3. A Parable

This great king honored his own word above everything. When he spoke, he considered the thing he said to be more important than himself. The king also had a son.  The king’s son sat on a throne next to his father, agreeing with his father in everything.  The son of the king kept and fulfilled every word his father spoke. Therefore, in the great king’s eyes, his word and his son were the same thing.

 

Once upon a time a great and mighty king ruled over a vast kingdom with great wealth and power. He ruled absolutely and beyond reproach; his thoughts ever focused on the well-being of his kingdom. More than that, he refused to control anyone or to dictate to anyone what to do. All were free to love him at their own choice.

This great king honored his own word above everything. When he spoke, he considered the thing he said to be more important than himself. The king also had a son.  The king’s son sat on a throne next to his father, agreeing with his father in everything.  The son of the king kept and fulfilled every word his father spoke. Therefore, in the great king’s eyes, his word and his son were the same thing.

Since the king kept the goodness and well being of his kingdom ever before himself, then by all means, he had the right to consider his word to be above all.  And always, the king would point to his son, honoring his son before the entire kingdom. He would say to all, “My son upholds and carries out the words I speak, therefore, give all regard to him.” 

In the same way, wherever the son went, he told everyone about the goodness and greatness of his father.  As he performed the words his father had spoken, he turned the attention of all to his father, saying, “My father is greater and mightier than I am. It is he who does this great work.”

All the kingdom enjoyed this wonderful relationship between their king and their prince.  They talked and sang about the goodness of the kingdom.

Now, the great king was troubled in his heart. Even though his entire kingdom honored his word, they really didn’t know how powerful it was, or what it was capable of doing.  Everything seen of his word was just the easy parts.  They saw great works, mighty cities, and vast,  productive plains all built by the son through the word of his father, but the old man knew that these things were only a small, external part of the power and glory in his word.

Therefore, the king made a decision, an incredible, monumental decision, a decision that none would understand and many would challenge or wonder at or weep.  The king decreed to allow his word to be tested, to be challenged, to be proven in the furnace of adversity and sorrow.

The great king also had a great enemy.  This enemy never challenged the king in his throne, but he liked to consider himself something above the mere riff-raff.  In his mind, if he wanted to, he could truly challenge the king. The king was satisfied with his enemy’s false belief because it served his purpose. With the exception of the king and his son, the enemy was the most intelligent person in the kingdom.  He was useful to the king however, because he was also very stupid.

The great enemy lived in the kingdom. The great king ruled over the entire world. Therefore the enemy lived not only in the kingdom, but in the very court itself, and he appeared daily before the king.

Meanwhile, the king made his plans. He purposed to do two things simultaneously. He wanted to demonstrate before all his kingdom the power of his word and the honor of his son, and he also wanted to see his son married.

There was only one woman eligible to marry the son of the king. The king’s son could marry no one but the daughter of a king.  He could marry only royalty, a woman just like himself. 

There was such a woman in the kingdom.  She was the ward of the king.  The king knew her well, better than she knew herself. 

But he had determined that the woman who married his son would choose and love him of her own accord, as her equal in mind and heart, and not because he was the son of the king, or because of the great glory of being the wife of a prince. 

The king also determined to demonstrate to his entire kingdom the power of his word and the honor of his son through this woman.

So the great king set his purpose in motion and here is how it happened.

~~~

The set day came; the king stood before all his people to declare to them the power of his word and the honor of his son. 

“My word,” he boasted, “is so great that even if I clothed it in utter weakness, even if I allowed it to be assaulted by every foe and adversity, it would still accomplish the purpose for which I sent it, and it would do so within and in spite of that great weakness.”

At that moment, the enemy seized his chance, rising up before all the court and before the king and his son.  He pointed a crooked finger at the king, shouting in a savage and vicious voice, “The king is a liar and his word is not true.” 

The enemy held in his hand a glove, which he threw down before the standing king. In anger, the son stood to take up the challenge cast before his father. 

“Wait,” the father said, putting out his hand.  “I have a better plan.”

“You have challenged my word,” he said to the enemy, “And you have cast a challenge before me. I accept your challenge. Since you have challenged my word and not myself, it is my word that will take up the challenge. Indeed, I need not face you because you are no challenge to me. The champion of my choosing will stand in my place. Three times my champion will face you concerning my word.  If you win two out of the three, then your challenge stands. But if my champion wins two out of three, then my word indeed is true and will triumph within all weakness.  You will be destroyed and all that you stand for if he wins two out of three. I have spoken.”

The king said this because he knew his purpose would not work unless his enemy “won” the first round, and by doing so, imagine that he “could win.”

Now the king had built a great house prepared just for the woman betrothed to his son. He wanted the day of the wedding to be glorious beyond comparison.

But it was to this very house that the king’s enemy now turned his steps. He had been smitten and shamed because he had not been able to stand before the wrath on the face of the king’s son, and his weakness infuriated him.

   He thought to himself, “What better way to triumph over the king’s son than to seduce and destroy his bride?”

When he arrived at the house prepared for the woman, he found it empty, for she had not yet been placed there. And so he called for all like-minded inhabitants of the kingdom, and many heard his cry who had been stricken with doubt when they had heard the challenge given to the king and had, in their eyes, seen him hesitate. 

Every darkened heart in the kingdom crept to the house of the woman. The enemy ordered his forces.

“My first champion to contest the enemy and to prove the power of my word shall be the woman I am preparing for my son,” declared the king. “And in so doing, we will determine whether she is worthy of marriage to the son of my right hand.”

Then the king sent the woman into her house. She was young and beautiful beyond measure.  But the enemy hid himself, and she did not know he was there, nor had she heard of his challenge to the king.

~~~

You already know the next part of the story, the beginning of the Great Story of God.

Round one begins in Paradise, with the woman facing the serpent.

Round two was the king’s son himself, defeating the serpent.

Round three, however, is the woman again, facing the serpent again, and this time clothed with the son himself, carrying his life in her belly, and birthing the holy.

By the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established.