The Invincible Kingdom
Rev. Richard A. Bolland

Daniel 7:13-14
(Nov. 23, 2003 Sermon Transcript)

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        The words of the prophet Daniel. In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

        Dear friends in Christ. All of us want to feel safe and secure. In order to do that we have placed locks on our houses, and on our cars. Many of us own firearms, and some us are not just hunters. Some of us want them around to protect us from those who would do us harm. As a nation, we’ve raised and built armies, and navies, and air forces, and what’s more, if that’s not enough, we have the marines and the coast guard in order to protect ourselves from those who would, indeed, harm us, as we so well know.

        We might add, as well, that this is not the way it was meant to be. That deep within each and every one of us there is a longing for what God had intended at the very beginning. There is a longing for us to return to the garden, if you will, and to live in such a way that God had fashioned us, that we might not experience or know fear. And that we might know nothing but peace.

        How far we have come from that terrible fall at the beginning.

        For now, with sin coming into the world through the decisions of Adam and Eve, and of course all of humanity was contained in them, and when they fell, we all did. And now we see the results. Adam hides in the garden out of fear of his own creator. Abel hides and is fearful of Cain, and with good reason.

        And now, people need weapons to defend themselves against others who mean them harm. Walls were built around cities of every continent to protect them from the enemies that are outside. Weapon systems with the potential to blow us back to the iron age have been created in an attempt to defend those who would bring us danger and harm, and would be halted because they would be afraid of what those weapons can do. And now, rogue nations, while watching their own people starve, are spending billions to build weapons so that, in fact, they don’t have to be intimidated by those nations who have them.

        We are a nation and a planet filled with fear and lacking in peace.

        As the scriptures say, we cry "Peace, peace, but there is no peace." We do not feel safe.

        This Old Testament reading from the prophet Daniel, written so many millennia ago, tells us that it is possible that what we long for indeed will come to reality. We are told in this lesson that that inner longing in our hearts for God’s original intent for us will actually happen. For in the end, when the Son of Man comes before the Ancient of Days to judge this world, we will finally know an invincible kingdom, which can not, and will not ever, be destroyed.

        This is the Sunday of the Fulfillment. For those who are not familiar with the church year, it is the last Sunday of the church year. And during the last three Sundays we have been looking at Christ’s second coming, and understanding that God, when He makes a promise, always keeps it. And so we deal, this day, with the reality of that promise. And with the reality of sin.

        You see, that’s the reason we don’t feel safe. That’s the reason we have no peace. The reason is because of sin! Sin has simply ruined everything! It taints our relationships. It taints the way nations compare one another with one another, and fight wars over things that other people have. Sin is the reason. And it affects everything.

        Man’s rebellion against God, first of all, brought about a fear of God Himself. We see if first of all in Adam as he hides in the garden from the one who made him. And then we see, very quickly, that he is right that man should be afraid of God. And the reason is simple. We are sinners. We are unholy people. We are lawbreakers. We have disdained the will of God and done that which we see is right in our own eyes, whether it was right or not.

        And God is quite different. He is holy. He is just. He is righteous. He will not let sin stand in His presence. Not even a little bit. For that would, in fact, violate His own holiness. So God has, in fact, issued a decree that the wages of sin is death. And everything that leads to death. In fact, save for the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, we would be no different, and we were no different, than any convicted murderer awaiting his execution. The sentence is certain.

        We also brought about a fear of each other. Anyone who reads the paper should be able to figure that one out. Indeed, there was a time when the ten commandments were not even necessary, but that time is past. And now man has taken those ten simple commandments and ignored them. Sometimes moving them out so as not to see them anymore.

        And what’s more, we’ve replaced them with man’s laws. And, oh my, are we good at making man’s laws. Anyone who’s ever walked into a lawyer’s office can just look at the walls. The walls are full of books of man’s laws, none of which are any more comprehensive nor more thorough than the original ten commandments, but simply tried to explain it in their own way. And somehow, by means of law, to keep the outward, most awful effects of sin from bringing us fear and conflict.

        I don’t know how many of you have ever been to Tombstone, Arizona. Since I used to live in Tucson, we’ve been down there a couple of times. And I want to tell you that, if you walk through that town, you’ll get a lesson on what it means to be lawless. When you walk into the Birdcage Theatre, you may stand in the lobby and there observe the bulletholes that are still existing in the walls and in the ceiling from the chaos that comes from lawlessness. If you walk in the inside of the theatre, there are little cubbyholes on either side of the theatre where prostitutes used to ply their trade, openly and regularly, and without any hindrance whatsoever. And when you go down to the cemetery at Boot Hill, you will find there markers that are tragic in their inscriptions. I recall one that said, "Here lies Melvin Thomas, shot by mistake." But perhaps the most tragic of all are the many, many grave markers there that are simply marked, "Unknown".

        Man, if left to his own ends, will serve his own needs, and will not care at all about his neighbor.

        Sin has also brought us fear, even in the creation in which we live. Now you may say, "Well, look around, Preacher. Has there ever been a more glorious creation than that with which we live on a daily basis?" And I would say, "Thank God it is as it is, but oh, that we could only see what it was!" God did not create, nor make any provision for, any kind of "natural disaster". In fact, they are unnatural. Sin ruined the relationship between the creation and man, as well as the other other two, between man and man, and God and man. It was not designed to be like this! He made no provision for hurricanes and tornados and earthquakes, famines and droughts and forest fires that despoil, and takes lives, and destroy property. When God finished His creative work, at the end of the sixth day, and said that it was very good, that it was without flaw. It was perfect.

        We read also from the scriptures of that very thing. From Romans chapter 8, St. Paul writes, The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. The creation itself leans towards the second coming for its redemption as well.

        And so we find that there is no silver lining in sin. And were it not for Christ and His redemptive work, sin would have had its way with us. And indeed, the results of man’s fall into sin would have left us with nothing but bad news. If I were to stop at this time, we could haul out the handkerchiefs and start weeping, for there would be no hope.

        But let us look at what the scriptures tell us about what God does for those He loves, those creatures which He fashioned from His hand, and what He intends to do. For with the coming of the Son of Man, God has rescued us from sin, and from death, so that we will know life in the Invincible Kingdom, and know it without fear. And know it full of peace.

        In an age of terrorism, in an age of plagues and pestilence, how in the world can we deal with fear and know safety in this world? First of course, there must be peace with God. When all the world is falling apart at the seams all around us, we must know the safe sanctuary of the arms of Jesus Christ, the forgiving Messiah, the Christ. The Son of Man has come to save sinners, the scriptures tell us. And, to a man, to a woman, and to a child, sinners are we all!

        And therefore, God, in Christ, has come to save us. It is a promise that He keeps. We are sinners and He comes to call us to be His own. Were it not so, Christ’s coming would have no lasting effect at all. His death on the cross would be without meaning, and void.

        Let me assure you, it is anything but lacking in meaning. It is anything but empty.

        Peace with God comes, I must say, at an extraordinarily high price. Not a price that we pay, for there is no payment we could render which would be sufficient, no matter how hard we try. No matter how we try to impress God with our good works, our sin is always there. No matter how hard we try to score fifty-one percent good, it seems that if we make it, and we rarely do, and besides, there’s still that forty nine percent!

        No, we are, as the scriptures say, we are sinful from the moment of our conception, as David writes. And so, what is the price? The extraordinarily high price comes in many ways. And it is Jesus Christ who pays it all. He pays the price of condescending, to leave the glory and the perfection of heaven, to come to us in human flesh, taking on human frailty, and living among men, His creatures, who mistreat Him, and who abuse Him, and who betray Him.

        What is the price of peace? The price of peace is the experience of exposing Himself to a sin-fallen world, to know hunger and thirst and pain, as you and I know it, and others know it even more fully.

        What is the cost of peace? The cost of peace is His pain and suffering, that He did not at all deserve, because, as the scriptures tell us, here was the one man, the new Adam, who was without sin, and who did not sin. And thank God He did not, or there would be no salvation in place for us!

        The price was the cost of the unknowable suffering and pain of our eternal punishment in hell that we deserved. That on the innocence of His shoulders He alone bears for all those in the world who are His creatures.

        The cost, the cost of peace, is His very life.

        Jesus takes the peace He has earned at such great cost and gives it to those - gives it to those! - whom He calls as His own. Peace is ours not because we have earned it. Not because we have merited it. Not because there is some quality in us that God admires and so grants it. Not even because we have decided to believe in Him, for He even gives us the ability to decide!

        But rather, He gives it to us in such fashion that it is utterly free. It is pure grace. Listen to the word of St. Paul in Romans chapter 5. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.....But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

        The gift is greater than the sin!

        God’s grace and mercy and death and life and resurrection does not merely and barely and cover just enough or our sin to make us admissible to God in heaven! He overwhelms our sin with His grace and forgiveness. There is nothing left to be done! And to presume that there is is to denigrate the cross. To discount the suffering of Christ Himself, to say that it wasn’t sufficient. But, brothers and sisters in Christ, I assure you, it was vastly more than sufficient.

        And what’s more, the best is still yet to come.

        As we read these words of the prophet Daniel so very very long ago, it is amazing to me how contemporary it is. But one must wonder. Why didn’t God give him a vision of the manger in Bethlehem? Why not the resurrection of Jesus Christ? I mean, that would have been utterly magnificent and fantastic, would it not? But no. God provides for Daniel a vision of the finality of all things. The very end of it all! For as great as it is to be called by God and to be numbered among His children, and to have the peace of knowing that we are at peace with God, it is nothing compared to what is coming.

        That which the world yearns for, that longing within our hearts for that which God originally intended, is coming. No, we did not, we did not stand at the manger and we did not personally see it. No, we were not at the cross, and we did not observe personally His suffering and death. And no, we were not present at the empty tomb, though by His word we learn of it. And no, we were not there when He ascended into heaven. But let me promise you this. You will see, and so will I, what Daniel saw. But it will not be a vision. It will be reality.

        Yes, there is a big bang. But it doesn’t come at the beginning. It comes in the end! And everybody gets to see it! And what’s more, we will stand justified before God by Christ Jesus, our Lord and our Savior and the one who redeems us. And we will enter into something which we cannot even begin to imagine. For in your sight, and in mine, we will see the sweeping away of this world and all the heavens, according to God’s word. And the creation and the arrival of the New Jerusalem, the house of peace. And we will be citizens therein, and we will behold the one who has made us. And we will no longer live by faith, but by sight. And it will never, ever end. And we will feel safe, and we will know peace.

        Yes, in our days of turmoil and uncertainty we long for peace and safety. And so it shall be given. It is coming. Be alert, be watchful, the Lord says, for that day comes like a thief in the night when no one will expect it. But come it will, for God always, always, always keeps His promises.

        In the name of Him who is the Son of Man, who is Jesus Christ, our Messiah, and Redeemer, Amen.