During the last sad years of King David, Absalom, his handsome and well beloved son, rebelled against his father. King David had been forced to leave his throne and flee for safety. It was not his first experience as a fugitive, but it was his saddest. Absalom, however, was slain, and now it is time for the King to return. It is the subject of conversation throughout all Israel.
David is particularly concerned that he be invited to return by his own tribe of Judah. He wants to come back by invitation in kingly fashion, and he has to send word to the priests to speak to the elders saying, “Why are ye the last to bring the king back to his house?” (2 Sam. 19:11). It must have been embarrassing to David. His own tribe, Judah, especially the priests and elders, should have taken the initiative to invite the king back to his throne. They had to be prodded by the king himself to do their obvious duty.
THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF ABSALOMS
Leaving the story, let us apply this text to David’s greater Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He too was of the tribe of Judah. He came to his own people and His own received Him not. But He is to return one day to reign, not only on David’s throne, but as King of kings and Lord of lords. At present He is away, but before He went away, He promised to return. During His absence, there have been many would-be usurpers. We have been plagued with plenty of Absaloms. We have joined with this upstart and that, and the pages of history are filled with the scheming, rebellion, and delusion of pretenders to the throne, and this will continue until the very last usurper, Antichrist himself, shall claim to be King of kings.
Of one thing we are certain. Every one of these counterfeits is doomed to defeat. The higher they climb the harder they fall, and there never will be peace and safety on this wretched earth until He shall return, whose right it is to reign. Return He will, and it could happen at any time.
WHO WANTS THE KING BACK?
Just here emerges one of the saddest questions in our modern world. If the King of Glory is to return to reign forever, one would think such wondrous news would be on every tongue. One would expect the street corners to buzz with such a topic of conversation, and that all our gatherings would find men and women discussing such a momentous event. Alas, one feels like walking the streets and asking chattering groups, all excited over trifles and facts, “Why speak ye not a word of bringing back the King?”
What is the explanation of this phenomenon? When Jesus came to earth the first time, there were three great world forces: the Roman world of government, the Greek world of culture, and the Hebrew world of religion; yet none of these was looking for the King. The mighty Roman world of government had accomplished wonders. It had welded the world together to some degree, linked much of it with highways, and maintained some semblance of law and order; but government had failed to meet the problem of humanity wallowing in iniquity.
The Greek world had created a culture of which it has been said, “Two centuries of ancient Athens produced men who, in statesmanship, philosophy, letters, oratory and art, set standards for all subsequent time.” Yet the world was reeking in corruption when Jesus came.
The Hebrew world had given to man the worship of one God, the Mosaic law, and the highest standards of righteousness. Yet the world knew not God and worshiped gods of its own.
Into such a world the King came, only to be rejected; yet as He died on Calvary His superscription, written in the three languages of these three worlds—Roman, Greek and Hebrew—proclaimed Him King.
Today we have the world of government, the world of culture, and the world of religion. It is time for the King to return, but you will listen in vain to hear any of these worlds speak a word of bringing back the King.
IS GOVERNMENT CALLING FOR THE KING?
Do you catch the faintest whisper of it from the world of government? Statesmen and diplomats huddle the world around to plot and plan the world of tomorrow, but the only one who can unscramble this mess and assemble this worldwide jigsaw puzzle is left outside the door. In the United States Senate, or the conferences of the United Nations, or the get-togethers of the world’s statesmen—why speak they not a word of bringing back the King? Certainly the world of government has failed to solve our problems. We merely exchange one dilemma for another. We get rid of this dictator and that, but we are on our way to the worst tyrant of all time. Man is not capable of governing himself, but will not submit to the government of the Son of God.
DOES CULTURE WANT HIM BACK?
Listen to the modern world of culture, and you will never hear a word of bringing back the King. Are they looking for Him in our universities? Is modern education getting ready to welcome Him? If you should rise in any academic convocation and propose the return of Christ as the solution of the world’s headache and heartache, you would be viewed as a crackpot; yet you need only to read the literature, look at the art, and study the culture of this age to know that man, by his wisdom, has not only failed to know God, but he has descended to a moral and spiritual state beneath the dignity of the beasts of the field. The world of culture flounders in a cesspool of iniquity.
WHAT ABOUT THE WORLD OF RELIGION?
Is the modern world of religion looking for the King? Millions in heathendom bow before sticks and stones. Other millions have their great religious systems with no place for Jesus. The world of religion has not solved the need of the soul of man, for there are more lost souls today than in all history.
You will remember that King David was concerned that His own tribe of Judah should welcome him home. Today one feels like turning to the Jews, to that nation “of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came…” (Rom. 9:5), to ask them, “Why speak ye not a word of bringing back your king?” There was a day when their King was on trial and their chief priests cried, “We have no king but Caesar” (Jn. 19:15). From that day to this, they have known one Absalom after another. They have suffered as no other race on God’s earth. This poor plagued people shall yet look on Him whom they have pierced and receive Him as their sovereign. Some of them as individuals so look for Him now, but there must come a day when all Israel shall be saved, for David’s Son must reign in Jerusalem.
SURELY THE CHURCH CALLS FOR HIM!
I press on to the saddest of all applications of our text. If the world has refused the King up to now, certainly one would expect to find plenty of conversation in the Church about bringing back the King. It certainly was a lively subject among the early Christians. Alas, one can sit in many a mighty religious assembly, day after day, and never know that the King is coming back again. One may listen to hours of addresses and discussions about the fix we’re in, hearing religious panaceas proposed ad infinitum, and never will a word spoken of bringing back the King. Here is the saddest spectacle in the Church today, and one feels like standing in many a gathering of the King’s own people to ask, “Why speak ye not a word of bringing back the King?”
Let one speak of the King’s return and he is viewed out of the corner of the eye suspiciously, as though he had brought up a troublesome subject. Some brother is sure to remark that it is a controversial subject. Well, any doctrine of the Christian faith is controversial. Other Bible themes have not been ignored because they are controversial.
HIS RETURN IS HARDLY A MINOR ISSUE
To be sure, as with other doctrines, some have gone overboard on the matter and have majored on prophecy, until they need to be balanced as did the Thessalonians of old. I am also persuaded that with most Christians today the devil has never had more success with any of his designs than with this, and that he has silenced the lips of believers on bringing back the King. It is almost inconceivable that any truth as clear and as frequent from the lips of our Lord should be on so few Christian lips today. It is amazing that the blessed hope which shows up on almost every page of the New Testament, and which was so great a part of early Christian faith, should be ignored as though it were a questionable quirk. In our church gatherings we easily get hot and bothered and talk aplenty about matters of far less importance. We are masters at bewailing the times, discussing the status quo, and debating ways and means. The devil is happy to have it so, if it will keep us from speaking a word of bringing back the King.
Someone may ask, “But what good would it do to talk about the King’s return? That is God’s business and He will take care of it in His own time and way. All that we can do is to be ready.” That is a very popular argument today but the New Testament Christians were not content merely to be ready. They loved the King’s return; they looked for it, and they lived in the light of it.
There is no use denying it: one fails to find in much of our religious world today the love of His appearing. What we love usually manages to get into our conversation. What is down in the well of the heart will come up in the bucket of the speech. When men refuse to speak of bringing back the King, either they do not love it or they are not prepared for it. There is indeed an academic speculation about the doctrine that can be almost as cold as the denial of the doctrine; but usually when men love to speak of bringing back the King, they love His appearing.
The early Christians looked for His return. Preparation was accompanied by expectation. It is true that Jesus did not return during their lifetime, but no one is mistaken when he lives as though He might come anytime. It is always proper to live looking for that blessed hope.
THE BLESSED HOPE HAS BLESSED RESULTS
These believers lived in the light of the Lord’s return. What good does it do to speak much of His appearing? Well, for one thing, “…every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 Jn. 3:3), and we are sadly in need of cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. That is what revival means and surely we need revival.
Also, when men love His appearing and look for Him, they make good witnesses, missionaries, and evangelists. All one needs to do to prove that is to check the list of God’s servants who have been most greatly used as ambassadors of Christ and fishers of men.
BONE OF HIS BONE
It is indeed a strange and sinister silence that has fallen over so much of the Church today, that so many who name the name of Christ speak not a word of His return. We can understand why the world is dumb because it is also blind—blinded by the god of this age to all the revelation of God. But remember that David’s greatest worry, in the passage with which we started, was that his own kinsmen of Judah should be the last to welcome him. Did you notice the words he used? “Ye are my brethren, my bones and my flesh” (2 Sam. 19:12). Does not that remind you of another verse, “For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones” (Eph. 5:30). If it grieved David that his kinsmen in the flesh should be so slow to speak of his return, what must our Lord think of us, the members of His Body, when we speak not a word to welcome Him again?
May God loosen the strings of our tongues and make us all members of His reception committee!
Why say ye not a word of bringing back the King?
Why speak ye not of Jesus and His reign?
Why tell ye of His Kingdom and of its glorious reign
But nothing of His coming back again?
Do you not want to look upon His loving face?
Do you not want to see Him glorified?
Would you not hear His welcome and in that very place
Where years ago we saw Him crucified?
O hark! Creations’ groans, how can they be assuaged?
How can our bodies know redemptive joy?
How can the war be ended in which we are engaged
Until He come the lawless to destroy?
“Why speak ye not a word of bringing back the King?”