I will direct your attention to my left-hand side here. If you're with us this morning, you're aware that we were looking at, because of this celebration in our nation right now, we wanted to look at how God and providence has worked through our monarchy to bless us with the gospel, with the freedom of religion which we enjoy today. and we were looking at this section this morning of the history of our nation. Get this, yep, there we go. We were here this morning. I want to move on down to cover everything right down to our present queen tonight. We might need to finish this on Wednesday evening, and if we have to, we can do so. I also want to take you over to this blackboard here as well, and here we have the history of our English Bible. And here you have Henry VIII here, and you have James over here, you have Elizabeth where we are tonight, Elizabeth I. This too is very significant when we consider our monarchy and how we came to our English Bible, which we possess here today. So those are there to help, I trust, illustrate what we're speaking and bring everyone on board as we literally fly through about four 150 years of very, very rich and significant history. Now, what I want you to do right now is take your copy of the Scriptures. So, if you have a Bible with you, turn please to Joshua. In the book of Joshua, and we're going to the chapter 4. If you don't have God's Word with you, you can listen in as we read from this portion together. So, Joshua. chapter four, and it's really on a similar train of thought as we were considering this morning. We saw from Deuteronomy this morning that it's important to remember your history, to know your history, and the Lord makes it very clear we ought to remember what the Lord has done in generations gone past. You remember when we had our church anniversary, that was the psalm that we quoted, that that psalm that makes us look back to the past to contemplate our present and then we have hope for the future when we see how sovereign God is and I trust as we work our way through this subject again tonight you will be filled with courage that our God is able to preserve us. So Joshua chapter 4 verse 1, So here they are entering the promised land. Verse 2, Out of every tribe a man. And command ye them, saying, Take ye hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests' feet stood firm twelve stones, and ye shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place where ye shall lodge this night. Then Joshua called the twelve men, whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every tribe a man. And Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of Jordan, and take ye up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel. that this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall answer them, that the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, when it passed over Jordan. the waters of Jordan were cut off, and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel forever. And the children of Israel did so, as Joshua commanded, and took up 12 stones out of the midst of Jordan, as the Lord spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and carried them over with them unto the place where they lodged, and laid them down there. And Joshua set up 12 stones in the midst of Jordan, and the place where the feet of the priests which bear the ark of the covenant stood and they are there on to this day. Amen. We'll just end our reading there at the verse number nine and I'll make a comment on that reading just in a moment or two. Before I do so, before we come to consider our subject tonight, I'm going to invite you to take again your hymn books and we're turning to the hymn 204. The hymn 204, turn there with me. Now, I'm not turning to this hymn because it is one of our Queen's favourites, maybe, I don't know, but that's not my purpose for turning here. But if you will look with me at verse one, let us sing of his love once again, of the love that can never decay, of the blood of the lamb who was slain, till we praise him again in that day. If you move down to verse number four, then we'll march in his name. Till we come. You can hear language which lends itself to that of a king leading his people. Verse four, then we'll march in his name till we come. At his bidding to cease from the fight. And our savior shall welcome us home to the regions of glory and light. So with banner unfurled to the breeze, our motto shall holiness be till the crown From His hand we receive, and the King in His glory we see. And so we come now to the King of Kings. And that verse five, it's on the page 259. That verse five makes it very clear that our King is bringing us home. We're marching home with our King, and we read in the Bible, in the word of God, that He will give us a crown. That He will crown us. The victors. And this is heaven, men and women. This is the hope of the believer. Listen, for Christianity, it's not all doom and gloom. It is absolutely not. But we are on the victory side heading home to glory, to be crowned where we will live. with our glorious King, saved from sin, victorious over hell. And in that, we certainly rejoice. 204, we'll get the introduction and then we'll stand together to sing. Let's all stand. Let us sing of his love once again. Of the love that can never decay. Of the love of the family the same. Tell me praise him and hail him again. I will, Jesus will. And if love makes me blind, I'm sorry. I love you. I love you. Amen. Another stirring and rousing hymn for sure. Well, if you have your Bible open there, that's the book of Joshua in the Old Testament. And that fourth chapter, I want to encourage you once again to join with us in a word of prayer as we continue our study this evening. Just to be clear, we are setting aside today or Studies which we have been working in obviously on Sunday mornings. We were looking at Well, the truth of examining ourselves, whether or not we're saved. Now, we finished that study last Lord's Day morning, and we'll move on from that. Sunday evenings, we have been working through Genesis chapter two, three, four, and five, and we've enjoyed studying those chapters. I trust you have enjoyed considering them with me, as we have looked at the fall, and the devil, and the trees of knowledge of good and evil, and all that happened, and how Eve was deceived, I trust that's been profitable for you, but we're setting that to the side tonight, just a little break, I suppose, to do this topical, timely study on our monarchy. It's not often I preach on subjects like this, but I trust it will be of not only pleasure, but of great profit to your hearts and souls this evening again. Let's pray. Let's look to the Lord together. Our heavenly Father, As we come now to contemplate the truths that are before us, as we come to observe our history and the richness thereof, Lord speak to us. Strengthen our resolve to stand for Christ. We think, Lord, in those martyrs we just in passing mentioned this morning, those 300 religious dissenters, as they were called, those Protestants who were burnt at the stake at Mary's command. men and women who paid the great sacrifice because they believed that the Bible should be clearly taught and preached, that Christ should be exalted, and that the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed to all men without a pope, without a chapel, without beads to a Mary. But, O Lord, faith in Christ and in Christ alone, the Word of God sufficient to lead us. So, Lord, tonight as we contemplate our history, as you said in Deuteronomy, as you said in Joshua, we come to do that very thing tonight. So be with us, Lord. Educate our minds. Warm our hearts. Give strength to our souls. And Lord, help us to see Thee and love Thee more than ever before. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. In Joshua chapter 4, where we read together, Joshua told the man, he chose 12 men, a man from each tribe. We're reading those opening verses. So the waters would open up. In that miraculous way, and the whole tribe of Israel, millions now in number, would pass over Jordan into the promised land. They have journeyed from Egypt where God had released them by the 10 great plagues, and the Lord carried them 40 years through the wilderness, and now they stand at Jordan. And the Lord says, when you go over, each man lift the stone and carry it over with you. And then when you get to the other side, Joshua would build or erect those stones into a heap. Why? Well, we're told in verse number 6, verse 6 of Joshua 4, that this may be a sign among you. that when your children, the next generation, ask their fathers in time to come, saying, what mean ye by these stones? Imagine a little boy out with his father for a walk, or a little girl out with his mother, or whatever the circumstances would be, a family with their parents, and they walk by and they see this, these stones placed in a very specific shape, and they say, mom, dad, why are those stones like that? That was her mother and father's opportunity to say, listen, children, you have a rich history. The only reason you're alive today and you have your freedoms to be a Protestant, to be an Israelite in those days. The reason you have your freedom to be in Israel and to worship God is because God in generations gone past brought us out from the tyrannical hands of Egypt and brought us into here that we might worship God without fear, with freedom to praise His name. That's why the Lord told them. Set up the stones, remind your children of the privileges that God has afforded them. That's what we're doing tonight. I suppose in a sense, here is our pile of stones, our pile of illustrations of historical truth that remind us of God's goodness. We mentioned this morning that our queen, The longevity of her life and her reign is most significant. As I said, no British monarch has lived as long, and no British monarch has reigned as long as our present queen. In fact, just to remind you what I said this morning, she is now the third longest reigning monarch in human history. And that's massive. Louis XIV of France reigns 72 years. Rama IX from Thailand reigns 70 years, 126 days. Or Queen has just taken the third position at 70 years, 112 days. That is significant. And like I mentioned this morning, low life is a gift from God. And we're thankful that we indeed do have a monarch who is in support of our Protestant heritage. And that is a blessing not to take lightly indeed. And so to try and cram as much relevant history into this occasion as possible, we studied or began to study our monarchy from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II. And we start with Elizabeth I, who is here, because this was the period of the Protestant Reformation, so we didn't get very far. In fact, we only got covering these four monarchs here. Henry VIII, with all of his six wives and the issues that cause, who yet being a Cyrus-like character, a man who was no example of morality, certainly was not a man who pursued holiness and godliness and Christ-likeness, nevertheless, the Lord used him to turn our church from Rome and to authorise the Bible to be read in the English language in churches, and that was huge. I don't know if we can really fully grasp how big that is. He turned round to the Pope and said, no, we don't want any more of this. And he stopped it, and he closed the convents and so on, and he closed the doors to the Pope in exercising his authority here, and he's excommunicated for it. And then, for the first time, churches were told, you open your doors, and by the King's law, you have the Bible there, and you better read God's holy word. That's incredible that a man given to his lusts and passions would do such things. But he was influenced by very good and godly men. Of course, then, his son Edward that we saw this morning, young Edward, nine years old, the king of the realm. The godly young man died at the age of 15. And although he attempted to avoid his wicked sister, Mary, taking the throne, Mary did take the throne. And when she did, well, she, as he suspected, was a cruel, harsh, and wicked woman. And she burnt at the stake. I don't want to say too much because of the Sunday school children here this morning, but she took men and women And she literally tied them to poles of wood and they were burnt to death. Brittle stuff. And so anybody in such a circumstance must be convicted that what they're doing is right. And it was Protestants she burned for their stand for the gospel. Eventually she died and her sister, because Mary died without any children, her sister Elizabeth I took the throne. And that's really as far as we got this morning and so let me pick up there just now as we look now at Elizabeth I who succeeded her wicked sister, Mary, to the throne. Elizabeth's mother, let me just introduce you to Elizabeth I for a moment. Elizabeth I was obviously one of Henry VIII's six wives. She was one of those six wives. But she was executed when Elizabeth was only two and a half years old. So she wouldn't really have known her mother, her father, Like I said, Henry VIII was no example of morality and godliness. Brittle, perhaps, is more appropriate in regards to his marital status. Anyway, at two and a half, her mother was executed. When she then grew up, you'll remember that I said this morning that Mary, her sister, had put her in prison, locked her away. Because she knew that she would favor the Protestants, and she was, she was supporting the Protestant movement during Bloody Mary's, her sister's reign. Upon her half-sister's death, because both Edward and Mary and Elizabeth had three different mothers, all to the same father, Henry VIII. But when her half-sister Mary died, Elizabeth succeeded to the throne and set out. Here's what's said about her. She set out to rule by good counsel. She wanted good counsel, good counselors, and to do what was genuinely right and good, right before God and good towards her fellow men. One of her first actions as queen was to further establish the English Protestant Church, of which she, by title, became the Supreme Governor, which would continue to become the Church of England as we know it today. Now, I do want to say as well, just to bring you along with me, The Puritans were very much active in those days. The Puritans were those who separated from the Church of England. They stepped away because their complaint was, in Elizabeth's day, that the Church of England was not Protestant enough. They wanted to see further and more thorough and deeper reforms. And that was good. And when you read some of the things that were happening in the Church of England, they can't help but agree with them. They were right, for sure. But that was all happening in the middle of Elizabeth's reign, and things had changed massively. from her father's day, from the Pope having great authority to be stripped of that, to now audible Puritan voices able to have the freedom to stand up and say the church and to criticize the royals and to say the church should be more and more reformed. There's our religious freedoms being vented very clearly. Now in government, Elizabeth I was more moderate than her father and her half-siblings who had gone before her, she had a motto. Her motto was video ehtakio. Video, we all know what videos are. A video is something you sit down and you watch. Well, maybe you're very young, you don't know what videos are. But anyway, a video cassette, maybe something you put into your video recorder and watch on TV. Well, a video means I see. I see. And her saying was, video et tachio, I see and keep silent. She was an observer. She would sit back and think and contemplate and consider. An interesting woman. In religion, she was relatively tolerant. She wasn't a tyrant by any stretch of the imagination. Now, that goes to compound. What Rome did here is so wrong because while Elizabeth was on the throne, having succeeded Mary, bloody Mary, the Pope stated that he did not see her as a legitimate queen. He saw her as illegitimate and freed all of her Catholic citizens from obeying her. The Pope said, you are free to oppose your queen. You have perfect liberty to commit treason. And it is not wrong. So as a result of that, Queen Elizabeth's life was in great danger. And there were several attempts by groups of Catholics to end her life. But they all failed by the help of Her Majesty's secret service. She was preserved. And as a woman preserved by the grace of God, she authorized the second authorized version of the Bible. Like I said this morning, we have what we call the authorized version, but Henry He had the first authorized version of the English Bible. Elizabeth wrote the second one, which improved upon her father's. There were things that needed to be done, and maybe some things that were done that was very much unhelpful, as the Puritans would complain about later. But anyway, she again made this law that you must have an English Bible, and it would be called the Bishop's Bible. And there's a key in the name there as to some of the problems. It was focused very much on ecclesiastical rule, which maybe wasn't as accurate to the Bible as it should have been, and therefore there was a problem with it. But nevertheless, as far as she knew, she was taking the word of God and commanding it to be read in the houses of God. This became known as the Elizabethan era. Now and again, it was expected that Elizabeth would marry and to produce an heir, but she never did. There were several courtship occasions. None of them were particularly favorable. And so she never settled down and she never had a child. And that meant, think about it for a minute. Mary, bloody Mary had no child. Edward died too young. He was 15. And now this daughter, Elizabeth died without a child. Do you understand what that means? that King Henry VIII, in spite of having eight wives, did not have one single grandson or granddaughter, not one grandchild to rule and reign. That's strange. That's the reality. So that was a problem. Who then would become the king? Interestingly, as the pattern is, They go back to their father and to their father's relatives and they went down this line, if you can see it on my page here, I believe it was Henry's sister, they come down the family line and they came to this man, James. James I. James I, who happened to already be the king in Scotland. He was James VI in Scotland, and then he was crowned king of England and Ireland, but he was King James I of England and Ireland. I know that's a little bit confusing, but that's the way it is. So for our purposes tonight, I'm going to call him James I, as the first James in the history of kings in England. But this is interesting, because this would be a crucial point in forging together the United Kingdom. Because here now is the King of Scotland, and the King of England, and the King of Ireland as one Protestant monarch. And can you see here how Great Britain was all been tied and brought together under the providence of God? Now James was an interesting character because in 1604, he had what we now know as the Hampton Court Conference, a conference. And men and women, this conference was of immense importance because here's what happened. James wanted to sit down with the Church of England And they sat down with the Puritans who were separating from the Church of England. And they sat down and they worked through the difficulties and the problems. And James had a hearing ear. And he listened to these Puritans who were speaking about the lack of Protestant reform in the Church. He listened to them. He was pleased with the meeting, with the arrangements, and he very readily accepted what they said. And as a result of that came the authorized King James Version of the Bible. You see, the Puritans, amongst other things, complained that the Word of God that they had, the Word of God that was authorized to be read in the churches, the Bishop's Bible, and the Great Bible were not sufficient. There was problems in them. There were irregularities and translational issues that just were not correct. and they weren't as Protestant as they ought to be. And so King James commissioned the work which resulted in this Bible that we have to this very day. Interestingly, 83, it's reckoned that 83% of this Bible is Tyndale's Bible that he put together all those years ago and preserved to us this very day. And can you see what's happening here? Through our monarchs and through their particular circumstances, the word of God is becoming more and more clear and accurate and good for the citizens of this nation to read and to embrace and define Christ. And that's what we want. That's what we want. King James survived the gunpowder plot. In 1605, you're all familiar with Guy Fawkes and his involvement in that plot. In earlier centuries, it was called the treason plot or the Jesuit treason gunpowder plot. And it was that failed assassination, that King James' life, and members of Parliament, where English Roman Catholics got together and were attempting to blow up those who were in the rooms above them in Parliament. Of course, they were caught in the act. and some fled and many were taken and imprisoned and dealt with because of their treason. What was their goal? It was to remove this Protestant king who was promoting the clear presentation of the word of God in these shores. The Lord preserved him and the work continued on. Of course, James, King James Charles Stuart died. And then there was his successor, who was Charles I of the House of Stuart. And again, you have him down here as well. That's him there. There's James, and there's his son, Charles I. Now, this man was a different beast altogether. He believed in the divine rights of kings. And what that meant was this, that he is bestowed by God power to do what he pleases. He can do as he wishes, because he's the king by God's decree. And so he sought to govern by his own convenience and his own counsel. He taxed the people as he personally pleased, as he wanted to raise revenue. His actions were seen as tyrannical rather than a gracious and loving monarch. He was more like a tyrant than he was. His religious policies, coupled with his marriage to a Roman Catholic, generated great mistrust amongst those who were reformed, the Puritans and the Covenanters and And so on. So again, remember the Puritans were the English men who were set free from the Church of Rome. Up north you had the Covenanters, up in Scotland, again standing for truth and godliness. Well, these men, along with others, were very uncomfortable with Charles' behavior, his policies, his marriages, and his relationships. These were dark and difficult days for Christianity again. There's persecution and problems and preaching and living for Christ was by no means easy at all. Then Oliver Cromwell, a name you all be well familiar with, led the army of Parliament against Charles. And eventually Charles was overcome, King Charles I was overcome. He was tried and then he was executed. Now, that was a very, very, very controversial thing in those days. The Puritans, although they had no time for Charles I, his policies and his marriage and his trajectory towards Rome, although they had no time for that, they were very unpleased with Cromwell actually taking and trying the king and executing him. They felt that is not within their rights. citizens to do so and there was great division and issues at that time and so the Puritans and Cromwell also had a degree of fallout over that occasion. Now remember, he was Stuart. James I was James Charles Stuart, the House of Stuart. And so the House of Stuart was, well, put out of England, essentially. They were exiled. That's the word I'm looking for. They were exiled. Well, as time went past, they were invited to return. because Cromwell's son was not received well, and the people didn't want Cromwell's son to reign. And so they invited Charles I's family back into England again. And so Charles II became king, and he reigned until 1685. And then his brother took the throne, and his name was also James. Not the James who gave us the authorized version of the Bible, but a different James. This James was the last Roman Catholic king to ever reign in England, Scotland, and Ireland. His personal Catholicism was, suppose, reluctantly accepted by the nation. They accepted him as their king. But what they did not accept was his promotion of Roman Catholicism. He had a very clear agenda. The Parliament of England and Scotland would not accept the measures that King James II was pushing upon the nation. And when he attempted to override Parliament, well, he met significant opposition when that happened. The people were not happy with going back to Rome again. King James II issued a declaration of indulgence. which suspended penal laws against Catholics and granted acceptance to some Protestant groups. So making others outlaws. Later that year, The king formally dissolved his parliament and attempted to create a new parliament that would unanimously support him and his endeavours to plunge this nation into Roman Catholicism again. To make matters even worse, he had a daughter called Mary. Now, Mary was a Protestant and a strong Protestant at that. And she was the rightful heir to the throne. But then James had a son. His name was James Francis Edward Stuart, whom his father, the king, announced would be raised as a Roman Catholic. And there, for all likelihood, he would want that son to be the next king. The birth of James' son changed the line then of succession, and there was the fear of a Catholic dynasty in England that that would be imminent. And so, action had to be taken. This man's elevation of Catholicism, his close relationship with Catholic Rome, his conflict with a Protestant Parliament, and his potential successor, James, his son as a Roman Catholic, a revolt was imminent as well. James, the second now, This is the James II we have been speaking about, who is Catholic, the last Catholic king. Let me lay my eyes on him here. Yep, there's James. Had a sister. And his sister was called Maria. And Maria married a Dutchman whose name happened to be William II, Prince of Orange. And Maria and William II, Prince of Orange, had a son. And they called him William III, Prince of Orange. And conveniently, William III married King James's daughter. That's the Roman Catholic King James. He married his daughter, who was called Mary. And so James and Mary were wedded. And that was highly significant. Leading members of the English political class who were very much opposed to James's regime, invited William of Orange to come. And if he would come, and if he would fight for the throne, they would give him their allegiance and support him in his ascendancy to the English, Scottish, and Irish throne. Now, William was already thinking and considering, and in the process of making military arrangements to invade England for other reasons as well. And so when this letter came, it was a further incentive to come. And so he assembled an impressive armada, and the invasion landed in Brixham, in Torbay, Devon, the south of England, in November 1688. So King Billy arrived. in the south of England. Now, King James knew he was coming. I'm sure you know the history to some degree. King James, the Catholic king, prepared a military attack, and he left London. And as he was traveling down to fight against King Billy, his own army began to desert him, and many of them actually defected to William's army. And all of a sudden, he was losing his army left, right, and center. And that was some setback. So James had to retreat to London. And eventually had a couple attempts at fleeing the country. And in December of that same year, he fled to France, where he stayed with King Louis XIV, the number one reigning king in the sense of longevity. He's the one who reigned for, what I say, 72 years, as I mentioned. earlier on. So there, James stayed in exile for a time. In the meanwhile, James had exiled, like I said, and the Parliament had the Convention Parliament, and they made it clear that their king had vacated the throne. Their Catholic king had left. And the English throne was then installed Sorry, William and Mary were then installed as the monarchs to the English throne. And that was a very important time. In fact, this is a crucial time in understanding our monarchy. Because when William and Mary came to the throne, they were not there by the right of birth. Although there was family history for sure, but they were primarily there because Parliament invited them. They were invited by Parliament, not by birth. That's the order. And so these two new rulers accepted more restrictions from Parliament than any other royal since. And that caused a massive power shift from the sole absolute monarchy to the Parliament. And from that day, the monarchy has never been the same. So today we don't have an absolute monarch. King Billy was not an absolute monarch. An absolute monarch is a king who reigns and rules. He or she is the one who makes the rules for that nation, but that's never been the case since. What we have since then is a monarch who reigns. that does not rule. Parliament legislates for laws. And that's the important thing to keep in mind when we look at our monarchy. So the King and Queen both signed the Declaration of Rights. This is really significant men and women. This is very important history. which became known as the Bill of Rights, which we have today. And funny, I'm not always going to divulge what happens in Presbytery, but one of our men was standing up in Presbytery the other day, and he was highlighting this very truth, that we must make our congregations know about the Bill of Rights that came about because of the Williamite Wars. This document acknowledged several constitutional principles, and here they are. The right of regular parliaments. Parliament has a right to meet and to make laws. Free elections, number two, should be allowed regularly. Thirdly, there should be the freedom of speech. You should have the right to speak and say what you believe. Now that today is bit by bit eroding and being taken away from us. When you have, again, our own government beginning to deal with what's described as conversion therapy and all of that, there's issues there about free speech. And that's a problem, men and women, it genuinely is. Additionally, what happened when King Billy came to the throne by will of the Parliament was that no monarch could ever be a Roman Catholic again. And that was that settled. So regular Parliament, free elections, freedom of speech, and a Protestant monarchy thereafter. And this was termed the Glorious Revolution, the most important period in our history when King William and Mary came to the throne. But the story doesn't end there, because James is still alive. And remember, he was exiled to France. Well, he attempted to recover his kingdoms. And in March 1689, he landed in Ireland. He landed in Ireland and began his campaign to recover his kingdoms. And you and I know that King Billy arrived not too far from where we stand today, and then eventually came about the Battle of the Boyne. And in July 1690, James was defeated. He had to return to France, where he never came back again. And he spent the rest of his life there, protected by King Louis XIV until his natural death. Can you see just the providence of God in all of this? We were very, very close to being branded as outlaws. Only some Protestants were allowed to exercise their freedom of religion, not all. And we were narrowly delivered from persecution again. That's why we have the 12th of July celebrations to remember that very event. I'm not going to go too much further here. Let me just finish at least this part about William and Mary and make one other comment. But William and Mary also died childless. They had no family. And that was an interesting time because here is how, well, let me walk you through this. We had quite a Let's say unexpected monarch hereafter, because the rule had now been made, no Catholic monarch. And so they had to find a Protestant monarch. And that took us, if you follow me through here, Here is King William and Queen Mary. And then her sister reigned for a time, and none of them had children. So they had to go back right through Charles, right through James, and the whole way up here until they got to the family of Henry VIII, where we began this morning. And they went down the line of Henry VIII's other sister, I think, and come down the family, and they ended up here in Germany. with a German royal who could not speak a single word of the English language. And they chose him to be the king because he was a Protestant, and that was the law. So he became the king. George I, the House of Hanover, if you're familiar with, that house. You had George I, you had George II, you had George III, you had George IV, and on the Georges went until you came to a lady from the house of Hanover whose name was Victoria. I'm not going to go into Victoria tonight, perhaps you can leave that for Wednesday evening. But what you see is a desire for a royal household to protect our Protestant heritage, which we enjoyed way back from the Protestant Reformation up here in Henry VIII's day when Calvin and Edward were in conversation and so on and so forth. And we're thankful to this day, that is still the rule of thumb. We're thankful that our Protestant heritage is being preserved. And then this incoming week, there will be multitudes of people who will remember their history and they will respectfully acknowledge their sovereign, their queen. But I want to ask another question here tonight. If you want to be a faithful citizen of her majesty's kingdom, what will you do? You'll behave in a manner whereby you respect our laws and our authorities, and you'll respect even our queen as well. How then do you become a citizen of the king of king's kingdom? The exact same way. You respect his laws found in the word of God. We respect this King, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and we bow down and acknowledge Him to be the Sovereign King. And we sang hymns this evening that speak on their favourite hymns of our Queen, that speak about the King of Kings as the Sovereign Head of Heaven. Therefore, she acknowledges that, and that's good, but do you tonight? You see, I don't want you just to be Protestant in name, a nominal Protestant. I don't want you to even be what we could say a church-going Protestant. And all Protestants should be church-going, but you know fine well that's not always the case. But if you're here tonight, I don't want you to be a nominal Christian, but a genuine, submissive servant of the King of Kings, to be living in obedience to Him, His will, His word, His law, and be saved. Men and women, being a citizen of the Lord's kingdom, as a kingdom that will never end, what about our kingdom that may end? We don't know what happens in a few decades. It was almost taken away in years gone past. There was a World War I, World War II, the Lord preserved our freedoms and we're thankful for that. But tonight, are you part of God's kingdom? Are you saved? Is he your sovereign Lord? Do you love him? Do you serve him? And are you following the King of Kings and the head of the church?