Well I got up early to watch the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. We had taken a couple of trips to London over the years. My last name is about as English as you can get....as one of the towers in the Tower of London is named as such. I've told this story before. Back in the 1980s probably the most popular writer of Christian historical fiction wrote a whole series using my surname. What made it interesting is the main character in the first book had both my first and last name. To make it more interesting....my wife said that the physical description given him was as if it were me....right down to a scar on the left cheek....the character's scar from the English Civil War....mine not so heroic....from a spider bite while in the army. My wife wrote a letter to this prolific author and received a nice reply.
The newly crowned king became Charles III. Charles I was beheaded during that civil war. His son returned from France and became King Charles II during the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy....this in 1660....after Oliver Cromwell had died.
I watched with a blank stare as the hymns sung in Westminster Abbey extolled God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit....and as the newly crowned king vowed to be....Defender of the Faith.
Charles Spurgeon never experienced a coronation as Queen Victoria was crowned in 1837....the day after Spurgeon's second birthday....her reign lasting until her death in 1901....nine years after Spurgeon's. J. C. Ryle was born earlier....and biographies report that he only began to think about his eternal soul in the year that Victoria ascended the throne. He died seven months before the Queen of England.
God raises kings and He brings down kings. He raises presidents for His purpose. Psalm 2 points to the Messiah....it begins...
"Why do the nations rage,
And the people plot a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the LORD, and against
His Anointed saying
Let us break their bonds in pieces,
And cast away Their cords from us."
And it ends with this...after His wrath proclaimed in the judgment on these kings....
"Now therefore, be wise, O kings;
Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear,
And rejoice with trembling.
Blessed are all those who put
their trust in Him."
The monarch of England has only nominal powers....but only God knows what the future holds in this age of turmoil and uncertainty....and this land of an uncodified constitution. We do know this....the King of Kings will return in all righteousness and power and glory...and the doxology of Revelation 7:12....(one of seven doxologies in Revelation....that number of perfection)....will be shouted by....
"A great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands....
Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom,
Thanksgiving and honor and
power and might,
Be to our God forever and ever.
Amen."
Note on the title of the post....Revelation 4:1
