SERVANTS
“There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father,
give me my share of the estate’. So he
divided his property between them.
Not long
after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country
and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything,
there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in
need. So he went and hired himself out
to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods
that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
When he
came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to
spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father
and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son;
make me like one of your hired men.’ So
he got up and went to his father.
But
while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with
compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed
him.
The son
said to him ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
But the
father said to his servants, ‘Quick!
Bring the best robe and put it on him.
Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again;* he was lost and is found.’
So they began to celebrate.
Meanwhile,
the older son was in the field. When he
came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked
him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and
your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and
sound.’
The older brother became angry and refused
to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with
him. But he answered his father, ‘Look!
All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I
could celebrate with my friends. But
when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes
home, you killed the fattened calf for him!’
‘My son,’
the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because
this brother of yours was dead and is alive again;* he was lost and is found.’ ”
- LUKE 15: 11-32.
[* See The
Personal Indwelling Of The Holy Spirit .]
PART ONE
I
WALKED THE LINE!
[On
page two of ‘The Leader’ (April 20th. 2004 issue), the
following was printed.]
“Not so long ago
the music world mourned the passing of Johnny Cash, ‘the
man in black’. Some time before he
died Cash wrote his autobiography and in it he tells the story of his older
brother Jack, who was only 14 when he died.
As well as
studying at the local high school, Jack also worked in a small agricultural business
which it ran cutting up oak trees into fence posts. The money he earned helped support his
family, who were struggling to survive by working in the cotton fields of rural
But, one day a
terrible accident happened. A table saw
which he was using at the time severely cut Jack, resulting in his death a few
days later.
Sometime before
his death, Jack had announced to his family and the community that he intended
to be a preacher. Everyone agreed that
he would make a fine preacher, for his strong Christian character was really
well known.
Johnny Cash looked
up to his older brother, and Jack’s example still influenced him right up to
the end of his life. In his
autobiography he wrote, ‘Jack isn’t really gone,
anyway, any more than anyone is. For one
thing, his influence on me is profound.
When we were kids, he tried to turn me from the way of death to
the way of life, to steer me toward the light, and since he died his
words and his example have been like signposts for me.
The
most important question in many of the conundrums and cries of my life has
been, ‘Which is Jack’s way? Which
direction would he have taken? I haven’t
always gone that way, of course, but at least I’ve known where is was.’
I wonder has there
ever been anyone in your life that has profoundly influenced it? Like Johnny Cash you may not have followed
their advice or counsel, their way of life or faith, but at the back of your
mind, or even without thinking, your thoughts go back to what they might have
done or said.
Jesus told a story
about a man who thought he knew best for his life. He had it all planned out in front of
him. All he needed was his father to
come up with the capital and allow him to live his life, his way, for his
pleasure and to his plans.
But he soon
realised that the world did not want to play ball with him and so as he sat
amongst the pigs, not only looking after them but eating their food, Jesus
said, ‘he came to his senses.’ Or as we would say, ‘he
caught himself on!’
He realised that
his father had the way of life he yearned for all the time. There he had safety, security and a
future hope. There he had
freedom rather than what he wrongly believed all the time were
restrictions. He knew what it was like,
because he had been there before.
How many of us
even reading this have been there before? We know the way, the truth and the life and yet
we insist on walking our path, making up our own truth to suit us or trying to
find a life which if we were truly honest with ourselves can never fully
satisfy. You know there is something better, because you have been
there, but now you are somewhere else.
For whatever reason, maybe now is time that you ‘caught yourself on’ and begin to say ‘I walk the line!’
The story of the
Prodigal Son is not about a son finding Salvation; it is a story of a true son
leaving his father’s service, and afterwards experiencing Restoration and Celebration
- a celebration which the ‘older
brother refused’.
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PART 2
THE
SERVANTS OF CHRIST AND THEIR RESPONSIBILITY
By SIEGFIZIED GOEBEL*
[* Translated
from the German by Prof. Banks.]
“He went on to tell them a parable, because he was near
[* A mina was about three
months’ wages.]
But his
subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We don’t want this
man to be our king.’
He was
made king, however, and returned home. Then
he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out
what they had gained with it.
The
first one came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned ten more.’
‘Well
done, my good servant!’ his master replied. ‘Because you
have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.’
The
second came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned five more.’
His
master answered, ‘You take charge of five cities.’
Then
another servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid
away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap
what you did not sow.’
His
master replied, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you,
that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did
not sow? Why then didn’t you put my
money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with
interest?’
Then he
said to those standing by, ‘Take his mina away from him and give it to one who
has ten minas.’
‘Sir,’
they said, ‘he already has ten!’
He
replied, ‘I tell you that to every one who has, more will be given, but as for
the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. But those enemies of mine who did not want me
to be king over them - bring them here and kill them in front of me.’ ”
- Luke 19: 11-27.
-------
The narrative (Luke 19: 11-27) itself speaks of the setting up of
a kingly rule, which, however, was preceded by a journey into a far country,
and a consequent prolonged absence of the future king, during which the
fidelity of his servants is to be proved on the one hand, and the hate of his
fellow-citizens will be revealed on the other. We may here then assume as undoubted, that by
this journey of the nobleman Jesus means to represent His own approaching departure from the world, and by his return His own
coming again in royal power and glory; and further, that by the nobleman's
servants left behind He would have His
own disciples understood, and by his fellow-citizens, His own
fellow-countrymen, and citizens of Israel.
From that
retirement of their Lord arises for the disciples of Jesus, as for the servants
of the nobleman, an intermediate period, during which they will be without His
visible presence, and must wait for His coming. But the period is not given them for idle
waiting. It is of the most critical
importance for themselves, because it is appointed
them as a test-time, on the use of which their own participation in the
“Like as (it is with the Parousia
of the Son of Man as if) a man, about to journey
into another country, called his own servants, and delivered unto them his
goods” (Matt. 25: 14).
The Greek words are literally translated
“the goods of him”, is not necessarily the entire
property of every kind and in every place belonging to the householder, but is
limited by the context to the property he had in his possession, and under his
personal management in his residence so far. Being now about to take a
journey, he is obliged to hand over this property of his, which he is unable
personally to manage as before, to other faithful hands during the time of his
absence. He therefore calls, not
strange labourers, but his own servants, belonging to him as his servants;
and as their master, since he may expect that they will regard his interest as
their own, entrusts to them and their hands the
property he leaves behind.
In the
investigation on his return, the householder first bestows his praise on the faithful
servant, and then promises him his reward,
so that the Greek words ... [See Greek] belong not so much to the preceding
eulogy, as to the following promise of reward, giving its reason, therefore: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant! Over a little thou wast
faithful, over much will I set thee” (Matt. 25: 23). He calls him a good and faithful servant: “good” not in the general moral sense but in his
character as servant, therefore a true servant; and since he has
especially proved himself such by his fidelity, which is
the most prominent virtue of a good servant, the specific “faithful” is combined with the general term “good.” The
promise of reward is to the effect, that because he has been faithful over a little,
he will set him over much, just as a servant who has proved his fidelity in
the small is trusted with the great. Thus,
the comparatively large sum delivered to this servant was but little in
comparison with the wealth of goods (money is no longer specially thought of)
over which he is now to be set, set as controller, so that he may now deal with
them just as independently, despite the householder’s presence, as with the sum
of money during the master’s absence. But this, of course, supposes that from the
mere position of servant, which he has hitherto held, he is raised to the
position of a friend of his master, sharing his full confidence, and
taking part in his authority. Hence,
to the promise of reward, a saying is added, expressive of this elevation:- “Enter into the joy of thy lord,” i.e.,
into the state of joy accruing to him in his character as lord, and in virtue
of his authority, so that the servant will have part and lot in
his master's state.
But great and
glorious as is this reward, so heavy, on the other hand, is the
punishment that will be inflicted on those [servants] who let the word entrusted to them lie dead and
useless. For not merely will the
Lord leave to the faithful the rich product of their earthly labour even
in the future Kingdom of God as their crown of rejoicing, their glory and joy
(1 Thess. 2: 19),
but He will also over and above reckon to their glory what He takes from
the indolent. By exposing the
false glory of the latter, as though they had done their duty by merely
preserving that which was entrusted to them, and taking that glory from them
along with the trust that was theirs, He will still further augment to the
faithful the glory and joy which is the result of their faithful labour, so
that they will become just as much richer as the others became poorer.
And to the
retribution decreed is added the positive punishment which the householder
orders to be inflicted on the profitless servant (ver. 30): “and the
useless servant cast forth into the darkness without” (outside
the bright festive rooms). Although,
therefore, no festal celebration of the householder’s return was expressly
mentioned in the narrative before, since the “joy of
the lord” (verses
21, 23) cannot be referred to such a feast merely, still the thought of
such a celebration so natural and common in other parables, really floats
before the narrator’s mind. And whereas
the first two servants’ entrance into the joy of their lord evidently includes
participation in this festal joy, so the idle servant is to be
expelled from the bright rooms of his master’s household. This doom, then, forms in fact the contrast to
the eulogistic word to the first two servants: “Enter
into the joy of thy lord.” Christ, in the hour of His coming, besides
depriving every idle, unfaithful servant of what was entrusted to him, will
also inflict on him the penalty of exclusion from His Kingdom:
what Luke says of the punishment of the servant already implies that he
has no share in the kingdom of his lord, and therefore
that he who is like him will have no share in the Kingdom of Christ.
And if the hour of
Christ's Second Advent will be an hour of reckoning even for His
disciples, how much more will it be an hour of judgment for His
enemies! The citizens of Israel, who
hated Jesus, although He lived and worked among them as His countrymen, and who
were impelled by their hatred for Him to resistance against the counsel and
will of the most high God - what can they be to the Messiah returning from
heaven but enemies and what other fate can the erection of the Messiah’s kingdom
bring them than that of rebels, on whom a victorious king takes righteous
vengeance? Although members of the
chosen nation to which Christ Himself belonged, who as such would have been
called in the first rank to enjoy the blessings of the Messianic Kingdom, the
manifested Messiah at the setting up of His Kingdom will call them before His
tribunal as His foes, and forthwith inflict on them the punishment due to
hardened rebels against His divinely ordained eternal kingship - the punishment
of condemnation to the eternal death, of whose pain and terrors even the
slaying of the rebels in the parable is but a feeble image. When it is said that such an image is unlike
the mind of Jesus, this is simply an a priori assertion easily refuted
by the numerous passages in which Jesus speaks of the punishment of damnation
with no less menacing solemnity, and no less terrible images. That nothing can be meant by extreme penalty
inflicted on the rebels in the parable but the condemnation to eternal death,
ought not to have called in question, considering the clearness and
distinctness with which the parable distinguishes the period of the second
advent as one of reckoning and judgment, from the intermediate period preceding
it as the time of the Lord's absence in the heavenly world, designed to leave
scope to His friends and foes to manifest their love and hate.
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PART THREE
Servants of the King
Luke 11: 21-26
F. B.
MAYER
(1887)
Our King is here
tonight - our King himself, and I long that every one of you should lose sight
of the servant and prostrate yourself fully before his Master, his King and
yours. Let us for a moment stay, while I
ask you first if your hearts, and feet, and hands, and head are clean? If they are, come for a moment into the most
holy place with me, and let us adore Him in thought. And as you look up into His face, does He not
look benignly and lovingly upon you? And
yet I think - in this vast audience there are some who cannot meet His glance
with pleasure, and it may be that some words that I shall speak tonight upon
the service and the responsibility of the servants of the King may help them to
enter into the blessed life, that blessed life that is always spent in
communion with the King.
Our Place in Christ’s World
Now why is it that
you are not perfectly happy? Why is it
that your Christian life has been so much a failure? It is sometimes like summer in its beauty, and
then like winter with its biting cold. What
is the cause of the failure of your Christian life? That you are a Christian, there is no doubt. Why is it? I think that you have largely
mistaken the nature of Christ’s world and your place in it.
Perhaps some of
you have read - the title at least - of the book, The World, and My Place in
It. Are you quite sure that you understand
your place in Christ’s world? Think for
a moment. It is of the utmost importance
for a soldier to understand his place in the army, of the utmost importance for
a limb to understand its place in the body, of the utmost importance for a
piece in a machine to know and keep its place. Otherwise there is discomfort, there is pain, there is accident. Now, what you need to do, as it appears to me,
is to know the true meaning of this world and your place as a part of it.
The great law of
this world is gathered up into the one word service. Every fish in every stream, every bird in
every woodland, every flower in every copse - all
serve. The angels themselves are
ministering spirits, and our blessed Lord himself occupies the position of the
true and chief Servant, for He came not to be ministered unto but to minister. He took upon himself the form of a servant,
and He tells us the day is coming when He will gird himself and come
forth to serve the men and women who have [served Him and] waited for His
coming.
Lift up your eyes
for a moment to see the ideal Servant of God, the Prince whose coat of arms
bears this motto, “Ich Dien” (I serve), for He himself is the
ideal of service. And may I lift up your
thought for a moment to the blessed God himself, and ask you to consider
Him as the happy God, the blessed God, because He lives to minister to the
world He has made? That truth is taught
you in words to which I need not refer you, because they are so familiar, and
in which the apostle informs us that all things serve us who are Christ’s, and
we serve Christ, and Christ serves God. So
that all this universe is linked in one great chain of service, from the very
tiniest gnat which is dying tonight in the cooler breeze, up to the Son of God
himself, who sits at the right hand of God.
Slaves of Jesus Christ
Now, if you would,
therefore, know your true place, understand that you are a ‘slave’. I am addressing a congregation, of freed
slaves, of emancipated slaves. Our
origin was a slave origin. We were under
bondage to Satan and to sin, but Jesus Christ bought us with His own most
precious blood, and He expects now that we should be what Paul in his Epistle
to the Romans gloried in being, “Paul, the slave
of Jesus Christ.”
Now, then, you
truly understand that this universe is one great universe of service, and when
you shall take up your true place in it as the slave of Jesus Christ, then the
failure shall pass out of your life, and you shall rise up to the dignity and
glory and blessedness of an emancipated soul.
There are many
spheres of service. I note them as I
pass. There is first, in my esteem, the
service of praise: “Praise Him, you servants of God
that stand in the house of the Lord.” Praise is our very loftiest duty. It is higher than giving thanks. Thankfulness has something of self in it, for we thank God for that which we have received. But in praise we forget even the very gifts of
God, and we take our stand side by side with the heavenly servants, and
prostrate ourselves before Him, and bless Him for what He is of himself. That is the loftiest service, the service of
praise.
And then is the
service of common duty. Oh, that
every one remembered it! The kitchen
worker and the shoeshine boy may equally serve Christ as Gabriel himself, if
they only shine shoes, and do the kitchen work for the
love of God. There is nothing
common in this world, nothing menial, nothing small,
for everything is the worth of the motive that prompts it; and the meanest
action may be dignified by the loftiest motive. And I say again that the street cleaner who cleans the roads for the love of God makes that action
as great as the guiding of a planet by an angel for the same motive. There is a service, therefore, of common life.
There is also,
thirdly, a service of suffering. Go
to those of your dear ones who lie day and night in one posture. Tell them that they also serve who lie and
suffer and wait, and they serve thus. The
Lord must manifest His passive virtues. It is not enough to have the active qualities
of the Christian life revealed. He must
have a great army of sufferers who will reveal the patience and sweet
willingness of His grace. Let the
sufferers know that they also serve.
There is also the
service that comes from cultivating the gifts with which we have been entrusted,
for there is not one believer in this great audience who has not been entrusted
with some one gift to use for the Church, and it should be our privilege to
find out and use it.
And, fifthly,
there is a service of witness bearing, not to convert the world, not to
convert men. Go out through the world as
heralds crying everywhere, “God has anointed this same
Jesus both Lord and Christ,” and that seems to be another sphere of
service. And now where is your fault or failure ?
Serving Self Instead of Christ
It may be
that you are doing nothing, and
in the busy rush of this great universe, and in the constant operations of
Christ’s Church, you are in comparative inactivity - idle, slothful. You remember that the one sea that is called
the
It may be
that you are serving unwillingly.
There is a submission of must, and there
is the submission of choice. There is
the submission of the heifer unaccustomed to the yoke which she is bound to
carry, and there is the submission of the yielding, plodding animal who takes
the yoke. Whatever may be God’s plan for
you I cannot tell, but God’s purposes shall be fulfilled. But if all the while you are murmuring,
fretting, chafing, complaining, you shall still have to bear that yoke to the
end. How much wiser then not to fight
against God’s will, but to will God’s will, or to will to be made willing to
will God’s will, and so you shall come to choose and love that which, at first,
was the yoke from which you shrank.
But, granted that
you are working willingly, there is a great mistake that sometimes comes to the
Christian worker against which we should guard. Does not self too largely enter into all
our schemes of service?
For instance, don't we often work
for our own glory? We like to see our
names in the public prints; we are more interested in the success of our class,
our church, or our sect than we seek to be for the glory of Cod. We are not prepared to fail, if by our failure
Christ shall be more glorified than by our success. And if we see some other more successful than
ourselves, we find it very hard to be glad, though it would be impossible not
to be glad if we were only living for the glory of God.
Is there not a
constant difficulty with us when the “I” of self rises up before us, and
asserts itself as the thing for which we live? Some of us find it difficult to be earnest,
because frequently we are tempted by our very earnestness to plume ourselves on
the fact that we are more earnest than others. This is a temptation to the most spiritual,
and sometimes our most earnest efforts are inspired by the one thought of
adding some laurel to our brow.
Does not self
intrude in our laying down our own plan of work? We say we will do this or that or the other,
never considering whether it is Christ’s plan for us. When God called Moses on the Mount, He said, “See that you make all things according to the pattern I show
you.” He said this so that the
man of God could not use his inventive faculty, for everything had to be
received from God. Are we careful enough
in this? There is a great difference
between our schemes of work and the great work that God appoints. How many are working for the Master instead of
allowing the Master to work through them? The true thought of Christian work is to be
like an earthenware pitcher or clean mug standing on the kitchen shelf with the
handle turned outwards ready for use, or to be as a pen in the hand of a ready
writer, not writing its own thought, but pliant for the writer to use as he
will.
Thirdly, self
asserts itself in prompting us to use our own strength. Most of us are too strong for God to use. Is there one subject more
sad than to see how God takes up men, but after a while lets them down
again; takes up sections of the Church, and uses them, and then puts them down
again? He takes up some denomination and
increases it and uses it for His service, and then that denomination falls into
the shade. Sometimes we wonder why this
is, but is not the reason that the denomination or Christian worker has become
too strong for God?
When
God wanted to bring back to himself the world that had fallen away, He chose
not the Rabbis, the Gamaliels of Jerusalem, but
twelve fishermen from the shores of
Then how shall we
act tonight? I wish to lay aside all
formal address, and talk to you freely and tenderly.
Now, what appears
to me to be our incumbent duty this very night, if we are conscious that our
work has been marred by failure, our duty is to take our true place as the
slaves of Jesus Christ. You remember in
that Psalm of the King, the 100th. Psalm,
we are told that, “Your people shall be willing in
the day of your power.” And
the translation given by the Revised Version is, “Your
people shall be freewill offerings in the day of your power.” The same word is used by Deborah to describe
the people who offered themselves as willing offerings.
What we ought to
do is to look up into the face of our King. Let us look up into His gentle but majestic
face, let us see in Him the marks of the agonised death by which we were
bought, and now, as a great host of the redeemed slaves who belong to Him, but
who have been robbing Him of the purchase of His own blood, some for five
years, some for ten, twenty, thirty, forty years, who have been living for
themselves instead of living as His purchased possession shall we not, one and
all, quietly look up into His face and tell Him that from this very night we
will be utterly, only, and forever, His? Will you take the opportunity of so accosting
Him?
Identified with Christ’s Purposes
When you were
first converted, you told Christ that from that moment you would be wholly His.
But since your conversion, though you
have theoretically held that you were His servant, you have forgotten to live
as you promised. You have spent your
money as you chose. You have pursued the plan of life that pleased you. You have furnished your house and chosen the
locality in which you live. Very few of
us have been living as if we were the purchased property, the slaves of Christ.
And does it not become us to take our
true position tonight? And again I say,
shall we not look up to Christ’s face, and with tears in our eyes shall we not
confess with sorrow and grief that we have been defrauding the Master of His
own, and have been largely regardless of His claims, and that now we retrace
our steps and consecrate ourselves to Him?
Oh, that there may
be scores, hundreds of young men and young women, who from this very moment
each shall date the time when they commenced to live as the purchased property
of Christ, as those who are not their own, but are constrained by the love of
the King to live no longer to themselves, but to Him who died for them and rose
again.
A friend of mine
who had been visiting at a country house was interested to notice in
conversation with the old butler, who had been in the family for many years,
how the old grey-headed servant identified himself with everything in his
master’s ownership. “That is our house; those are our park lands,” said
he; “these are our flocks; these are our fruit
gardens, and these are our children - bless them!” And he went forward and met his master’s
children as though they were his own. When
shall we become so identified with the interest of Christ that we shall have no
thought for ourselves, but our whole thought may be, all that is His is ours?
Once more, when we
shall thus have yielded ourselves to Christ, the first thing He will do will be
to receive us, and the next thing to fill us. The moment you make a freewill offering of
yourself to the Saviour, that moment He receives you. There may be no conscious emotion, no rush of ecstasy, and you may go on for many days, that may seem grey
and dark, but stay yourself with repeating the old refrain, “I am His,” and
there shall come into the life which is given to the King the fulness of the
Holy Spirit.
Just as in the air
tonight there is no rushing wind, but the blessed cool breeze, entering this
favoured room by every aperture, so in the yielded life there comes at once the
gentle breath of the Spirit of God. When
there has been the yielding of the spirit to the Son of God, He will receive
it, and He will fill it, and He will fill it constantly, and then He will use
it. Day after day, hour after hour, you
shall wait upon His word, and He will send you upon His most sacred tasks, He
shall employ you in His most intimate work, and you shall not work for Him,
because He shall work through you. The
other day I heard of a great
Is not that a
parable of how our work has been done? When we leave it feeling that there has been
so much failure, and shortcoming in its very best, then our King Jesus Christ
goes over it with His own hand, wiping out that which appears to be a failure,
and restoring it and making it beautiful as His own ideal.
In closing, I
would call upon my own soul, as upon yours, and ask that this very night there
may be a prostration, if you will, in spirit, and a kneeling at the feet of
Christ, and a surrender of the whole being to Him. In this act, the life of consecrated toil
shall unfold into a life of peace and bliss, of perpetual summer, and of all
the glory with which God can inspire the human soul. O Christ, make of me as much as can be made
of me during the short life I may yet have to live. Amen.
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PART FOUR
The
Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
By ADOLPH
SAPHIR
(1869)
“Yours is the kingdom.” It is not ours; it is altogether His. He prepared it from all eternity. He founded it on a sure foundation. He made His own Son the king. He has surrounded it with walls - salvation,
and made the gates thereof praise. He
protects and defends it against all enemies. He assigns to each of His servants a place and
a work, distributing His gifts according to His own good pleasure. We may therefore rest in peace, and commit
ourselves, and our work, in humble confidence to our great King.
The kingdom is God’s.
Though we read of the kingdom of
darkness, strictly speaking there are not two kings and two kingdoms; there is
but one God and Lord, even the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; His is
the kingdom. God’s enemies
are a mass, not a body; a crowd, not an organism; a collection of individuals,
not a flock guided by a shepherd. There
are at present many things that offend in this kingdom, but they will be cast
out; there are tares and weeds, but they will be gathered and burnt; there are
rebels, but they will be banished from His presence.
The kingdom is the
Lord’s. In nature, in providence, in
grace, He is sovereign; and there is a kingdom of glory,
which He is preparing through these subordinate kingdoms. “The earth is the
Lord's, and the fulness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein.”
“The Lord reigns.”
It is this light
that shines in Scripture and which explains to us that history has a meaning
and an aim. We wait for the
kingdom of the Son of man, and of the saints of the Most High. The
His is the Infinite Power
As the kingdom is
His, so power belongs to the Lord. He is
able to do all things that please Him. The
thought of infinite power would have in it something overwhelming and crushing,
if all divine attributes did not coexist in perfect harmony, if might were not
inseparably linked to wisdom, and mercy, and holiness. And how sweet is the thought that the greatest
manifestation of divine power is Christ, and Christ crucified, the Lamb of God
that takes away the sin of the world! Christ
is the Word of His power. By Him all
things were created, and by Him they are upheld. The power of God is manifested through His
Son.
When we thus see
the strong hand of the Lord and His outstretched arm in redemption, when we
remember that all power in heaven and earth is given now to the man Christ
Jesus, we can contemplate Omnipotence with joy, though not without awe.
Is anything too
hard for the Lord? When we think of the
miracle of the incarnation, when we think of the resurrection of Christ, what
miracle of divine power and love can be incredible? What future event predicted surpasses in
wonder the former mighty acts of God? His
is the power - all power. All forces and energies, however opposed to
Him, are His; after many circuitous roads, of their own perverse choice, they
must at last bow down before Him. Pharaoh,
Caesar, Satan himself; all kingdoms must serve the coming of God’s kingdom. The
star shines forth to lead the wise men from the East to
The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
His is the power;
great things become small, and little things become great when He wills it. He can send twelve legions of angels as easily
as commission the ravens to fly across the hills and bring food to His servant.
The decree of Caesar Augustus for all the world to be taxed has its true reason in the ancient
prediction of Micah and the Babe of
Bethlehem. Herod’s cruel designs of murder are frustrated by the angel
appearing to Joseph in a dream. God has
paths invisible; His step is so gentle that no ear can perceive it, and His power so great that no might can resist.
It is God’s
delight to manifest His power so as to abase man’s pride and to strengthen the
faith of the humble – “For the day of the Lord of Hosts
shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is
lifted up, and upon all the high mountains, and upon all the cedars of Lebanon,
and upon all the oaks of Bashan, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.”
It is when men triumph and glory in
their strength that God shows forth His power in His weakness.
All human power
had combined against Jesus, and done its utmost: a traitor among His own
disciples, the highest council and authority of the land, Herod the king, and
Pilate the judge, the people of
All Glory Belongs to God
His is the
kingdom, and by His power will it be established, for the end of all divine
works and ways is His glory. Let us not
think of God’s glory as we think of our own. Man seeks glory because he is selfish; but “God is love.” His
glory is the manifestation of himself; His glory is to fill heaven
and earth; it is the blessedness and joy of all His children. When man seeks glory, he seeks to make himself
a centre, and thereby destroys himself and others; when God seeks His own glory,
it is because He is the only centre of life and light.
There is no glory
except God’s. His is the
glory. All other glory is false,
empty; no, it is the very opposite of glory - shame and misery.
Glory is
brightness, and God is light; whatever light there is, is the reflection as
well as the gift of the Lord in Christ Jesus. Separated from God, men, even of the most
brilliant genius and the most richly stored mind, are in darkness, and, unless
they come to Christ, they will be forever in utter darkness. Glory means, in Hebrews,
weight, substance. God is the great
reality; all things are shadowy, vain, mere outlines, without fulness, unless
they are connected with God and with eternity.
Glory belongs
absolutely to the Lord, and therefore we have confidence in praying to Him; for
His own glory He will bless, save, sanctify, and glorify all who call upon His
holy name.
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