Now we turn to the book of Revelation, chapter 1.
Revelation 1:5-6:
And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
Unto Him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood;
and He made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto His God and Father;
to Him be the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
The same book, chapter 5, verses 9 and 10:
And they sing a new song, saying, Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to open the seals thereof:
for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with Thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation,
and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests;
and they reign upon the earth.
First Peter, chapter 2, verses 5 and 9:
Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession,
that ye may show forth the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.
This time, as we are together, I feel that probably it is of the Lord that we should fellowship on the extent of the work of God as it is in us. In other words, we would like to see how far the Lord has done for us, and how much we are really experiencing that which He has provided for us.
I believe that we all realize that we are cleansed by His blood, and we can never thank Him enough for it—that He has washed our sins away. And not only are we washed, but we are redeemed; that is, we are bought with a price. We do not belong to ourselves; we belong to Him.
But in the two verses that we have just read in Revelation, we find that He loves us and has washed us by His blood, and made us a kingdom, priests unto God. He has redeemed us by His blood and has made us kings and priests unto God.
In other words, we are not only washed and redeemed. By being washed and redeemed, He has made us kings and priests unto God. We are kings. We are priests unto God.
Now, probably we have a kind of misconception, and that is that one day, in the future—maybe in eternity—we shall be kings and priests unto God. Of course, we find in Revelation 22, the last chapter, that in the holy city, New Jerusalem, they shall all serve Him. They shall see His face, they shall have His name on their foreheads, and they shall rule and reign.
In other words, in New Jerusalem everyone who is there will be a king and will be a priest. But that is in the future. How often we think of being kings and priests as something of the future. In other words, today we are not kings; we are not priests. But one day we shall be kings, and we shall be priests unto God.
But from Revelation 1 and Revelation 5, you find it is said, “He has made us kings and priests.” It is not something in the future, but something that has been done, is being continually done, and will yet be done.
He has not only washed us. He has not only redeemed us. But He has made us kings and priests. That is to say, the day when we are washed, the day when we are redeemed, is the very same day that we are made kings and priests unto God.
Not in the future, but something that has been done, something that is being done, and something that will yet be done. It is forever true: we are kings and priests unto God.
So first of all, I would like to impress upon you, brothers and sisters, that to be kings and priests is not something just reserved for a future day. Now, it is true that in the future we shall be kings and priests unto God. Thank God for that. But even now, even while we are here on earth, even while we are living day by day, just remember that He has made us kings and priests unto God.
This is grace. This is something that our Lord Jesus has accomplished for us. This is something that He has given to us. He has made us.
We do not make ourselves kings and priests, but He has made us kings and priests. And if He has made us kings and priests, then let us be kings and priests.
In a sense, you know, even though He has made us kings and priests, and this is our position—this is what we are by His grace—if we do not act as kings and priests today, or if we do not receive the training by which God trains us as kings and priests today, then one day, when we are to be kings and priests in the future, we will find ourselves very unfit, unprepared, and unqualified.
So it behooves us, while we are still on earth, to realize what we are in His grace, and really give ourselves to Him and let Him train us today as kings and priests. You know, today is the day of training.
We are not yet in our real work. Our work today on earth is just a preparation. It is transient; it is temporary. It is more or less a training. We are not really given our real job yet. We are still in training, and God is training us as priests and kings.
And if we receive the training well, and if we are really performing as kings and priests well on this earth, then one day, when we are given our real job—as kings to rule and as priests to serve in eternity—we will find ourselves ready for it.
So it is very important, brothers and sisters, that we realize this: He has made us kings and priests. This is what we are today, and we shall live and work as kings and priests, even though we are still under training. But our training will affect our future.
Now this morning, we would like to focus our attention on kingship.
You know, the life that we receive from the Lord is a kingly life. It is not just any life. The life that we receive from the Lord is the life of a king—a kingly life.
Now just think of our Lord Jesus, the life that He lived. Even though He was born in a manger, even though He was raised up in Nazareth, even though He had never been to the school of the rabbis, even though He was poor, unlearned, and common in the eyes of the world, yet as we look at His life on earth, we find that He lived a kingly life.
No matter where you put Him, you may put Him in a manger—He was born a King. You may put Him in Nazareth—He was a King. You may put Him in Galilee, in Judea, in Samaria, under whatever circumstance; whether He was welcomed by the people or whether He was rejected, He lived like a King.
You find that He was always in control of everything. He was always above, never underneath any circumstance. Why? Because He was born a King. His life was a kingly life, and He lived like a King.
Even when He was crucified on the cross, the sign there was, “The King of the Jews.”
So when we believe in the Lord Jesus, we receive His life.
In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.
He that hath the Son hath life. Now, the life that we receive from Him is His own life, and that life is kingly in nature.
So the life that is in us today, brothers and sisters, is a kingly life. We are king’s children.
Now, even though in this world we are nobodies, you remember Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1—and it is something that we should always remember. He told the Corinthian believers in 1 Corinthians 1:26:
For behold your calling, brethren, that not many are wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble:
but God chose the foolish things of the world, that He might put to shame them that are wise;
and God chose the weak things of the world, that He might put to shame the things that are strong;
and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose, yea, and the things that are not, that He might bring to nought the things that are:
that no flesh should glory before God.
Paul reminded the Corinthian believers that when God chose them, when they were called, they were not many wise. On the contrary, they were foolish; not many strong—they were weak; not many high-born—they were low; not many noble—they were ignoble. Not many that had anything—they were nothing, they had nothing.
But God chose us to confound and confuse the wise, the noble, the high-born, those that have, that no one may boast. I think we need to be reminded of this too.
You know, the Corinthian believers seemed to forget what they were before they received the grace of God, because they thought they were wise, they thought they were strong, and they thought they were noble. But in themselves, they were nothing. They were actually nothing. And Paul had to remind them that that is what they were.
And brothers and sisters, we need to be reminded too. So far as we ourselves are concerned, we are weak, we are foolish, we are ignoble, we are nothing. Now, that is true. We need to remember this, lest we forget.
But on the other hand, we also need to remember that by the grace of God, we have been washed, we have been redeemed, and we are made kings. It is a paradox, but Christian life is a paradox.
On the one hand, we shall always remember that we are poor, we are weak, we are nothing. And if one day we forget, well, trouble will come. You know, we always need to remember this. Yet, on the other hand, we must not forget that we are kings.
Even though in the eyes of the world we are nothing, even though in our own eyes we are nothing, yet in the eyes of God we are kings. And because we are kings, let us live like kings, behave like kings, act like kings. Let us have a kingly manner. Let us not despise ourselves, and let not the world despise us.
Now, in order to understand more about how we are kings and how we should live like kings—kings in God’s sight, not in the worldly sense but in the spiritual sense—I think the best way is to take a life in the Bible and illustrate it. If we are dealing with kingship, you know, it is much better if we can illustrate it by a real life. Then we know it is not just something intangible or abstract, but that it is very real. If it can be real in one life, then it can be real in our lives too.
And the life I would like to use to illustrate this kingship is Moses.
Now, Moses never took the title of a king. The first one who took the title of a king among the children of Israel was Saul, of course. Saul was a king after the people’s heart, not after God’s heart. David was later king by God, by God’s appointment; he was a king according to God’s heart.
And yet you find that even though Moses never took the title of a king, I believe everyone who reads the Bible—if you read Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—cannot fail to see that Moses was a real king among the children of Israel. He was a leader. He was actually their king.
There is one place in the Bible that gives us a kind of clue, and that is Deuteronomy 33. Moses composed a song, speaking of the children of Israel, and in chapter 33 he blessed the children of Israel. In verses 4 and 5:
Moses commanded us a law,
an inheritance for the assembly of Jacob.
And He was king in Jeshurun,
when the heads of the people were gathered,
all the tribes of Israel together.
Now, Jeshurun means “righteous people.” This refers to the children of Israel. So far as the children of Israel themselves were concerned, they were not righteous in any way, but God looked upon them as righteous. That is grace.
It is said that “He was king in Jeshurun.” Among the commentators there are two different opinions. Some say that “He” refers to God, but some say that it refers to Moses. Now, I cannot say which one is the correct one. But anyway, whether it is God—and no doubt God was King among the children of Israel—or whether it refers to Moses, Moses in a representative way was king among the children of Israel.
In other words, he represented God as King among God’s people. Just as later on, you find David: when David was king on the throne, he was representing God as King. In other words, he was not king in his own right; he was king in a representative sense.
That is the meaning of king in Scripture. The meaning of our being king is always in a representative sense, not in a sense that we are king in our own right. In this world, you find people who consider themselves king in their own right, and because of that they can do whatever they want to do. But in Scripture, you find only God is King. Only Christ is King in His own right.
But other than that, we who are made kings unto God are kings representing God. We are not kings in our own right. So if we take Deuteronomy 33:5 as referring to Moses, then Moses certainly was king among the children of Israel. But whether you take it literally or not, I think there is no doubt that Moses lived among the children of Israel as a king unto God.
Now, in Moses’ life, you will find a few things that can be applied to us as kings unto God. Number one: the very name Moses means “drawn out.”
As we all know, when he was born, he was born under the sentence of death, because Pharaoh decreed that all the baby boys born must be cast into the river Nile. So when Moses was born, he was born under the sentence of death. He was born to die, not to live.
His parents hid him for three months, and then they could not hide him any longer. So they made an ark of reeds and put it in the river Nile. You know the story. Pharaoh’s daughter came to bathe and saw that basket. When the basket was brought to her and opened, the baby cried, and it touched the heart of the woman. So Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him as her son and called him Moses. Why? Because he was drawn out of the water.
So first of all, you find Moses was drawn out of the water; that is, he was drawn out of death. He was born to die, but he was drawn out.
Now, is not that true of us today? We were all born to die, you know. That is our destiny. We were dead in sins and trespasses. Even though physically and psychologically speaking we were very much alive, spiritually speaking we were already dead. The sentence of death was upon every one of us.
And yet, thank God, He quickened us. He has quickened us with Christ. He has drawn us out of the water. He has drawn us out of death. He has delivered us out of death into life. We are all Moses, are we not?
But you find Moses was not only drawn out of the water; he was drawn out of Egypt. He lived in Egypt for forty years. He learned all the learning of Egypt. He was mighty in words and deeds. He had a great future in Egypt. We are told in secular history that he was a great general in Egypt, and he had the possibility of being Pharaoh in the future.
And yet God drew him out of Egypt. When he was forty years old, it came to his mind that he would like to save his brethren, the Hebrews. He went out and saw one of his brethren being oppressed, and you know the story: he beat one Egyptian to death. The next day he tried to make peace between two Hebrews who were in strife, but he was rejected, and he had to flee for his life.
But in that, you find God actually had drawn him out of Egypt. Because if he continued in Egypt, he might be Pharaoh there, but there was no separation. And without separation, he was not able to deliver his brethren. He had to be delivered from Egypt first before he could deliver his brethren out of Egypt.
And is it not true with us today? We are not only drawn out of eternal death; He has drawn us out of this world. You remember the prayer of our Lord in John 17:
Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to Me.
Father, they are in the world, but they are not of the world. Why? Because He has drawn us out. So when we believe in the Lord Jesus, we are not only drawn out of eternal death into life, but actually He has drawn us out of the world.
We no longer belong to this world, to this world system. We are out of the world. He has drawn us out. We are separated from this world.
To be kings unto God, first we must be drawn out of death into life; and second, we must come out of the world, that we may be separated unto Christ. That is what God has done for us.
Once we belonged to the world. We were no different from the people in the world. But today we do not belong to the world. He has separated us, and because we are separated, therefore it behooves us to live a separated life.
Now, if we do not live a separated life, if we still compromise with the world and still conform to the world, then you find we do not live as kings unto God. Why? Because the world has control over us instead of us living above it.
So secondly, you find Moses was drawn out of Egypt, and we are drawn out of this world. But more than that, Moses spent forty years in the wilderness. But after those forty years, you find God drew Moses out of the wilderness.
He wanted to stay in the wilderness. He was content to be there. But God said, “Moses, come out of the wilderness. Go back to Egypt and deliver the children of Israel out of Egypt, through the wilderness, into the promised land.”
So again, you find God drew Moses out of the wilderness, out of the desert. Now, brothers and sisters, what does the desert, the wilderness, represent in Scripture?
If you read Deuteronomy 8, you find God said to the children of Israel that for forty years they were in the wilderness. And what happened during those forty years? God said it was to humble them, to prove what was in their hearts, whether they really would keep the commandments of God or not.
In other words, the wilderness represents the flesh. Egypt represents the world. God delivered His people out of the world, and God’s purpose was to deliver them into Canaan, which is a type of Christ: out of the world into Christ; out of slavery and bondage in the world into the abundant riches of Christ.
But in between, you find there was the wilderness. So the wilderness represents the flesh. We may be delivered out of the world, and God’s purpose is that we may enter into the fullness of Christ, but oftentimes you find we have to pass through the wilderness. There will be a period when we are fleshly. But the time should not be forty years.
So again, you find, so far as we are concerned, God has not only delivered us out of death, He has not only delivered us out of the world, He will deliver us out of the flesh. There is no reason why a Christian should live his life in the flesh.
Maybe in the beginning we are babes in Christ. As Paul said to the Corinthian believers, “When I came to you, you were babes. You were fleshly. I had to feed you with milk. But even now you are still fleshly.”
There is a period of babyhood, but that period should not be too long. We should be drawn out of that period. We should be drawn out of that babyhood. We should outgrow our babyhood. God certainly will draw us out of being in the flesh, that we may live in the Spirit.
Now, this is God’s will. Then we will live like kings. If we still live in the flesh, then you find sin will yet have power over us. We live like beggars; we do not live like kings. We bring disgrace to God instead of bringing glory to God.
So here you find we must be drawn out of the flesh—not only the bad flesh, but also the good flesh. We must be delivered from the flesh, that we may walk according to the Spirit. Only when we walk according to the Spirit do we walk like kings; we live like kings.
So we shall be drawn out—drawn out, continually being drawn out. So far as God’s salvation is concerned, this is what He will do. So far as our experience goes, this is what we must do.
We should not live in the world, that is, in the world system under its dominion. We should not live in the flesh under its dominion. But we shall live in the Spirit. We shall live in Christ, and we shall enjoy these unsearchable riches that are in Christ.
So first of all, you find in Moses’ life that it is a continuous drawing out. As we are being drawn out, then we will live as kings unto God. Now, that is the first point.
The second point: now, in Moses’ life, you find there is a symbol, and his symbol is his rod or his staff. Just like whenever you think of Chamberlain, you think of his umbrella. Here you find Moses had a symbol, and that is his rod, his staff.
Now, this staff was originally a shepherd’s staff. He used that staff to keep the few sheep in the wilderness. In other words, this staff represents his livelihood. It speaks of his skill, his ability, his power, his profession—his livelihood.
He used that staff for forty years over the sheep. Then God called him. When God called him, God said, “What is in your hand?” He said, “It is just a staff. It is a shepherd’s staff.” God said, “Throw it down.” He threw it down, and it turned into a serpent, and Moses fled from it.
Then God said, “Take it up by the tail.” He took it up by the tail, and it became a staff again. But that staff, which was taken up upside down, was called the staff of God.
Now here you find the same staff: when it was in Moses’ hand, it was a shepherd’s staff. It gave him the means to support his life. It represented his skill and his power. But when it was thrown onto the ground, it became a serpent.
In other words, if anybody allows himself and his skill, talent, and power to be controlled by the earth—that is, by Satan—it becomes very harmful. As human beings, we have skill, we have talent, we have certain power, and this will support us in our life. But if Satan should get hold of us, what will happen? It will be like a serpent.
That is just what you see today. You find people with talents, with skill, with power, but they are in Satan’s hands. They become Satan’s instruments. And when they become Satan’s instruments, they are serpents—poisonous, harmful. It is terrifying to think of that.
But God said, “Take it up by the tail,” and it became the staff of God.
In other words, when we realize that we are nothing, and if we fall into the hand of Satan we will be harmful, and we are willing to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow the Lord—or, to put it another way, if we are willing to go through death into resurrection—it is an upside-down process, a correcting process.
If we are willing to go through death and into resurrection, that is to say, we are God-usable. God can use us for His purpose.
All our talents, all our abilities, all our powers—ourselves—if we just hold them in our own hands, they are only good to make a living. That is all. If we give these to Satan, we will hurt and harm people. But if we allow God to take hold of us, when God takes hold of us, it is an upside-down process. It is a correcting process.
In other words, all our talents, all our power, all our intellect, all our strength, all our wisdom, all that we are, have to go through death first. It is only after they have gone into death and come out in resurrection that you find God will use all these things for His glory.
Now, oftentimes we hear people say, “Now you are saved. Give your talent to God. Use it for God.” And yet, if God really will use it, you will find your talent has to go through death first.
Moses’ talent, skill, and power had to go through death. All that he had learned in Egypt had to be unlearned. And after they were unlearned, God would use them.
Now, you know, it takes a Moses who was trained in Egypt to be Pharaoh, to lead two million people—unorganized, untrained—through the wilderness for forty years. Who can do that? Humanly speaking, it takes the skill of a politician or statesman, a skillful governor, a general, to do such a thing.
God prepared him for that. God gave him the capacity for that. God trained him for that. But before these had gone through death, God could not use them. These had to go through death.
Moses could not speak anymore. He was eloquent, but he could not speak anymore. He dared not do anything anymore, until he considered himself as dead. Moses said the lifespan of a person is seventy years, and if he is strong, eighty years. Now Moses was eighty at that time. He considered himself as good as dead.
But out of death, into resurrection, God used everything that God had put in him. So, brothers and sisters, everything in our past, everything that we have, everything that we are, in God’s providence—if we are willing to put them in God’s hand and let them go through death and be resurrected—you will find nothing is lost.
It will become the staff of God, and God can use that for His purpose. This is Moses’ authority. The authority of Moses was in this fact: he had gone through death and resurrection.
And brothers and sisters, this is the way that we should live as kings. We are kings. God has made us kings. But where is our authority?
Our authority is in our willingness to go through death and resurrection. If we have gone through death and resurrection, then such a person has authority. So spiritual authority is very different from the authority in this world.
The authority in this world is positional. If you can get to a position, then you have authority. But in the church, among God’s people, authority is not positional. It is spiritual. It is life. It is life.
What kind of life has authority? It is the kind of life that has known death and resurrection. This is our power: the power of His resurrection.
Here you find that with this staff, God sent Moses back to Egypt to deliver the children of Israel. The children of Israel were delivered by this staff. When Moses stretched out the staff, plagues came upon the land of Egypt. Moses stretched out the rod, the staff, and the waters of the Red Sea divided.
Moses used the staff and lifted it up, and Amalek was defeated. Moses went to the mountain and raised his hands, but remember, one hand held the staff. When the staff was raised, Amalek was defeated. Moses used the rod to strike the rock, and water came forth.
So, in other words, you find this rod, this staff, is the staff of God. It represented the authority, the power, that Moses had. With this, he acted as king among the children of Israel.
The same thing is true with us, brothers and sisters. We have been made kings, but, oh, do we really have the spiritual authority and power that we can really do things for God? Now, what is that staff? Death and resurrection.
But another thing you notice: Moses never used that staff of himself. Every time you find he used the staff, God commanded him to use it. Even though he had that in his hand, he was not free to use it as he wished. He could only use it when God said, “Stretch out your arm. Lift up your staff.”
Moses did it, and every time he did it, it was according to God’s command. This is true with spiritual authority and power. People who have spiritual authority and power never use them on their own—never.
If anyone who is given spiritual authority tries to use it on his own, you will find he ruins it. It will be his ruin. It will be his story. We find many of God’s people are spoiled, are ruined; their lives are ruined. Why? Because God does give them some spiritual authority and power, but they use it on their own or for themselves.
But Moses never did. Now, once he did, of course. You know the story: God told him, “Take this rod, take this staff, and speak to the rock.” But he was provoked. He used the staff to strike the rock twice.
But remember, that was not the rod of Moses. That was not the staff of Moses. That was Aaron’s staff. He took it from the tabernacle. Of course, there is another spiritual principle involved. That staff had almonds and flowers on it. So when Moses struck it twice, he ruined that sense.
But anyway, you find that Moses, as king among the children of Israel, had that staff as a symbol of his authority, and he used it only under God’s order.
This is what we must be. If we learn something in our life as to death and resurrection, and we are given spiritual authority as such, never use it by yourself, but use it only as you are commanded by the Lord. Then you will be safe.
Number three: Moses, in Numbers 12, we are told, was the meekest of all men.
Now, this is something that people usually do not expect. Why? Because Moses was the lawmaker, the lawgiver. You know, artists and painters, when they make a statue of Moses or paint Moses, consider Moses as the lawgiver. They paint him in such a way that he was stern, hard, masculine to the point of being cruel—harsh.
They all think that Moses must be that kind of a person. Maybe in reading the Bible, you would get that kind of impression too—that he was a very stern, severe, solemn kind of person. Yes, he did get angry. He smashed the two tables of stone with the law on them when he saw the children of Israel sinning, and so forth. But the Bible says Moses was the meekest of all men—the meekest of all.
Now, authority and meekness, in our human minds, do not seem to go together. People with authority, we think of as very authoritative, dominating, commanding, demanding. Meekness is being meek, being soft, being gentle. We often confuse meekness with weakness.
If a person is meek, immediately we think he is weak, because he cannot fight. He does not fight for himself. He does not stand on his own rights. He does not argue; he does not strive and struggle. He is no use.
But in Scripture, you find Moses. He was a man with authority, and what authority he had! Yet he was the meekest of all men.
Now, meekness is not weakness. Meekness is the fullness of strength.
Moses’ meekness was shown in Numbers 12. When the Bible says Moses was the meekest of all men, you find it was at the time when he was criticized by his elder sister, Miriam—his elder sister, who loved him so much.
Miriam was the girl who watched the ark when baby Moses was put in the river Nile. And yet Miriam got jealous. She criticized Moses, and even influenced Aaron to criticize Moses.
Now, Miriam, Aaron, and Moses worked together as a team. But here you find Miriam influenced Aaron, and both of them began to criticize Moses. They said, “Moses, who is Moses? Why is Moses different from us? Does not God speak to us too? Look, he married an Ethiopian woman, a Cushite woman.”
Now, Moses’ wife was not a Cushite woman. Moses’ wife was a Midianite, a Midianite. But you find there was jealousy. Miriam, you know, an elder sister, loved her younger brother so much that she wanted to possess her younger brother. Here was Moses’ wife, and of course, as a wife, she loved her husband and wanted to possess her husband. So it was really a matter of jealousy between two women over Moses.
Out of jealousy, Miriam conspired with Aaron, trying to put down Moses. They said, “You married a Cushite woman,” but actually she was a Midianite. Maybe she was a little dark, you know. It was a word of contempt, a word of contempt.
But when such things happened, the Bible says Moses was the meekest of all men. Why? Because when Moses was criticized by his own sister and brother, he did not say a word. You find that he did not say a word. He heard as if he had not heard. He did not stop them. He kept quiet.
Now, that was meekness. Meekness means selflessness. Meekness means you do not stand on your rights. You have a right, but you do not stand on your right. You are willing to ignore it, to give it up.
Moses did not avenge himself. And because he was meek, God avenged for him. God did it for him.
Now, that is one occasion. If you come to Numbers 16, you find another occasion: Korah and the conspiracy. Some Levites joined with Reubenites, and they rebelled against Moses and Aaron. They said, “You usurp. You put yourself in such a position. The whole nation is holy.”
You notice what Moses did. He fell on his face before the children of Israel. Moses not only fell upon his face before God; he even fell upon his face before the children of Israel. Now, that is meekness.
It is easy, probably, for us to fall upon our face before God, because after all, He is God. But to fall upon our face before those people who are attacking us—that is difficult.
In other words, by this gesture Moses was telling the people, “Who am I? I am nothing. I am lower than you are. You do not need to attack me. You think that I lift myself to such a high position? This is not something I desire. I do not seek for it. God put me there. It is not because I want to be there. There is no need for you to despise me.”
He humbled himself, not only before God, but he humbled himself even before his enemies. Now, that is meekness.
God vindicated him again. Then in Numbers 16, again Moses fell upon his face. So in the life of Moses, you find again and again that Moses was a person who did not defend himself, who was selfless, who did not consider himself somebody.
On the contrary, he humbled himself before God and man. Therefore, the Bible says he was the meekest of all men. And that is the manner of a king.
Now, in this world, if you are king, you will not allow anybody to criticize you. You will avenge yourself. You have to maintain your rights and your dignity; otherwise, you lose it. But in the spiritual realm, it is just the contrary. It is the meek that inherit the earth.
Look at our Lord Jesus. He is meek and lowly in heart. He was crucified, but by being crucified He gained the world.
So this is being king. Not only in this matter of authority—the king has spiritual authority, and with this spiritual authority you can serve God’s purpose—but on the other hand, so far as our lives are concerned, we have to be meek, because the Bible says God gives grace to the humble, and He resists the proud.
Finally, Moses, as king, was used by God to deliver the children of Israel out of Egypt, through the wilderness, up to the border of Canaan. In other words, to be king is not to serve oneself. To be king is to serve God’s purpose.
We are kings unto God, and because we are kings, we are here not to serve ourselves. In this world, kings serve themselves and want people to serve them. But the Lord said, “In your midst this is not true.”
He that would become great among you shall be your servant;
and he that would be first among you shall be your servant:
even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister,
and to give His life a ransom for many.
Now, that is king. That is being king.
So, brothers and sisters, we have been made kings unto God. Because we are kings, we are here to serve God’s purpose, not to serve ourselves.
We are here to deliver God’s people, to deliver people out of bondage into God’s kingdom. We are here to prove to this world that we are in control.
No matter what circumstance we are in, we serve God’s purpose. Whether it is prosperity or adversity, whether it is poverty or riches, we need to learn the secret that we can do all things through Him who strengthens us. That is being king.
So as we live our life on this earth, remember: we are serving God’s purpose here on earth. In our private life, in our home life, in our church life, in our life on earth, we are serving God’s purpose.
Whatever comes into our lives, turn it, by the grace of God, into His glory. As kings, God will use us to deliver His people, to prepare a people for His return.
So this is all that I will share with you. Just remember this: He has made us kings. Therefore, let us be kings.
Our Heavenly Father, oh, how we rejoice because Thou hast not only washed us with Thy blood and redeemed us, but Thou hast made us kings unto God. We are a kingdom.
We do want to glorify our God, our Lord. Lord, we ask that we may be a people like Moses, who are drawn out; that we may be a people who have authority, a people who are meek and lowly in heart, a people who can live for Thy purpose and glory, and who will be used by Thee to bring in Thy kingdom.
O Lord, we offer ourselves to Thee, and ask that we may not be a people who despise ourselves or let people despise us; that we may press on unto the goal, the high calling to which Thou hast called us, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.