This verse is taken from:
Revelation 1. 5
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“search the scriptures” John 5:39
It is evident that the book of the Revelation claims to be the inspired Word of God. John, the Lord’s servant, states unequivocally that what he writes comes from God, who is and who was and who is to come. Equally, it comes from the seven-fold Spirit ‘and from Jesus Christ, who is the prince of the kings of the earth’, Rev. 1. 5.
The words ‘kings of the earth’ occur twenty-four times in our King James Bible. It is a phrase that often does not fare well. For example, here in the Revelation it is used in eight other instances (6. 15; 16. 14; 17. 2, 18; 18. 3, 9; 19. 19; 21. 24). In each case but the last it portrays the world’s rulers as described in Psalm 2, ‘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 bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us’, vv. 2-3. These kings are seen in a wicked tryst with the mother of harlots, impelled by the demonic world, and in league with other nations when they at last find something on which they agree: ‘And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army’, Rev. 19.19.
But that disheartening view of human government is not the final scene. Our Lord’s beneficent rule is prefigured in that of Solomon. The descriptions of the two reigns are remarkably similar. And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth’, 1 Kgs. 4. 34; ‘So king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches and for wisdom’, 1 Kgs. 10. 23; ‘So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory’, Ps. 102.15. The blessed day approaches when the Servant-King shall take His rightful place and all will recognise He deserves it: ‘The nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it’, Rev. 21. 24. Then will come to pass the words concerning David’s greater Son, ‘I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth’, Ps. 89. 27.
