Peter Allison's sermon 'The Glorious Success of the Messianic Kingdom' focuses on Isaiah chapter 2, highlighting the prophetic vision of the mountain of the Lord's house being exalted above all nations and the promise that many nations will flow to it. This represents the growth and ultimate victory of the church, with hope being a central theme. Hope, as defined in the sermon, is essential for perseverance in spiritual change, and it is brought about by the Holy Spirit working through God's word. The sermon emphasizes the importance of the Scriptures in providing hope and guiding believers through trials. The 'latter days' mentioned in Isaiah are interpreted as the messianic reign of Jesus Christ, which is currently being progressively fulfilled. Evidence of this fulfillment is seen in the global spread of Christianity, the transformation of cultures, and the enduring influence of biblical principles.

Please turn to Isaiah chapter 2. Beginning at the first verse, hear God's word. The word that Isaiah the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.

For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and rebuke many people. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. May Jehovah bring His judgments of old to mind and comfort us in them.

Gracious Father in heaven, please Give to us the Spirit of illumination. And open our hearts to hear your voice this morning, to receive your word with meekness, to go forth in obedience. And I ask that you would sanctify my sinful lips, that from a vessel of clay the riches of Your grace and the truth of Your Word may be brought to us. In Jesus' name, Amen. Chapter 1, we've been looking at for the past number of weeks, was an overview of the entire book of Isaiah.

You could think of it as the table of contents for Isaiah's book. Reading through it, it gave us a preview of what is to come. And so chapter two then begins as it were the book itself. And the very first message that he opens this book with is a message of hope. A message of hope is to bring hope by describing the triumph of Christ and His Kingdom over every other nation on earth.

That's the point here in this short passage. Isaiah's message, as we saw in chapter 1 and as we see in the remainder of the book, is going to be a very hard message to hear. As the first chapter indicated, things are not only not going very well, but they're going to get worse, a lot worse. They're going to get a lot worse unless some changes are made. Some changes by the people of God in the church.

And as we all know change can be very hard. In fact true spiritual change is impossible for us apart from the enabling grace and power of the Holy Spirit working in us. But even then, it's hard. It takes perseverance. Hard tasks take perseverance and sticking at them, even when it's hard.

And what makes us stick at things when they're hard? It's hope. Because without hope, hard, arduous tasks are impossible. Because without hope, discouragement quickly sets in, followed by defeat. Without hope, we easily give up.

Paul says in Romans 8.25, if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. See, hope is what brings that perseverance. Hope is what brings this eager expectation. And when we have the eager expectation for something that we don't yet see, then we're able to persevere. And so one of the works of the Holy Spirit is to bring that hope.

Paul's prayer for the Romans, Romans 15, was that they would abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit works through the Word to bring that hope. The Spirit of God works through the Word of God testifying to that Word and to its truth to bring that hope. Paul told the Romans also in Romans 15 that the things which were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. See, the scripture was written for us to learn from.

It was written so that we might know what to hope for from God as well as the basis and the grounds for that hope. That's why God has given us His word. Even the meets and bounds that we read about in Joshua has been written for our learning that we might through the patience and comfort of those scriptures might have hope. It's the patience and comfort of the scriptures. Patience and comfort presume what?

Patience presumes the existence of trouble. And comfort presumes the existence of sorrow. When things are going well, you know, you don't need to have patience. It's when things are difficult, when there's trouble, there's difficulty, that's when we become impatient, right? And we're sitting in the traffic.

It's not moving, we become impatient. So patience implies troubles, and comfort implies sorrows. When things are happy, you know, at the celebrations of life and so on. That's not when we're needing comfort. It's in the times of sorrow and times of loss that we need comfort.

And so, Paul can say in Romans 5, that we glory in tribulations knowing that tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance character and character hope. Hope. Now hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. And so we see that hope brings the ability to persevere in the hard work of change, to persevere in this war, this striving with our flesh, the world and the evil one. And that's, of course, one of the first principles in helping people, helping people like us to grow and to change is to bring hope.

And after that is to encourage that hope. See hope is the theologically and biblically grounded expectation of God's help and God's blessing. And that's what makes confrontation, our human responsibility and obedience, fruitful rather than a crushing burden. And so Isaiah begins this message, a message that will be crushing at times, a message that will be confrontational, a message that will be calling for change, deep change, significant change. He begins this message with a picture of the glorious success of the coming Messianic Kingdom.

The exaltation of God's house, the Lord's house, above the hills on the top of the mountain. And so with that as our setting, as the introduction, and let's look at this hope. Now first, we see that this is a word that Isaiah saw, a word He saw. We normally think of hearing words. But God's Word is also said to be seen.

The Apostle John speaks of the Word of Life, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled concerning the words of life. These things, he said, we write to you that your joy may be full." And interestingly, the prophecies of Micah and Amos, who are also contemporaries of Isaiah. Amos was in the days of Isaiah. It's the words of Amos which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Isaiah. And in Micah's case it is the word of the Lord that came to Micah of Morisheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

And this is this is the words of Isaiah. So it's simultaneously notice it's simultaneously Amos's word which he saw, the word of the Lord which Micah saw, and the word here that Isaiah saw. See it's the Lord's word see it's the Lord's word because he is the author of it. It's attributed to a human author because that is the channel through which it comes and it's it's that word bears his style and his mannerisms but it's been breathed out by God so word here this word is a synonym for vision that's used in Chapter 1, the vision that Isaiah saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Isaiah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. So these words both refer to the revelation of God.

Isaiah saw or wrote what he saw just like the Apostle John was instructed to write what he saw in the book of Revelation. So Isaiah in this case doesn't hear the word, he sees the word with this inner eyes of his mind. So the key here is that words formed an essential part of this revelation of God. It's a revelation in a vision that was communicated with words. So we see then being emphasized both the written character of the Scriptures as the spoken word of God, that which is breathed out by God.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God. It's breathed out. But they come to us in written form. And that's also very important. The scriptures are the written word of God.

And So the first thing Isaiah says is it will come to pass that the mountain of the Lord's house will be established on the top of the mountains. And of course, this is speaking of the growth of the church. The mountain of the Lord's house. We saw last week that Zion was a reference to the church. In verse 27, Zion would be redeemed with justice in chapter 1.

Zion, you remember, was the hill in Jerusalem on which the temple sat. It was called Mount Zion. In the Old and New Testament, the temple was the Lord's house. Remember, Jesus rebuked the money changers in the temple and said, Take these things away. Do not make my Father's house a house of merchandise.

But now the church which is the people of God is called the house of God. In 1st Corinthians 3, 9 Paul told them the Corinthians you are God's field you are God's building and in and he told Timothy that he wrote he was writing that first letter to Timothy so that he would know how to conduct himself in the house of God and he wasn't saying Timothy I'm writing this letter to you about how to choose elders and what their qualifications are and what your mission is for what you're going to do when you're in the temple in Jerusalem. No, he was saying this is written so that you know what to do in the church as you minister in the church of Jesus Christ, which is the pillar and the ground of truth. And in 1 Peter 2, we are called living stones being built up to a spiritual house. A holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

And in Hebrews the church is called Mount Zion. It says, but you have come in Hebrews 12 22, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels. We have come to Mount Zion, this house of God. We, in assembling together as the church of Jesus Christ, or the house of God, we've come to Mount Zion. The church is the place from which God exerts His sovereign role.

It's the place from which His gospel of reconciliation is proclaimed, the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the mountain of the Lord's house. And in Jerusalem it was a little hill compared with many other mountains. But God said that this hill on which His house sat would be exalted above all the other hills. It would be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills." See, the true worship of God by the Church of Jesus Christ will gloriously overshadow every other religion, every other false god, every other practice.

God's Word will be exalted over every other so-called sacred book. Truth will prevail. The truth will be known. The law will be honored and obeyed. Isaiah says that God will exalt the law and make it honorable.

And further this is going to be true in every nation. All the nations will flow to it. Many people will come and say, come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. Let us go to his house. Let us come to his people and worship him in the in where he puts his name to the house of the God of Jacob.

It's going to say many people are going to come to church. But more than that, they're going to live out this, the truth of God's word in their lives. Many nations will flow to it. This is speaking then of the conversion of the Gentiles. In Isaiah's day it was one nation.

The Church of God was in one nation. This is a promise that the Church of God will be throughout the world. And many nations will flow into it and other places it speaks of a river of living water flowing out. But here is the nations that are pouring in that word their flow is basically the verb form of the word river. We have words like that, right, like produce, you know, that are both nouns and verbs.

And that's kind of what's here. There's going to be a river. And it's going to be a confluence of all these different nations coming together in one massive river. Some day in history, right? Christianity will will be exalted over all other religions.

They will all give way to the exaltation of Christ. All other forms of worship will fall into insignificance. Now the church here notice does not replace Israel. The church doesn't replace, it's not replacement, what's sometimes called today replacement theology. The gentiles are brought into the church of the Old Testament.

They're added, it's an addition, not a replacement. They are grafted into the natural branch, the natural olive tree. Yes, there are some natural branches that are broken out, but not all of them. That root is the same root. There's one tree and the Gentiles are brought in and grafted in they're cut out of the wild olive tree which is wild by nature and grafted in to the olive tree the cultivated olive tree and That's why Christians are called the children of Abraham.

The Jews are not the sons of Abraham. Non-believing, Christ-hating Jews are not the sons of Abraham. It's those who are in Christ, whether they're of a Jewish origin, descendants of Abraham, physical in the flesh, or whether they're descendants of any of the other sons of Noah. We are all, those in Christ are called sons of Abraham. Abraham is called our father, the father of those who believe.

The law and the judgment will proceed, will go forth from Jerusalem. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and He will judge between the nations and rebuke many people. We're talking about here a sovereign global work of God, putting the desire to be taught by the Lord into the hearts of the people of the nations of the earth. And it's the church, you see, from which this law comes forth. It's both the Proclamation of the Gospel by the ministers of the Word that are sent as well as all of God's people testifying to the truth of the Word of God.

That's what's pictured here. God's law will be the standard by which judges render judgments. It will be the standard by which the laws of the land are set up. He will teach us his ways and we will walk in his paths, Isaiah says. It's a really a beautiful picture of victory.

The victory of Christ's messianic reign in the hearts of the people throughout the world, bringing about a peace, bringing about the end of war, the end of fighting. Because where do fights come from? They come from the lust of the flesh that war within us. Now, when is this going to happen? I skipped over that but if you go back to the second verse, it says it will come to pass in the latter days.

The big question is when is that? What are the latter days? What are the latter days? There are some 12 or 13 references to latter days in the Old Testament which can begin to point us and give us some clues as to when these days are. Remember when Balak hired Balaam to curse Israel, and Balaam ended up blessing the Israelites and cursing them instead, the Moabites.

And Beilam said in Numbers 24, 14, and now indeed I am going to my people. This is right before he gave his last and fourth prophecy. He said, I will advise you what this people, speaking of Israel, the Israelites, God's people, the church, the Old Testament, he said, I will advise you what this people will do to your people, referring to Moab, in the latter days. And then Balaam went on to prophesy of Israel's ascent and shattering of Moab's forehead. And in one sense this prophecy you could say might have been fulfilled in 2 Samuel 8 when David defeated the Moabites and executed two-thirds of them as God's minister of vengeance and justice.

But like David's entire reign, This victory was typical of Christ's victorious messianic reign. And that prophecy that Balaam went on to give, and they're in Numbers 24, finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. It speaks about a star rising. Justin Martyr writing in the early second century attributes the star arising, that Balaam says, to the star seen by the Magi in connection with Christ. Aaronais does the same.

Moses and Jeremiah make some references to the latter days of Israel, just like this Isaiah reference. But there are two references in Daniel from which we can get some significant help on understanding this reference to the latter days. When Daniel stood before King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2 to tell him both the dream that he'd had and the meaning of the dream. He said, but there is a God in heaven who I said, I can't tell you, but there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. And then Daniel proceeds to tell the king the dream that he had.

Now you remember the story, the king had a dream. And he called for his wise people to tell him the meaning of the dream but he also wanted them to tell him the dream itself he wanted to be sure they weren't just making something up right and he's gonna he's gonna see if he had if they're what they said the dream was matched what he had. Of course, they said, well, there's nobody in the whole creation that can tell you the dream. If you tell us the dream, then we can make something up about what it means. But we can't tell you the dream and what it means, except Daniel.

Remember, he went and sought the Lord. He prayed, he told his three friends, sought the Lord and he prayed, and the Lord revealed it to him. So he came to Nebuchadnezzar and he told him the dream that he saw, the statue with the head of gold, the neck and chest of silver, you know, the bronze torso and the legs of iron and the feet of iron and clay. He said, that's what you saw. And then he said, you watch, Nebuchadnezzar, you watch while a stone was cut without hands, struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.

Notice that stone is cut without hands, and it strikes the feet. It doesn't hit the head or the chest, it strikes the feet. They're made of iron and clay. And then the iron and the clay and the bronze and the silver and the gold were crushed together and became like chaff from the summer threshing floor. The wind carried them away so there was no trace.

And the stone that struck the image became this great mountain and it filled the whole earth That's what you saw And then he told them what that meant He explained that the different metals of the statue pertained to different kingdoms. The Babylonian was the head of gold, that was Nebuchadnezzar. The Medo-Persian, in other words, Nebuchadnezzar could be gratified that he was gold, more valuable than everything else. I think there was some benefit to Daniel there. And then the Persian was the silver, the Greek was the bronze, and the Roman Empire were the legs of iron and the feet of iron and clay.

And Daniel said that all these kingdoms would be defeated by this stone that's cut without hands. He said, in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people. It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever So these were the empire nations empires that were in rebellion against her creator God The stone cut without hands The stone made by God is the Kingdom of God, or also called the Kingdom of Heaven. And this has been fulfilled, right? All the nations are gone.

All those nations in Nebuchadnezzar's vision have ceased to exist 15 to 20 centuries ago. The nations that were in revolt against God had been defeated by the preaching of the Gospel. The Roman Empire was progressively defeated by Christianity through the preaching of the Gospel, through the lives of the saints and the martyrs of the church, such that by the fourth century AD, the Roman Empire embraced the Christian faith. And the Roman empire no longer exists. It's just a few ruins over in these scattered places in the Mediterranean.

But the Church of Jesus Christ exists. And it continues to grow, filling the whole earth just as Daniel prophesied. There's also a second reference in Daniel 14 when Daniel is fasting and praying and there's an angel that's sent to Daniel to make him understand what would happen to his people in the latter days. And he says this vision refers to many days yet to come and he goes on to describe in detail the battles between the Medes or sorry the Greek the Greek nations and the Medo-Persian nations yes and and and then in the New Testament the latter days become the last days. So we have that transition in Joel and in Acts, Joel 2 and Acts 2.

Because in Joel has what, he refers to what would come afterward and to those days. And Peter, quoting that exact prophecy, says, and it shall come to pass in the last days that God would do this. So we have all these connections and pointing to the latter days and the last days being the messianic reign of Jesus Christ. But the writer of the Hebrews removes all doubt here. He identifies that the days we are currently living in as the last days.

Hebrews 1. God who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son." These last days. Notice we're living in the last days. The last days are the days where Christ is reigning from the throne of God in heaven. And so we are living then in these last days that Isaiah spoke about, these latter days.

There's nearly an identical passage in Micah 4. It's almost word for word. It just has one additional thing that people were going to be able to live in peace in their cities. Malachi 3. Malachi 4, I mean.

But But there's considerable difference, I guess the second question that we want to close with is there's considerable difference in how the fulfillment of these days looks like. What does that look like? This message, this prophecy, this message of hope, we all can recognize it's one of hope, It's one of victory, but what's it look like really? There are two extremes, and then everything in the middle. The one extreme sees this prophecy as already completely fulfilled.

Concerning when these prophecies will be fulfilled, Eusebius of Caesarea, who was a contemporary of Constantine, wrote in his commentary on Isaiah, he said, The sign will be that the gospel of peace will then be preached to every nation, and there will no longer be districts and governments. Neither will nations form factions and rise up against each other, nor will the cities of various nation-states go to war and fight with one another. Everyone everywhere will live in harmony and peace. No longer will those who till the earth have any forethought for swords and instruments of war as in the old days, which they used to practice because of the frequent uprising of their neighbors." And then he says this, These things were fulfilled right after the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. And he goes on to say, And that no one could find the same stable and peaceful state of affairs as existed in prior times under the Roman rule following the times of our Savior." He says that this is clear, basically saying that this is the case you can see with our own eyes.

He says, there were civil relations between nations, there was peace everywhere in the country as well as in the cities when the new law and the evangelical world word ruled over the lands of the Jews. And peace ruled the world without hindrance and filled all nations. Now that's somewhat surprising, right? That Eusebius who was regarded as something of a polymath, a great man, a great theologian of many gifts and talents who wrote some significant commentaries, one of them being on Isaiah, that he would describe that time as in such way, but he did. In the 17th century following the victories of the Reformation, there were many commentators who saw their age as the beginning of the thousand year reign.

They believed in a literal thousand year reign and they saw they were discussing in the in that 16th century sorry the 16th 17th century what exactly this millennial reign this thousand years would start because they saw it. They saw it as having come. Of course, on the other extreme is the thinking prevalent today that nothing like what is described here is present and never has been. And that the fulfillment of these prophecies is a long way off a long long way off that all we have and they look to all of the the problems the injustice the political prisoners of rampant fornication and they rightly ask you know, is this what Isaiah is talking about? When we come to church, you know, when Super Bowl Sunday, there's more people there than there were in the churches.

Right. I think that was recently here. And so they say, how can how can today be how can these things be fulfilled? Well, I think the truth lies between these that there is a progressive fulfillment of these promises a progressive fulfillment no I don't think Eusebius is right to say that they were fulfilled in the time after Christ, but they started. And but neither do I think it's right to say, well, there there is nothing here and the fulfillment is a long way off.

It's a progressive fulfillment throughout Christ's reign. And I'd like to give you just a few examples of the progressive fulfillment, this victory, This discipling of the nations that we live in and often, because we're living in that, don't see it. It's like the fish swimming in water. Does he know he's wet? It's all he knows.

Sometimes these changes are so pervasive that we don't realize how big of a change they represent. The one I think you probably have heard many of these, but I'd like to put them all together in one place here this morning. First one is the dating. Dates are always given in the name of the reigning king. Always, always have been.

Look throughout the Bible. It always say, it always dates things in the fifth year of this king, in the 20th year of this. Right? The sequencing of time is always done in the year of the reigning king. Since the coming of Christ's kingdom, all dating in all countries around the world has been in terms of the years of His reign.

And even when they try to change it from A.D. In the year of our Lord, Anno Domino, Even when they try and change that to CE, which they say stands for the Common Era, I just say it stands for the Christian Era. The years are still in terms of the reign of Christ. Whether they call it 2026 CE or AD, it's still the 2025 year of Christ's reign. What about slavery?

There's a global transition from the universal acceptance of slavery to the legal eradication of slavery in almost every nation. In Jesus' day and in the day of Isaiah, slavery was as much a part of the culture, of the society as dishwashers are to us, as cars are to us. Slavery was an accepted part and vast numbers of people were slaves. It's been the gospel that's brought liberty, that's brought a total change throughout the world so that now slavery is viewed as an evil. Does it exist?

Certainly. It exists in this nation, certainly, in many different forms, But it's seen as an evil. Christ said he came to proclaim liberty to the captive. That liberty is first spiritual, being translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, from bondage to sin to freedom in Christ, to the law which is a law of liberty. But this spiritual freedom has a physical component as well.

In the year of Jubilee, physical slaves were set free. Or what about the treatment of women in Augustine's day and he's writing in the 400s in his confessions he talks about his how his mother Monica dealt with her husband's anger and it implicit in this discussion is how frequently husbands beat up their wives in that culture and how acceptable it was. He brings it up because the other wives around Monica in Carthage knew about Philip's violent demeanor, but they didn't see her walking around with black eyes and bruises on her face like they all were. And so they had they'd ask her why how is it that you don't have these bruises and she would tell them well today but see in that day it was perfectly accepted it may not have been liked but it was accepted today it's not at all accepted even among unbelievers it's not acceptable it doesn't mean it doesn't happen but it's no longer legally acceptable. It's prosecuted.

It's a crime, and rightly so. Or what about the acknowledgement of God in civil proceedings. Courts around the world require owes to God. Congress opens with a prayer. The top civil ruler, the oath of office for the top civil rulers of Australia, New Zealand, Croatia, Fiji, Germany, Guatemala, the Philippines, South Africa, Nigeria, Romania, Canada all include, so help me God.

In Liberia about somewhere around 10-15 years ago when the president failed to raise her right hand and place the other hand on the Bible and kiss it at the end of the oath as is normal as is the normal and usual ritual of all presidents It created a constitutional crisis where she actually sworn in In the Netherlands so help me God Almighty Norway so help me God Almighty God the Almighty and omniscient in Peru president Humala sworn oath in the Bible to respect the rule of law in the United Kingdom The oath is will you to the utmost of your power maintain the laws of God and the true profession of the gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolently? The doctrine worship discipline and government thereof as a law established in as by the law established in England Now we can point to the fact that maybe these people taking these oaths aren't Christians. Maybe they're not.

In many cases they aren't. But that doesn't diminish the fact that here these rulers are acknowledging the sovereign God as the one by whom they rule. And what happens in the official language and institutions of government is significant. It's very significant. Or the conquering of the Roman Empire by Christianity, just as Daniel prophesied.

Or the universal knowledge of the scriptures. The knowledge of the scriptures covered the earth today as the waters covered the earth. The Bible is the largest selling book in the entire world According to the Gideons International and I lost verified this data that they had the total numbers number of Bibles printed at over 6 billion there about 7, 000 languages that were spoken There are 1300 Translations into of the Bible into new languages going on. There are 11 over, almost 1, 200 languages that have the New Testament already. There are 450 languages that have the complete Bible.

There are 20 over 2500 languages that have some portion of the Bible. The Bible was the first book ever printed. If you look at the manuscripts of the Bible, compare the manuscripts of the Bible to the manuscripts of any other writing of that era. You have Caesar's Gallic Wars. You have 10 manuscripts that we have today.

That was written about 50 BC. You have the history of Herodotus. We have eight manuscripts. That was about 400 BC. The Roman history of Livy, we have about 20 manuscripts that was written in the time of Christ.

You have the history of Tacitus. You have two manuscripts written about 180. You have the history of Thucydides. You have eight manuscripts from about 400 BC. Sorry, those were when that's when the originals were written But if you look at the New Testament we have 5250 manuscripts of the New Testament and then if you look at what's the time between when the original was written and the oldest manuscript we have?

It's a thousand years in some cases. For the Caesars-Galic Wars, it's almost a thousand years between when it was written and the oldest manuscript 1300 years for the history of Herodotus 700 years for the history of Tacitus 1300 years for the history of Thucydides 35 or a hundred years for the New Testament. The Bible has over 6 billion, and that's probably numbers a little outdated. By contrast, the Quran is less than a billion. 20 million Bibles are sold each year in the United States, in addition to tens of millions that are distributed free.

The American Bible Society says that since their inception in 1860 they have distributed over 7 billion Bibles worldwide. That's one for every person in the world, even today. There are over 6 million Bibles distributed in China in 2002, But there's no one gathering complete statistics worldwide. The United Bible Society's distributed 578 millions of scripture copies of scripture worldwide in 2002 and so on. The Gideons believe they have placed almost two billion Bibles since they began in 1899 They say about 92 percent of Americans own one and the average household has several a number majority of people say it holds answers and a recent Gallup poll survey found that half of Americans say they read their Bible at least in once in a month I think that numbers probably slipped a lot in the last 10 or 20 years.

And we could go on, but here's an atheist... You might say, well, yeah, that's the Bible, but who's listening to it? Who's actually really reading it? Here's an atheist website that I think demonstrates this dominion of Christ. He says, this white site says, Secondly, not all copies of the Bible are sold for money.

Enormous numbers are handed out free. And he says, so you can't really count this in a bestseller list because they really haven't been sold. And the person receiving the book may not actually want it. That's true. Compare this to the Harry Potter series where the numbers that were given away free dwindles into insignificance.

And he said, not all the copies of the Bible are read and almost none are read cover to cover. If we turn our attention to the modern novel, it would be bizarre and ludicrous to experience, to only read a few pages in the middle and ignore the rest and remember all those abandoned copies of the Bible that lie in bedside in hotels which are never read barely even seen and the same goes for hundreds of Bible's locked in school buildings or that are not read or sit idle on people's mantles. And so on, he goes on. But here's the question. What author ever inspired his disciples to hand out many of his works, so many of his works for free.

Who buys copies of Harry Potter to give away for free? What author or king has their book in the hotel dresser drawers by the millions? What other author has their book or their oracles in school cabinets by the millions are distributed to every home every nook every cranny. What other king's enemies because this was a atheist right what are the king's enemies acknowledged the ubiquity of their enemies oracles how many professional sports teams acknowledged the dominance of the competitive team what about the ubiquity of church buildings no other cause There's no other cause to which so many buildings have been dedicated. What about the stability of the governments that Christ has established?

Despite strenuous efforts over many generations, concerted efforts to alter people's perception as men as providers of the family and women as keepers at home. That's still the predominant association. You can't suppress it. People haven't been able to change the week as the basic cycle of life. They have tried, the French tried, they went to try to go to a 10-day week.

Didn't work. The sixth, the seventh day week is what God instituted. It celebrates God's work of creation and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's why we meet today. There's no planetary basis for a week, unlike the month and the year and the day.

See, the week, the celebration of the weekly Sabbath is reflective of the messianic kingship of Christ. It's a recognition that this is the Lord's day, that He has defeated death, that He's risen from the grave, that He's paid the debt of our sin. So, Brothers and sisters, the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking. It's not necessarily counted by the number of tanks or soldiers. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

And that has transformed the world, and it will continue until He returns. Let's pray. Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you for these many signs of your victory, of your progressive reign, a reign of peace, a reign of justice, a reign that brings liberty to the captives and those in bondage, bondage to sin and the evil one. We thank you for the transformation of cultures, of nations around the world, for the light of your gospel and for the thousands and thousands that are laboring, even now, to bring that gospel to those that are yet in darkness, to disciple the nations that are yet in darkness, to bring revival, repentance to those like ours that have fallen away. Lord, we ask that you would encourage us in this battle, that you would give to us the hope, the hope that we have grounded in your resurrection, that you have defeated death, you have defeated sin, and you have ascended into heaven where you are reigning seated at the right hand of the Father.

May you give to us a zeal for your kingdom. We might seek first your kingdom and its righteousness. We ask that you would give us a zeal for those that do not yet know you, for those that are around us that do not yet know you. We ask through Jesus Christ, Amen.