Tobiah, and Jediah, who have come on the same day and entered the house of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah, take the silver and gold, make this a piece. So in this context, a crown is taken and placed upon Joshua, the high priest. What's the meaning of that? It symbolized that both king and priest would become one. That didn't happen under the old covenant. It was a union forbidden under the old covenant. He says, now the elaborate crown shall be for a memorial in the temple of the Lord, for Helen, Tobiah, Jediah, and he and the son of Zephaniah. Even those from afar shall come and build the temple of the Lord. And this shall come to patiently obey the voice of your God. But what that symbolized was Christ who would come as a priest after the order of Melchizedek and would share both offices of priest and king. He would be a king after the order of Melchizedek and reign on his throne. Well, that's all the time that we have for this morning. I hope that that gave you some insights on the kingdom of God and of the Lamb, that it continues. But not only that, he even said that those who overcame, he would grant to sit down in his throne as he overcame and sat down in his father's throne. And that means that the saints reign with him just like Revelation 1, 5, and 6 speaks without end. We hope that you will share the message and we look forward to being with you again on next week. I want to thank all of you who are here. I will check and whenever I can get access to my comments, I will see what you have to say and we'll respond accordingly. With that, I want to say good morning to you and you have a great day.