The Coming King

Jeremiah 22:1-23:20; Psalm 83; Proverbs 25:11-14

 

We’ve moved beyond kingdoms and empires, right? We’re the United States of America. We’re a democracy. We don’t need a king. We rule ourselves. We elect our own leaders, and we have them step down from their positions of leadership, too. It’s served us pretty well, hasn’t it?

 

No. It hasn’t. We in the United States of America are not ruling ourselves much better than an evil dictator would. The difference is this: under an evil dictator, only he gets to do all the evil he wants; under a democracy, all of us cast off the laws that would keep us from having things our own way and we’re all free to sin. We may keep one another in check to some extent—there are things an evil dictator can do that no single individual in the USA can get away with—but our combined sinfulness, pride, leudness, perversion and lack of concern for each other is surely an indication that our form of government does not create a righteous environment.

 

We’re still looking for a government like that.

 

“The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.”

 

When you read the Bible and see the word “lord” in all capital letters like that, you are reading a place where the Hebrew text is not just mentioning God’s title and calling him “lord,” “master,” or “ruler.” You are reading a place where the name of God is written in the Hebrew language: “YHWH,” or “Yahweh.”

 

So what does the God of Israel, Yahweh, promise here? He promises a wise, just and righteous King from the line of David. What will this king’s name be? King Yahweh, whom we now know as King Jesus, our Righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30).

 

Father, send our King to us. May we live under His good, wise and righteous rule forever!