Well, I am very glad to be able to be with you this evening and to bring to you something from the Word of God.
Anyway, as I was saying, I am very glad to be able to be with you once more and to share with you the Word of God. I do trust that this time will have meaning for every life here.
This evening, I am going to say something about the present world situation and the way we should face it. Then tomorrow and Sunday morning, I will go further and talk about the Psalm to which you might like to turn: Psalm 110, the most quoted Messianic psalm in the New Testament.
The Lord saith unto my Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand,
Until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.The Lord will send forth the rod, or sceptre, of Thy strength out of Zion:
Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.Thy people are freewill offerings in the day of Thy power,
Or the day of Thy army,
In the beauty of holiness, out of the womb of the morning:
Thou hast the dew of Thy youth.The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent:
Thou art a priest for ever
After the order of Melchizedek.The Lord at Thy right hand
Will strike through kings in the day of His wrath.
He will judge among the nations;
He will fill the places with dead bodies;
He will strike through the head in many countries.
He will drink of the brook in the way:
Therefore will He lift up the head.
This Jesus did God raise up, whereof we all are witnesses.
Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted,
And having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit,
He hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear.For David ascended not into the heavens:
But he saith himself,
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand,
Till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet.Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly,
That God hath made Him both Lord and Christ,
This Jesus whom ye crucified.
And I saw in the right hand of Him that sat on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, close sealed with seven seals.
And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a great voice, Who is worthy to open the scroll, and to loose the seals thereof?
And no one in the heaven, or on the earth, or under the earth, was able to open the scroll, or to look thereon.
And I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open the scroll, or to look thereon.
And one of the elders said unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion that is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath overcome to open the scroll and the seven seals thereof.
And I saw in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, a little Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth.
And He came, and He taketh it out of the right hand of Him that sat on the throne.
And when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
And they sing a new song, saying, Worthy art Thou to take the scroll, 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.
And I saw, and I heard a voice of many angels round about the throne, and the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; saying with a great voice, Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honour, and glory, and blessing.
And every created thing which is in the heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and on the sea, and all things that are in them, heard I saying, Unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, be the blessing, and the honour, and the glory, and the dominion, for ever and ever.
And the four living creatures said, Amen. And the elders fell down and worshipped.
Let us have a further word of prayer.
Beloved Lord, we thank You together that we are here in Your presence. We are small in number this evening, but nevertheless, Lord, You are here. Your presence is the same, whether with few or with many.
We praise You, Lord, that You are well able to reach our hearts by Your Spirit. Lord, we want to praise You for the anointing which You have won for us through that finished work of Yours on the cross.
We want to stand by faith in that anointing, both for the speaking of Your Word and for the hearing. Lord, let both the speaking and the hearing be anointed with grace and with power.
May that Word of Yours go into our hearts because of the days in which we are living—the confusion and the depression that many seem to have all around us. We pray, Lord, that You will come to us and speak a word into our hearts that will be a living word and give us direction for these days.
We ask all this in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, I am very pleased to be able to share the Word of God with you this evening. This Psalm 110 is, as I have already said, the most quoted Messianic psalm in the New Testament, and for a very real reason.
I have spoken already in Asheville and Hendersonville, North Carolina, on the subject of Psalm 110. It is very much a burden with me because I think the people of God are a bit confused. They do not quite know whether to believe the President of the United States or not, whether he is giving the proper direction to the nation that it needs at this present time, and quite what he means by the word that was the key word to the election: change.
We need to really hear what the Lord is saying and to get direction from the Lord. Far more than that, we may not just be escapists waiting for a rapture. The rapture will come, but we need to be busy about the Lord’s work.
We have a job to do, and the very problems we are facing nationally and internationally are a challenge to us all: to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to have an understanding of the times in which we live, and to be able to be of use to the Lord in these days. That is the burden I have.
I want to give an overview of Psalm 110 in its first three verses. Tomorrow evening and Sunday morning, I want to speak about verse 4, because these verses are, in many ways, the most quoted.
The first verse—“Sit Thou at My right hand”—is quoted everywhere through the New Testament. I have read Acts 2, where Peter, on the Day of Pentecost, says that Christ has been exalted at the right hand of God. Then he quotes Psalm 110, which gives us a clue as to when Jesus sat down—when He was enthroned.
When the psalm says, “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek,” that is a key to us as to where we ought to be. It is not just Jesus who is King and High Priest. We also are kings and priests unto God. We have a job to do, and perhaps never more has it been necessary than at this present time.
Whether you are small in number or many in number, the challenge comes to us. We are—I say it, I hope, with no pride—the remnant by the grace of God. We are the remnant of the faithful in America, in Europe, in Britain, and in the world. We have a job to do, and if we do not do it, we shall be held responsible by the Lord Jesus. That is just how vital this whole matter is.
Let me say something about the present state of the world. Well, you all know there is an economic recession. People are losing their jobs. We have hundreds of billions of dollars being printed—not just here. We have the same millions being printed in pounds sterling in Britain. The idea is to jump-start the economy, but I wonder whether it will succeed.
My feeling is that there will be a little bit of alleviation for a year, and then there will be a nosedive. This recession is not just America. It is not just the United States, although the worst is here in some ways. The next worst is in the United Kingdom.
It is interesting that the two countries which have been used by God so greatly in the spread of the gospel are the two countries suffering most at the present time from economic recession and loss of jobs on every level.
It is also interesting to note that the engine which drives, or pulls, the whole of Europe is Germany, and the recession in Germany is the worst in Europe. In Asia, the engine which pulls the whole of Asia is Japan, and the recession is worse in Japan.
It is a global recession, except for China, which at present is the only country that seems to be surviving very well, with not debt but an enormous reserve of dollars. The only thing is that their exports are declining, so we do not quite know what will happen with China.
The second thing I want to mention, only in passing, is the financial meltdown. It is colossal. The dollar has lost a great amount of its value, and there is talk in different parts of the world of moving over to another currency as a world currency—perhaps the euro, or perhaps another currency altogether.
One of the boys who was with me for about three and a half to four years some years ago has a very good job. His boss is one of the top financial experts and analysts in Britain. His boss said to him recently, “We have a superhuman problem, and we need a superhuman man.” Isn’t that interesting? Quite honestly, no one in the world at present knows what to do.
The same man said that there is not a bank in Britain that is not insolvent, though at present it is being hidden by loans and stimulus. He said that next year it would become apparent.
I am very surprised in America that nobody knows about Iceland, or that very few people I have met have heard about Iceland. Every bank in Iceland has gone bankrupt. There were only 334,000 Icelanders, but Britain’s educational system, universities, and many colleges put their money into Icelandic banks because of the high interest offered.
I hope I am not boring you, but it has all gone bust. They have lost the lot. Many municipalities in Britain also put their money into Icelandic banks because of the high interest. They have lost everything.
The situation was so bad that the Prime Minister of Britain, Gordon Brown, threatened to sue the Icelandic government. He could not do it at present because it had collapsed, a new election had taken place, and they had a new government altogether.
What happened in Iceland is very interesting, because it is a true financial meltdown. That is what the administration in the United States is trying by every available means to prevent, and what the British administration under Gordon Brown was trying to do in Britain, together with Angela Merkel in Germany, Sarkozy in France, and Berlusconi in Italy.
This is all very political, perhaps, but it is important for us to understand. For the first time, it is not only economic recession, loss of jobs, and financial meltdown; climate-wise, something incredible is happening.
Al Gore has blamed it on man. He says that man is basically responsible for the climate problem, the heating of the world, and all the rest of it. There is an argument among scientists as to whether the world is getting colder or warmer, although those who say it is getting colder are fewer than those who say it is getting warmer. The evidence seems to be for warmth.
While we think it is man’s problem, man could put it right. But once it becomes clear that it is God who is doing it, we cannot quite put it right.
It seems to me that it is clear that this has something to do with God, and that it is the beginning of what is prophesied in nearly every one of the prophetic books and in the New Testament: that there will, in the end, be signs in sun and moon and stars.
Once it moves to sun and moon and stars, men’s hearts will faint for fear and for expectation of the things coming upon the face of the earth, because it will be clear that it has nothing to do with man. It has something to do with God.
There are two or three very small indications, but, as we say in English, “A straw tells which way the wind is blowing.” For the first time in history, worker bees are leaving their hives and not coming back. It has never happened before since the beginning of creation.
Bees are dying in their millions. We can say it is pesticide or insecticide, but the fact that worker bees are leaving is by far the most remarkable point. It seems as if something is going wrong.
You all know that bees are a focal point of our ecosystem. In China, there are whole towns in different places using long bamboos fitted on the end with feather dusters to pollinate fruit trees. That in itself is extraordinary. It has never happened before. The bees are not doing the work.
There is another extraordinary little thing that might give us cause to think. I hope I am not depressing you too much. The other creature that is unfortunately looked upon with horror by most people is bats, but bats are another focal point of the ecosystem.
For the first time in history, bats in hibernation have suffered from a syndrome which is killing them in millions. If you weigh all these things up, it looks to me as if something is happening.
Spiritually, if I were to talk about the state of the world, I would have to say this: the West is in a fearful state spiritually.
The so-called homelands of mission—Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, Holland, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada—are witnessing a whole movement against biblical principle: abortion, gay rights, gay marriage, stem-cell exploration, and so on.
It is very interesting, simply from the point of view of looking at it impartially, that all these things are biblical principles being contradicted. The root of so much of it is Darwin’s theory of evolution, and it has now become official government policy.
I find that very interesting in the light of Psalm 2:
Why do the nations rage,
And the peoples meditate a vain thing?
Why do the rulers of the earth set themselves together
Against the Lord, and against His Anointed, His Messiah, saying,
Let us cast away their bonds,
And break these fetters?
This must be the first time since the Reformation—and even since the Dark Ages—that Western governments have called the Bible a bondage and spoken of the biblical principles of God’s Word, from Genesis to Revelation, as something that has fettered mankind rather than freed it.
If you bring all these things together, it is perfectly clear that this is not a hiccup. It is something far more serious than just a little stage in man’s onward march. It seems to me that we must be much nearer to the Lord’s coming than we realize.
If we take the church—and I do not want to get too much into that or I will get lost in this one—it is absolutely blind, except for one or two glorious exceptions.
I am talking about the real church, not the institutional, traditional thing. That has long since gone. I am talking about the real church: the evangelical church, the church that believes in its Bible and in the doctrines of truth concerning the atoning death of the Lord Jesus, His resurrection, and His coming again.
It seems to me quite extraordinary that hardly a voice has been raised in warning. Apart from David Wilkerson and a few other exceptions, no voice that I know of in the American scene, the North American scene, Britain, or Europe has been raised to warn the people of God.
Therefore, it seems to me that we are in a Laodicean church. We have wall-to-wall carpeting; we have ministers of youth, ministers of age, ministers of music, ministers of this and ministers for that. We have a wonderfully organised church, a marvelously oiled system which, frankly, can rumble on whether the Lord is there or not.
It does not really matter. We sing in the Lord’s name, we sing to the Lord, we study His Word, and we pray to God the Father in His name; but He is outside the door, knocking on the door, and no one seems to hear.
This means you can have Bible studies, prayer meetings, evangelistic outreach, even the Lord’s Table, all centred in the Lord Jesus—and somehow, He is not there.
This is the warning in Revelation 3. The estimate that the Laodicean church had of itself was that they were born-again believers. They were not institutional, traditional, denominational, or something else along that line. They were real believers. They had had an experience of the Lord.
Yet no one in the church, including the elders and deacons, had any idea that Jesus was outside. He said:
Behold, I stand at the door and knock:
If any man hear My voice,
And open the door,
I will come in and sup with him.
Spiritually, I travel all over the world, and I find the West in the throes of death. I am speaking of the church. But the Third World, with all its faults and failings, is a New Testament church, with all the characteristics of the New Testament: hearing the Lord, loving the Lord, obeying the Lord.
It is something so thrilling, whether in Africa, Southeast Asia, China, or South America. Even in spite of some great mega-churches that have become systems and, I think, departed from what the Lord really wanted them to be, nevertheless it is amazing that in the so-called mission field there is a living church.
In the Western countries—the homelands, as we used to call them—it is Laodicea.
I hope I have not overdone it, but I need to say it. My conviction is very simple, for what it is worth: we have turned a corner, and there will be no going back.
We, as the people of God, have reached the point not merely of a crossroads; we have crossed, and we are going down another path. The world in general has turned the corner and is moving toward a pagan society—what some theologians call a post-Christian society—in which Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and everything else are considered valid.
Pope John Paul actually pleaded with the European Commission that, in the run-up to the Constitution of the European Union, they should at least mention the gospel and the Bible as valid sources of European and British civilisation. They refused.
Benedict XVI took it up again and pleaded with them on more than one occasion that they would at least mention the gospel and the Bible as a source of European civilisation. They refused. They said that the sources of European and British civilisation were not the Bible or the gospel, but Hellenism and Romanism—not Romanism in the religious sense, but the Roman Empire: the law of the Roman Empire and the humanism of the Hellenic kingdom.
The European Parliament itself is built on the picture by Pieter Bruegel, the sixteenth-century painter: his oil painting of the Tower of Babel. The architect used Bruegel’s painting as the basic idea for the European Parliament. It is extraordinary.
I have seen this point two or three times on television, so I know it is true. Another point I have been unable to confirm, but I am told that if you go inside the European Parliament building, there is a text which says, “We will finish what Nimrod began.”
Another extraordinary thing that might bring home to you where we are is that in front of the European Commission in Brussels there is a stylised bull with a stylised woman upon it. It represents the Hellenistic legend of Zeus, or Jupiter, who fell in love with a girl called Europa.
He knew that she would not have him, so he turned himself into a bull. She came along on a hot day, grew weary, and he carried her. She got on his back; then he turned into Zeus, or Jupiter, and raped her. Can you believe that in front of the European Commission you would have such a statue?
It gives you some idea of where world society is heading.
I think that we are very near to the emergence of the Antichrist.
2 Thessalonians 2:2 tells us that we will not be raptured to be with the Lord until the man of sin is revealed. How far into that period of the Antichrist we are not told, and we do not know, but it is apparently clear that it is sometime into his reign.
I will not say any more about the Antichrist, but I think that is just where we are. At least you can think about it. We are basically waiting for someone who can solve our problems, and at present there is no one.
With respect, neither Obama nor Hillary, neither Gordon Brown nor Tony Blair, neither Sarkozy nor Angela Merkel nor Berlusconi—none of them is able to solve our problems.
If our situation gets worse financially, economically, and climate-wise, the whole world is being prepared for some kind of superman who will arrive on the scene with an answer to it all.
I would like to say something about the condition of the United States, if you will forgive me. I think the United States ought not to be in this situation. The United States was founded by the Pilgrim Fathers, and it was founded on biblical principles.
It seems to me incredible that this bulwark of morality—I am not saying that all Americans are model citizens, only that officially the United States has stood for moral leadership, some kind of morality in a world that knows very little about it—should be in this condition.
It seems to me that Satan has to remove the United States as that bulwark of moral leadership before the Antichrist can really arise. That is why my own heart has become quite clear that the Lord was bringing the United States into judgment, mainly because the church has not been alive.
It has just been affluent, neither hot nor cold. Go to church once a week, sit under a good sermon, judge the sermon, make sure it is evangelical and biblical, discuss it over Sunday lunch, and say whether you felt it was good or bad. But, you know, it was that kind of thing, and no one seems to have heard the Lord.
Therefore, I think we have an enormous problem. I think judgment has fallen on the United States.
Some of you know that I have said for a few years that I see the United States as the Titanic: unsinkable. Even the captain said, “God Almighty cannot sink this ship.” It had all lights blazing, bands playing, and everything wonderful, with no idea that it was sailing into an iceberg and would sink within minutes of hitting it.
I do not want to get into politics, and I know some of you may have voted for Barack Obama, but I think it is a judgment. It has nothing to do with colour. I think a really godly African American would have done the United States a lot of good. But I would love to know what change means in his mind, and where we are going.
In Israel, I sat down and listened to the whole speech of President Obama in Cairo. It was relayed to us in full. I said to Nathan, “America has its first Muslim president.” Four times he quoted the Holy Quran. He quoted the Hadith about Moses, Mohammed, and Jesus having a prayer meeting together.
He said that America was one of the greatest Muslim Islamic countries in the world. He said that Islam had a hand in the founding of the United States. He said one little phrase—four words—“I am a Christian,” which seems to mean that you now have a president who is both a Christian and a Muslim and a Jew, because he kept the Passover for two days as stipulated in the White House for the first time in history.
I wonder where the United States is going.
I think it was amazing when President Obama met with President Medvedev of Russia and cut nuclear submarines and devices, which everyone would normally be very happy about.
Do you really mean to tell me that Russia is going to keep this? It is a joke. Russia has longed for power. It is within the Russian personality; it goes back through the years into the time of the tsars. If there is a possibility of Russia becoming the superpower in a new world, she will take it.
I do not trust Russia’s alliance with Iran. It would not surprise me if Russia said, “We will cut down our nuclear devices and our nuclear submarines,” but unofficially supplied Iran with the technical know-how to send intercontinental missiles upon the United States.
You must remember that the Ayatollahs are connected, by tradition, with Haman. The present leader of Iran, Khamenei, is even nearer to it. The whole thing concerns people who apparently managed to escape from the family when Agag was slain by Samuel, and all these years later the same hatred of us still exists.
Ayatollah means “Oracle of God,” by the way. Khomeini said very clearly that Israel was the little Satan and the United States the great Satan. They have said more than once that their plan was to liberate Jerusalem, liquidate the Jewish people, and go on to the conquest of the United States and the world.
This is not a very happy outlook that I am outlining for you. The United Kingdom is in as bad a condition as the United States, if not worse, and the same is true of Europe. But I will not take up any more time on that. I will only say something about the Middle East.
The Middle East situation is unbelievably dangerous. At any single moment, when the world is in economic recession, there is a financial meltdown, there are problems with the climate and pollution of earth, sea, and air, there is every possibility that Iran will produce a nuclear device.
Today, Rafsanjani, who was the former president of Iran, asked that the leaders of the country review the whole situation over the recent election. But I cannot get away from the fact that, while all this fuss is going on, the nuclear programme of Iran is progressing.
We believe in Israel that sometime during August they will have enough plutonium to produce their first nuclear device. I would think that Israel would be the first recipient of that device. They have said repeatedly that they will wipe us off the face of the world map.
If you are not Jewish, you tend to think that Jews are great exaggerators, very emotional, and get worked up over everything. But I trust Elie Wiesel and Tommy Lapid. Tommy Lapid is now gone; he died a few weeks ago. Both these survivors of Auschwitz repeatedly warned Israel in the last year that all the characteristics of the run-up to the original Holocaust are present in world society.
I myself am a second generation survivor. I was not in a concentration camp, but I did lose fifty-eight members of my family, including my father and grandmother, in Auschwitz. I absolutely trust Elie Wiesel and Tommy Lapid. I believe the characteristics are all there.
There is the same appeasement. Instead of clear speaking with Iran and others, there is appeasement, just as the powers of the world appeased Nazi Germany in the run-up to the Holocaust.
Far more serious is the fact that today in Britain, you have to go many, many miles to find an assembly of God’s people—real believers—who support Israel. There is a general feeling that Israel is the bully, that she cannot be trusted, that she is a liar. They misrepresent us in every shape and form. This is exactly what happened in Nazi Germany.
Shortly after the World War, in 1950, I went to Germany to speak to believers. I met a number of leading German Christian leaders, and in the course of talking and fellowship, I discovered that they had voted for Adolf Hitler. I asked them why.
They said, “Well, you see, he was the only saviour in sight. We were Christians, but he seemed a very decent person. He said he would restore the German people’s dignity, which we needed.”
They said that one out of every two men was unemployed. Hitler said, “I will build Autobahns, great motorways all over Germany, and I will employ all of them on these.” It was unbelievable to them that people would have employment and an income. And he did it.
Thirdly, he said, “I will restore the value of the mark,” when at that time you had to take a whole barrel full of marks to buy a loaf of bread. And he did it. They said, “We voted for him. We believed he was a deliverer, and he was actually God’s man for Germany.”
I said to them, “Did you not take note of what he said about the Jews? He called them vermin. He called them poison. He called them the rats of Europe. Did you not have some concern?” They said, “No, we actually believed him. We believed that the Jews were the problem in our society.”
Today, I think we are in the same run-up. Madoff has done a terrible thing, and everyone is blaming the Jews again. There is another one who has walked off with five hundred million, completely obscured by Madoff.
Once again, you have anti-Semitism everywhere. In Britain, the Jewish Board of Deputies, which are the leaders of Jewry in Britain, have warned all Jews not to wear the prayer hat in public, and men and women not to wear the Star of David or anything that would reveal that they are Jews.
There are more anti-Semitic incidents in France and Britain than in the run-up to the Holocaust.
That is a somewhat depressing picture that I have painted for you. If Iran gets its nuclear device, we can expect the Middle East to explode. Hezbollah, which is a surrogate of Iran and Syria, and Hamas are all being trained by Islamic Revolutionary Guards and have been re-equipped with missiles, chemical weapons, and biological weapons.
We do not know yet of any nuclear device they have, but it simply means that we are living on a powder keg which, once lit, will blow up.
If there is a coup in Pakistan, which is already a nuclear power, the whole Middle East will change. If Al-Qaeda or the Taliban can work a coup, Iran will get nuclear technology without having to sweat about it; it will be handed to her on a plate.
So we have an enormous problem. If I were to say to you that the outlook is unbelievably grim, I am not exaggerating.
That is why I wanted to talk about Psalm 110. Why? Because it seems to me that the only way believers can face this grim situation is to look unto Jesus and see that He is seated at the right hand of God.
Mark the words. They are absolutely wonderful:
The Lord said unto my Lord,
Sit Thou at My right hand,
Till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet.
That is a tremendous statement. The Father is saying to the Son, “Do not fight. No more fighting, no more struggling, no more being nerve-racked about whether Your people are going to get through or not get through. Sit.”
In other words, Jesus is enthroned. He is enthroned as Saviour, enthroned as Head of the Church, and enthroned as King of Israel.
The Lord explains it further: “Let the rod, or sceptre, of Your strength go forth out of Zion.” Then He says, “Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.” That means the enemies still exist. Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.
Although Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, the enemies are very present on this earth.
The Father says to the Son, “Sit Thou at My right hand until I make Your enemies the footstool of Your feet.” There are plenty of enemies today. I can give you a whole number straightaway, and no doubt you can add a few more to my list.
What does the Father say? “You are enthroned at My right hand. Your work is finished. It is complete. There is sufficient within that work for every saved human being to reach the goal of salvation.”
There is within that finished work every single thing needed for the building of the true church, the Body of Christ. It is all there. The grace is available. The power is available. It is all there. Just sit. “I will make Your enemies the footstool of Your feet.”
Think. What about Nero? He has come and gone. He executed Peter; he executed Paul. It made no difference to the fulfilment of the purpose of God.
What about Napoleon, one of the best of the antichrists? He came, changed the whole face of Europe, and has gone.
What about Karl Marx? What about Lenin? They have come; they have gone.
What about Stalin? With a flick of his hand, thousands of kulaks would starve to death. He has come; he has gone.
What about Mao Zedong? He has come, and he has gone. China is today the scene of the greatest ethnic group of believers in the world. He has come and he has gone.
What about Saddam Hussein? He has come and he has gone. What about Nasser? He has come and he has gone. What about Ahmadinejad? He has come. He has not yet gone, but he will.
As sure as I stand here, they have all come and gone. They are the footstool of the Messianic King.
No wonder the New Testament appeals again and again for us to look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith:
Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross,
Despising the shame,
And is set down at the right hand of God.
This little word goes in one ear and out the other for most Christians. You read all the time that He is seated, that He is at the right hand of God. Read your Bible and you will find it in the New Testament almost every other page, if not every page. It is there.
He is seated. You can die with that. It does not really matter. He is seated. Listen: He has won. It is as simple as that. He has won, and Satan cannot do anything at all about it.
Jesus has won. The evidence is that He is seated at the right hand of God. He has won.
Of course, the purpose of God has to be worked out. Is it not wonderful that the Bible is so wonderful? It has the end at the beginning. You have only to look at Revelation 21 and 22, and there you have it all: the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, having the glory of God.
The enthronement of the Lord Jesus is the guarantee that the purpose of God will be fulfilled. It is just so simple.
What about that whole chapter I read to you, Revelation 5? Do you not think it is an amazing chapter? It is the throne of God, surrounded by a rainbow like an emerald to look upon, and the One sitting on the throne has in His hand a scroll.
In the ancient Jewish world, when you made a will, you wrote it on parchment, rolled it up, and sealed it at least three times, because we Jews are very suspicious. We know very well that people will tamper with one seal, so you must have a minimum of three. Then you would know if it had been tampered with, if the will had been altered.
God does not need to make a will, but He has an inheritance. It is everywhere in the book: the inheritance. We are to possess our inheritance; we are to come to that inheritance.
What John saw, he understood as a Jew: this is the will of God, the eternal purpose of God. When the angel cried with a strong voice, “Who is worthy to take this scroll and break the seals and open it?” no one moved—not a voice.
The Greek is very emotional. It does not say that he wept quietly, as you might get from the English translation. He burst into tears uncontrollably. He wailed at the sight of that scroll, sealed and left sealed.
Then an elder came across, put his arm around him, and said, “Do not cry any more. Look. The Lion that is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David”—that encompasses the whole of Jewish history—“has overcome to take the scroll and open the seals.”
John looked for this Lion of Judah, this Root of David, and he saw in the midst of the throne a little Lamb, as slaughtered, standing in the midst of the throne.
It is an amazing picture. The whole scene changes because there is a little Lamb, the Lion of Judah, in the throne.
Sit Thou at My right hand,
Till I make Thine enemies
The footstool of Thy feet.
Then, as John watched, he saw the elders and the four living creatures, and he heard this great song coming from them: “Worthy art Thou, because with Your blood You have purchased men and women of every tribe, tongue, ethnic group, and race, and made them to be kings and priests unto God. And they shall reign on the earth.”
Many Christians think, “I am only going to reign in heaven.” No—on the earth.
Then these myriads of angels began to sing the same thing: “Worthy art Thou.” Then every created thing uttered the same thing.
This vision should really be the first, second, and third chapters of Revelation. I must be careful what I am saying, but this opens the whole book of Revelation. The reason John saw Jesus in the midst of seven golden lampstands is that it is utterly important. Otherwise, this vision is really the opening vision of Revelation.
After that, you have judgment after judgment after judgment. You have martyrdom; you have everything happening. It does not make any difference. The Lamb—the little Lamb—is enthroned at the right hand of God.
That is how we have to face this situation.
I hope the Lord will help me tomorrow and Sunday morning to talk about intercession, because this fourth verse is so important. It is quoted again and again in the New Testament:
Thou art a priest for ever
After the order of Melchizedek.
Why after the order of Melchizedek? I will leave that until tomorrow. Why not Aaron? He was the one chosen to be High Priest—HaKohen HaGadol. Melchizedek.
It is not just that He is chosen, but through His finished work, you and I are made kings and priests. Yet I go all over the place and do not see many kings and priests.
Potentially, they are born of God; they are kings and priests. But who rightly exercises, under the government of the Holy Spirit, the authority of the Lord Jesus? Who knows anything about real intercession? Very few.
That is the call. That is the challenge.
Some people say to me, “Do you think we can get rid of President Obama?” Some of you may not feel that way, but others feel very strongly. I say, “It is neither here nor there.”
What is really needed is a colossal spiritual awakening in North America that will sweep through the whole nation and into Canada. Then it does not really matter whether it is the Antichrist who is coming and emerging somewhere.
The answer is men and women born of God. It has happened before.
When Jonathan Edwards—whose name is now so declaimed and devalued by so many North American Christians, as somehow belonging to a narrow, picketed outlook—preached that amazing sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, he had such thick glasses because his eyesight was so poor that he held his notes up to his nose and had a candle.
He had no idea that his hearers were hanging onto the pew because they thought they were slipping into hell. It was the beginning of the New England revival. It swept right through what were then called the colonies, brought thousands upon thousands to the Lord, and established the United States with the foundation of biblical principles.
It can happen again, you know, even though the time is short. Even if it does not, it would result in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, being born of God. That would in itself be something tremendous.
That is really what I wanted to say tonight. Just one further thing—you can wake up for these last few words of mine. There is a third verse here in Psalm 110:
Thy people
Are freewill offerings in the day of Thy power.
I like it. The Hebrew is quite clear. One version says, “Your people will volunteer freely.” Other versions say something similar, because “Your people are freewill offerings” does not mean much to Christians. What in the world does that mean?
If you look at Leviticus 27, it tells us about tithes: a tenth of everything. A tenth was duty. You had to pay a tenth of wheat, grain, fruit, lambs, goats, bullocks—everything, a tenth. The rest was yours.
But if you look at Exodus 36, you will see that the tabernacle was created out of freewill offerings. They brought gold, silver, thread, scarlet, and all the things out of which the tabernacle was made—badger skins, or porpoise skins, for the covering in times of bad weather in Israel. I mean, it is amazing.
This does not say, “Thy people gave a tenth,” or, “Will give a tenth in the day of Thy power.” That is not what it says. Nor does it say, “Thy people will give freewill offerings in the day of Thy power.”
It says, incredibly and simply:
Thy people
Are freewill offerings
In the day of Thy power.
The Hebrew word translated by the English word power can mean wealth, force, might, or army. I like the word army: “In the day of Thy army.”
It reminds me of what the apostle Paul said:
Suffer hardship with me,
And be a good soldier of Jesus the Messiah.
No man that is enrolled
Entangleth himself in the affairs of this life,
That he may please Him who enrolled him.
This freewill offering is something that takes your whole being.
I told the folks in Asheville and Hendersonville that I had to speak a little while ago in Britain, in the city of Leicester, which is now a Muslim city. It has mosques everywhere, this wonderful old, ancient British city, and the prayer call is heard over the whole city.
I spoke at Melbourne Hall, that great evangelical cathedral, almost, founded by Dr. F. B. Meyer. After I had spoken, the pastor, who had been there for thirty-four years, said to me, “Do you know you are standing in the pulpit where C. T. Studd spoke before he left for China?”
C. T. Studd was a graduate of Cambridge, and he left with the Cambridge Seven for China. Then he went to India for a few years, and then he went to the Congo. He never went back to Britain.
C. T. Studd was utterly devoted to the Lord. The first Christian book I ever read was the biography of C. T. Studd, and it led me to the Lord. Of course, I have to say that I did not know how to come to the Lord.
At the end of it—the first Christian book I ever read—I stood. Then I thought, “No, they kneel, I think.” So I knelt, but then I felt very uncomfortable. I thought, “No, I think they stand.” So I stood, and then I prayed the most unscriptural prayer you can imagine.
I said, “Oh God, if there is a God, would You please do in me what You did in C. T. Studd and make me what You made him?”
This dear pastor said, “Dr. F. B. Meyer was so impressed with C. T. Studd that afterwards, in the vestry, he said, ‘Do you mind if I ask you a very direct question?’”
C. T. Studd said, “No.” Dr. Meyer asked, “What is the secret of your life and ministry?”
And C. T. Studd said, “I have surrendered my will to God.”