THÈ KING’S BUSINESS
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selves eventually. Where Christ is, there will His servants be. 4. Christ is accepted enthusiastically. Here is a vivid picture of emotionalism in religion. Nothing really effective can be done without emotion. The bright self- sacrificing enthusiasms of early manhood are among the most precious things in the whole course of human life. “Bring forth the royal diadem and crown Him Lord of all.” Them e: Judah’s R eturn from Captivity. T ext : Ezra 1 :1-11. I ntroduction . A wonderful illustration of God’s active disposition of matters in history. I. The proclamation (vv. 1 - 4 ). 1. The cause of it—the word of God (Isaiah 45:1-7; Jeremiah 25:12; 39-10). 2. The dynamic power of it—God stirred up the heart of Cyrus. The move ment began, continued and ended with God. 3. The agent in fulfilling God’s purpose —the heathen king. The hearts of kings are in the hands of God. 4. The purpose of it—liberty, and free dom of worship. A proclamation of emancipation. II. The response ( vv. 5 , 6 ). 1. It was of God. - It was God who put the thought into the heart of the people to respond as in the heart of Cyrus to inaugurate. - 2. It was for God. What is of God must be for God. There is always trouble when we use God’s power for our own aggrandizement. Nebuchad nezzar and Simon Magus found this to be true. 3. It must be a willing response. There is no forced service in God’s work. 4- It was partial. Not all the people obeyed the call of
1. The claims of Jesus to Kingship. Compare other claims of Jesus as Teacher, Life, Light, Interpreter; now King. 1. By divine appointment—He came in the name of the Lord (cf. Psa. 2:6). 2. By His own inherent right. He was the only-begotten of the Father and heir to the throne; He was King by virtue, of every right divine. 3. He won by His death on the cross. Christ gains His ascendancy over the hearts of men; not as the Teacher from the Mount, or as the Truth from the tem ple, or as the Example from the, streets, but as the Life from Calvary. He rules from the cross (cf. John 12:32). 4. By the longing of human hearts. The Greeks so expressed it: “We would see i Jesus.” He is the “desire of all nations.” He is King because men want Him. He is King of my life because I want no other King. II. The nature of His Kingdom. 1. Peaceful and meek. What a contrast with the Jewish con ception of the Messiah! He will conquer by His Personality. He is the Prince of Peace. 2. Unostentatious. There is an. absence here of those things which usually accompany kingship. Quite a contrast to the Jewish Jove of the cere monial and religious trappings! What a picture of Christ’s entrance into the human soul— silently and without noise 1 III. The acceptance of His kingship. 1. Spontaneous. Christ will not coerce, but win by the force of His own Personality. 2. Involves self-sacrifice and self-denial. What was true then is true now. God’s way of making a thing grow is to kill it (John 12:34). 3. Brings its reward. To crown Christ now is to crown our
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