October, 1933
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
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bringing deliverance to all His people and destruction to all their enemies. C oronation • The coronation of both Joash and Christ Jesus comes as a great surprise. Outside of the few who were in the secret, no one knew of the existence o f Joash as an heir to the throne. The mass of the people were left to suppose that the seed of David was extinct, and to doubt the power o f God to fulfill His covenant with David. We may imagine the astonishment o f the people when, on a bright Sabbath morning, they had come together with a degree o f expectation, as it was whispered that some unusual service was to be held in the temple; when, lo, the king’s son was presented, and the sound o f the trumpet and the cry of “ Long live the king” burst on their aston ished ears. But the astonishment was consternation in the near-by palace, when the sound of the shouting fell on the ears of the usurping queen. Secure in the thought that the royal family was extinct, and full of schemes for per sonal aggrandizement and the promotion of Baal worship, she had scarcely time to take in the scene till her blood was spilled in the street and her idolatrous priest shared her doom. This scene of surprise and consternation is but a minia ture of that scene pictured by our Lord, when “ in a time that ye think not” the Son o f man shall come, and men shall cry to the mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. But our Lord Himself has given us abundant warning, not only of the suddenness of His appearing, but also of the utter surprise and conster nation of the nations. Some of them will be boasting of their unparalleled prosperity, busy with plans to spend their accumulated wealth; some will be engaged in bloody wars of conquest, or planning schemes of political or indus trial exploitation; many will be full of pleasure, rioting, and drunkenness; when suddenly, the sound of the trumpet and the shout of the archangel shall announce the end of all existing systems, and that the kingdoms o f this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. The sudden overthrow o f the usurping queen and her followers is but a faint foreshadowing of the destruction that awaits the enemies of the King at His appearing. There is no intimation, either in God’s Word or in the atti tude of the world powers today, that they will either sur render or submit peaceably to the rule of God’s Anointed. On the contrary, they are represented as conspiring and combining together under the leadership of the beast and the false prophet, and coming up to a battle greater than has ever been fought. The scene is described most vividly in Revelation 19:19 to 21. W hat H appens A fter C oronation ? It would be sad indeed, if our narrative ended in this scene of judgment and destruction. But judgment only destroys the things not fit to endure, and it always ushers in the better day. So we have, best of all, a parallelism in the final conditions resulting from the coronation o f the King. The usurper must die, that uncrowned royalty may come to its own, and bring peace and blessing to all the people, The record of the results o f the crowning of Joash, the hidden king, is given in a few words, pregnant with the eloquence of God in their promise of a better day: “ And he sat on the throne o f the kings. And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was in quiet.” "And he sat on the throne o f the kings.” Is that not a rather unique statement? There is no other like it, I think, in the story o f Judah’s kings. Why “ the throne of [Continued on page 368]
are being as minutely fulfilled in David’s greater Son in the temple of God in the heavens; and in the proper time for His revealing, God will set His King upon His holy hill of Zion, and give Him the nations for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. Notice, now, some particulars o f parallelism between Joash and Jesus Christ. H eirs to D avid ’ s T hrone Joash and Jesus Christ were alike in their direct heir ship to David’s throne. Their names were both in the direct line o f genealogy which God had provided to be kept for the specific purpose o f identifying the real heir to David’s throne. When Jehoiada “ showed them the king’s son” and presented Joash for coronation, there was no voice raised to dispute his claim. The genealogical records were accepted as final. The genealogy given by Matthew, writing for the Jews, and presenting the gospel of the kingdom, declares Jesus Christ to be the Son o f David, and gives the detailed record through all the intervening gener ations. And when, in the coming day, He is shown as “ David’s Son,” “ the Lion of the tribe of Juda,” while many may rebel and refuse to have this Man reign over them, there will not be a voice to dispute His legal claim to David’s throne. The very nation of the Jews, whose rulers put Him to death, will be confronted with their own records that He was born in Bethlehem, “ o f the house and lineage o f David.” I mperiled in I nfancy Joash and the Lord Jesus were alike in the perils of infancy to which their title to royalty exposed them. Each was the intended victim o f an infant massacre designed to exterminate the royal line, the promised seed of the woman. So devilish was the scheme of Athaliah, that her own grandchildren were the principal victims she sacrificed to clear the way for her usurpation. When the Bethlehem crisis arrived, Satan had another vicegerent ready, in the person of Herod. When rumor brought to his ears that a babe was born in Bethlehem, who was to be “ king o f the Jews,” he sent and slew all the children in that region from two years old and under, that no rival might stand in the way o f his wicked rule. In each case, the plot failed, as every plot against the Lord’s anointed must fail. C oncealed and P reserved Joash and Jesus Christ were alike in the fact and cir cumstances o f their concealment and preservation. The hiding o f Joash was for a period of six years, the incomplete period representing man’s day. Jesus has been hidden during the period o f Gentile dominion, a period also representing man’s day. The belief was common with the Jews that the six days o f creation were typical of six days o f a thousand years each, during which God would accom plish His redemptive work; and the seventh thousand would be the period o f blessed consummation and rest. Many modern Bible students believe that the thousand years o f Messiah’s kingdom will be ushered in about the end o f the 6000 years o f human history now approaching completion. The concealment was a priestly secret. Pos sibly only Jehosheba, and her husband, the high priest, knew it at the first, and during the whole six years it must have remained a secret with a very few o f those who min istered at the temple. But when Jehoiada showed the king’s son, the trumpet sounded, and the shouts of the people proclaimed a nation’s joy at its deliverance from usurpa tion and tyranny. When Jesus retired into the concealment o f the heavenly temple, it was a priestly secret, too. Only the eleven who were chosen as the nucleus o f the New Tes tament priesthood were witnesses. But when He comes again, “ every eye shall see him” ; and when His feet again stand on Mount Olivet, it will be as the conquering Lord,
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