Following in our estimates, aims, and practice the sequence which it
prescribes. Desiring for world most of all that it may hallow the Name.
Seeking for ourselves to hallow it.
Seeking for ourselves that we may be the means of others doing so.
The ever-present remembrance, that the name of God is blasphemed or
hallowed, that God is glorified or disgraced, by us.
That to be like His name is true way to commend it. Do you know this
name?
'THY KINGDOM COME'
'Thy kingdom come.--MATT. vi. 10.
'The Lord reigneth, let the earth be glad'; 'The Lord reigneth, let the
people tremble,' was the burden of Jewish psalmist and prophet from the
first to the last. They have no doubt of His present dominion. Neither
man's forgetfulness and man's rebellion, nor all the dark crosses and
woes of the world, can disturb their conviction that He is then and for
ever the sole Lord.
The kingdom is come, then. Yet John the Baptist broke the slumbers of
that degenerate people with the trumpet-call, 'Repent, for the kingdom
is at hand.' It is not come, then--but coming. And the Master said, 'If
I by the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is
come nigh unto you.' It is come, then, in Him. This prayer throws it
forward again into the future, and far down on the stream of prophecy;
we hear borne up to us through the darkness the shouts that shall hail a
future day when here on earth the kingdoms of this world shall become
the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. It is a kingdom, then, that
has ever been, and yet has stages of progress, a kingdom that was
established in Jesus; a kingdom that has a past, a present, and a future
on earth. It is after this world that the words are said, 'Come, ye
blessed, enter into the kingdom.' It is a kingdom, then, manifested on
earth, and yet a kingdom into which death, who keeps the keys of all
secrets, admits us.
Once more--the kingdom of God is within you. 'The kingdom of God is
righteousness, and peace, and joy.' But there is beyond earth to be a
manifestation of the kingdom in a more perfect form. It is 'the kingdom
of heaven,' not only because the King is 'Our Father which art in
heaven,' but because we cannot completely come into it, or it into us,
till we pass out of earth by death, and enter through that gate into the
city. He has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.
It is a dominion, then, over heart and soul, having its realm within,
standing not so much in outward institutions as in inner experiences;
and yet a kingdom which, though like leaven hid, shall like leaven be
seen in its effects; though like a seed buried deep, shall like a seed
blossom into a mighty tree; though it cometh not with observation, yet
is like to the lightning that flashes with a kind of omnipresence in its
rapid course from end to end, everywhere at once; which though it be
within, yet clearly is meant to rule over all outward acts, and one day
to have all kings bowing down before it.
These are the varieties with which the one thought of the kingdom of
God, or of heaven, is presented in Scripture. It is eternal yet revealed
in time, ever here but ever coming, ever coming but never come on earth,
but entered when we go yonder, ruling us man by man, inward, spiritual,
unseen, and yet moulding nations and institutions, outward and visible,
compelling sight and filling all the earth.
But these varieties are not contradictions, still less are they the
effects of a vague and imperfect notion which means anything or
everything according to the fancy of the writer. The conception is clear
and well defined. The kingdom of God is an organised community which is
subject to the will of the personal God. The elements of subordination
and society are both there. On the one hand there is the Ruler, on the
other there is the mass of subjects. The whole of the varieties in the
use of the term can be all reconciled in the one simple central notion,
but we cannot afford to lose sight of any of them if we would understand
what is meant by this prayer.
Let us take these thoughts which I have suggested, as expressing the
Scriptural meaning of this phrase, and by their help try to ascertain
what this prayer suggests.