No Kings marched against every crown but the one that is coming

By Mark Salley | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

Thanks to former special counsel Jack Smith for reminding people of his dedication. He was photographed Oct. 3 at the Power to the People Festival in Columbia, Md., sporting a Bruce Springsteen tour shirt featuring the anti-Trump slogan “No Kings.”

Ahh, reminders of the days of the No Kings riots from March of this year!

At that time CNN reported there were thousands of No Kings protests across the country. And the nokings.org website, still today, proudly boasts:

For over a year, millions of people have come together to send a clear message: in America, we have no kings. Power does not belong to billionaires, strongmen, or politicians who believe they are above accountability.

What the protesters forget — or perhaps never knew — is that there is a kingdom coming…a Kingdom of Heaven! This kingdom is mentioned 126 times in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Kingdom of God and its equivalents are named about 80 times in the gospels. The gospel of Matthew names the Kingdom of Heaven 32 times.

If someone knows the King of kings and the Lord of lords — Jesus Christ — he or she can have confidence that He is in control of the affairs of all men. Not just this country, but worldwide.

There was a king named Nebuchadnezzar, who reigned from 605 to 562 B.C. He had a dream he needed interpreted. As Got Questions recounts it, Daniel’s interpretation, given to him by God, explained that the statue in the king’s dream represented a series of kingdoms, each less glorious than the one before.

The first four kingdoms have been identified as the Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman Empires. Babylon fell to the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians. Greece became the successor to the Medo-Persian Empire. The last of those four empires was Rome.

Got Questions says some believe the final empire is yet to come: the kingdom of the Antichrist.

We know, according to Revelation 17:12-13, that the Antichrist will lead a coalition of ten nations (the statue’s ten toes?). And we know that Christ will defeat the forces of the Antichrist (Revelation 17:14). After that, Jesus will set up His kingdom—the rock smashes the image—and the kingdoms of this world will “become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15).

Christ is that rock, and the image is the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.

The No Kings protesters have things partially correct.

“Power does not belong to billionaires, strongmen, or politicians who believe they are above accountability.”

What the protesters fail to acknowledge…is the true King! People who refuse or reject Jesus’ free gift of faith will be left wanting when Jesus returns.

There is a King.
He is coming again.
He will gather in heaven those who have chosen to spend eternity with Him.

And those who have refused or rejected Christ will suffer eternal death. Got Questions defines it this way.

Eternal death is the fate that awaits all people who ultimately reject God, reject the gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ, and remain in their sin and disobedience. Physical death is a one-time experience. Eternal death, on the other hand, is everlasting. It is a death that continues through eternity, a spiritual death that involves a separation from God. Just as spiritual life, by grace through faith in Christ (Ephesians 2:8–9), is everlasting, eternal death is never-ending.

My prayer is for those who fail to accept the free gift of faith in Jesus and who, therefore, never will see the Kingdom of Heaven. Those who have “no king” will have no place to rest their head in eternity.

Mark W. Salley of Arvada worked in the communications office of Jefferson County Public Schools from 1982 to 1984, served as communications director for Bethel School District in Eugene, Ore., from 1985 to 1989, and as communications director for the Colorado Association of School Boards from 1989 to 1990.

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.