King of Kings and Lord of Lords
We are just a few short years away from celebrating 250 years of democratic government in these United States. While we are a standout among the world’s democracies, we are hardly the oldest. San Marino, a tiny nation of 23 ½ square miles surrounded by Italy, claims this title. They date their constitutional republic to the beginning of the 4th century. There must be something going on in their government that keeps people satisfied and overwhelmingly reluctant to choose another form. A government this stable would surely be the model of perfect governance. It may seem so, but it is not the type of government that God will choose for this world when He delivers it from the curse of sin and remakes it in perfection.
What is this government? Most Americans and a good part of the world would reject the biblical description of God’s ruling authority. In Acts 4:24, we gain understanding of the type of rule God exercises over the world and will be the final government for eternity: “…Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is…” In this verse, Lord is the Greek word despotes which can be translated “despot,” or “absolute ruler.” In this case, God is a totalitarian despot. God is sovereign which means He reigns over all, and He also rules over all. King Charles III reigns over Great Britain but he does not rule. We have no sense that this kind of control could be good for us. We have all heard Lord Acton’s quote: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This is true of all human rulers that obtain all authority over their subjects. This would be true of God if He were not perfectly righteous, kind, and good.
Romans 8:28 reflects God’s goodness which says He works all things for our good. The strength of this promise is that God Himself is good. He rules with the authority to exclude all evil that is against us. Those things we do not understand are good for us are included in all contingencies that He also controls. We must understand the good God works is ultimately only for His own. The redeemed are His interest. For this reason, the world hates all the good God does, and all the power used to do it. C.H. Spurgeon wrote:
“There is no doctrine more hated by worldlings, no truth of which they have made such a football, as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the Sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except on His throne. They will allow Him to be in His workshop to fashion worlds and make stars. They will allow Him to be in His almonry to dispense His alms and bestow His bounties. They will allow Him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean; but when God ascends His throne, His creatures then gnash their teeth, and we proclaim an enthroned God, and His right to do as He wills with His own, to dispose of His creatures as He thinks well, without consulting them in the matter; then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on His throne is not the God they love.”
My final thought is that God’s sovereign rule is not relegated to the past nor expected only in the future. He rules here and now. He does His will now in the heavens above and in the earth beneath. No one stays His hand or dare ask, “What are you doing?” We are content for God to be our absolute Monarch. King of kings and Lord of lords is the perfect description of our God. I would say, “May He reign forever.” No need. He will.
Pastor V. Mark Smith