sheep in the still and starry night saw God in the arching sky, and
sang, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth
His handiwork.” And one of our own great poets, John Ruskin, has said,
“It is but the outer hem of God’s great mantle, our poor stars do gem.”
The Arabs speak of tracing God’s footsteps in the world; Kepler, in
studying the planets, said he was thinking God’s thoughts after Him;
Mrs. Barrett-Browning cries, “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every
common bush afire with God.” Yes! God reveals His name to us through
nature. I have been shown rocks which bear upon them indentations that
have some resemblance to a cloven foot, and I have been told of legends
that connect those marks with the devil. The devil, so the legends say,
made those particular rocks a momentary resting-place, and in the cloven
foot he has left his mark upon them for ever. But, brethren, it is not
the devil’s mark, but God’s mark that the great world bears. I can see
God’s mark on the sky and the sea, on mountain and flood, on flower and
tree. When I look at the great mountains I cannot help remembering that
it was God who planted them there. “He weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance.” When I look at the great and wide sea, at
the sunny, sleepy sea, at the angry, restless sea, I remember it was God
who placed it there. “He measured the waters in the hollow of His hand.
He has placed bounds for it which it cannot pass.” When I see the
lightning flash, I remember that the lightning is His messenger. When I
hear the thunder roll, I remember that the thunder is His voice. When I
see the birds of the air, I remember that not one of them falls to the
ground without God. When I see the lilies of the field, I remember that
God clothes them. Oh, yes, the world speaks of God. It is true, as
Coleridge sings in his magnificent “Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of
Chamouni”—
“Earth with her thousand voices praises God.”
But Nature does not tell all the secret. If we knew only what Nature
tells we should be compelled to cry with the old Hebrew prophet,
“Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself.” After all Nature has to
say, our entreaty is still, “Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name.”
(2) God’s name has been revealed to us more plainly _in the Bible_. In
this book you have one name for God following another, and with every
fresh name came new light. Westcott says that “the three chief stages in
the history of the Old Testament are characterised in broad outline by
the names under which God was pleased to make Himself known in each!”
First He is El-Shaddai, the God of might. Then He is Jehovah, the Great
I AM, the God of the covenant. Then He is Lord of Hosts, the King of the
Universe, the Disposer of Events, the Ruler of the world. It was a great
event in the history of men when God announced by His servants and
prophets a new name for Himself: We talk about great discoveries—the
discovery of a new mountain range, or river, or lake in the Dark
Continent, the discovery of some new facts in the realm of science, the
discovery of some new method of applying Nature’s forces to do men’s
work. I am not saying these are not great discoveries, but I do say the
greatest discovery that ever happens in this world of ours is the
discovery of a new name for God. You have the history of those names,
those discoveries in the Bible. To trace the giving of these names is to
trace the history of men as they were being led out of darkness into His
most marvellous light.
But who would not feel that, if the Bible stopped short at the book of
Malachi, the light at best was only the dim and uncertain twilight. If
the old book finished there, our cry would be still, “Tell me, I pray
Thee, Thy name.” Well, thanks be to Him, He has told us His name. He has
kept nothing from us.
(3) God has revealed Himself fully to us _in Jesus Christ_. He had given
glimpses of Himself to seers and prophets before. But God was greater
and better than the best word even Isaiah had said about Him. And at
last, when the fulness of time was come, God told the final truth about
Himself by sending Jesus Christ into the world. He is the effulgence of
His glory and the express image of His person. There are likenesses
between human beings. We talk about “family likenesses.” There are
striking resemblances between father and son, mother and daughter,
brother and sister. But with the resemblances there are also
differences. You can always distinguish between one and another. But
between God and Jesus Christ the likeness is absolute. There are no
differences. Jesus is the Word of God. He is what God is, expressed in
terms of human thought and speech. God has kept nothing back from us. He
has reserved no secret. You may enter into the holiest place by the
blood of Jesus. What is God’s name? God’s name is Jesus Christ. In Jesus
you get the full and final revelation of God’s character. God could not
fully reveal Himself through nature. He could not have been pictured for
us in a book. It was only in a _life_ that God could fully reveal
Himself, and that full revelation He gave in the life of His Son. When
Philip said to Jesus, “Shew us the Father,” Jesus answered, “I and my
Father are one. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Jesus was
God’s answer to the cry of man—“Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name.” It is
by looking at Jesus, then, that we discover the character of God. And if
you ask me, after studying Christ’s life, what I find God’s character to
be and what His best name is, I answer that His nature is love, and that
the best name that describes Him is the name “Father.” When, then, Jesus
tells us to pray, “Hallowed be Thy name,” He is telling us to honour
God’s character as revealed in Himself. He is telling us to honour God
as Father both in thought and life.
Now let me pass on to ask, _How may we hallow God’s name?_ You remember
the old commandment “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in
vain.” Well, we must give a strict obedience to that old commandment if
we are to hallow God’s name. There are men in our midst who can scarcely
utter a sentence without dragging in the name of God. They interlard
their speech with oaths, and blasphemously use the name of the sacred
Majesty on High. Such men dishonour and degrade the Holy Name. But if we
imagine that by abstaining from the vulgar and wicked habit of swearing
we have “hallowed God’s name,” we are much mistaken. The Jews of old
gave scrupulous obedience to the letter of the command, “Thou shalt not
take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” but they violated its
spirit. They were so scrupulous that they would not even pronounce the
sacred name. They passed it over in silence; they would never tread upon
a piece of paper lying on the ground for fear the sacred name might be
written upon it. And yet the Jew, while giving this strict literal
obedience to the command, was all the while violating its spirit, and by
his sin, his greed, his hypocrisy, was dishonouring that God whose name
he feared to pronounce.
And for the matter of that, there are people amongst us who attach, as
the ancient Jews did, a superstitious reverence to the name, who treat
it as if it were a charm; who pay an idolatrous worship to the mere
word. I have been occasionally to services in the cathedrals and parish
churches of our land, and I have noticed that the men and women who
attend them will bow at “the name.” Now I am not prepared to say that
act is wrong, but I am quite prepared to say that the tendency of all
such practices is to make people imagine that God is to be honoured and
worshipped by mere externalisms. The danger of such a practice is that
of making people imagine they have “hallowed God’s name,” by bowing in
church. Brethren, it is all a very pitiful delusion. What is the use of
bowing at the name, if people go home to be selfish and unkind, or to
their business to be hard and over-reaching; or into society to be
gossips and tale-bearers? In spite of the outward respect they pay, such
people dishonour God’s name, drag it through the mire, and make it the
jest of blasphemers and fools. “Hallowing God’s name” does not mean
bowing when that sacred name is pronounced: it means honouring the
character of God, as that character has been made known to us in Jesus
Christ. This is a prayer not simply for the man to pray who is fighting
against the blaspheming habit, it is a prayer that the best of
Christians may well utter. Well, how shall we “hallow God’s name?”
(1) _By cherishing worthy ideas of God._ We are _dishallowing_ (if I may
be allowed to use the word) God’s name when we have unworthy ideas of
His nature. We are sinning against this name “Father” when we think of
God as harsh, unkind, cruel. Our new theology may have its defects and
its dangers, but at any rate it “has hallowed God’s name.” It has made
God more beautiful, more tender, more loving and lovable. Do you know I
am not surprised that men broke out into revolt against the stern, hard,
pitiless theology of a century ago. Theologians were attributing to God
conduct that would be branded as hateful in men! Augustine and Calvin
have laid the Church under vast obligations, but when Augustine and
Calvin talked about little infants being damned, they were dishonouring
God’s name, casting a slur upon His character, and sinning against His
Fatherhood. There is an old painting in one of the Italian galleries
which pictures God as shooting arrows at men, and Jesus catching them
before they reached their mark. That picture represents the spirit of
much of the old theology. Christ is represented as kind and pitiful, but
God is represented as cruel, vengeful, vindictive. Brethren, that is a
libel upon God. It is a cruel slander upon God’s character. “God is
love.” “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.” God so
loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. That is the true
picture. Refuse to believe in anything that contradicts that. Refuse to
believe that God can ever be guilty of what would be accounted base in
man. Believe with Whittier, that
“Nothing can be good in Him, which evil is in me.”
Say with Browning, “Thou, God, art Love. I build my faith on that.” You
must cherish lofty, beautiful, gracious thoughts of God if you are to
hallow His name. And go on to know the Lord. There are depths of love in
God, unrealised as yet by the best of us. I know a valley in South
Wales, which outwardly is not much to look at, but in its bosom are
buried vast treasures, and men who have digged beneath the surface have
found there boundless wealth. The deeper we penetrate into the nature of
God, the more loving, the more gracious we shall find Him to be.
Therefore, press on to know Him, until you come to feel that God is your
passion and your joy, that in earth, in heaven, you want none but Him.
By so doing, you will be hallowing God’s name.
But God’s name must be hallowed not only in thought, but in life. So I
pass on to say that not only can you hallow God’s name by cherishing
worthy thoughts of God, but you can hallow God’s name also—
(2) By the _trustfulness of your life_. Jesus has told us God’s name of
“Father” by quietly trusting Him. You cannot dishonour a friend more
than by refusing to trust him, can you? Distrust, suspicion, is an
insult to friendship. A child cannot dishonour a father more than by
fearing him, being suspicious about him, doubting his love. Fear,
suspicion, distrust—these things are an insult to fatherhood. Are we
never guilty of insulting the Fatherhood of God? I have heard people
sometimes complain of God, of God’s dealing with them in Providence.
They have spoken as if God used them hardly. They have spoken as if God
had His favourites. They have spoken as if God had lost His love for
them. What were they doing? Dishonouring God’s name, casting a slur upon
His character, forgetting that His nature is love and His name is
Father. Men who, in spite of Calvary, think God can be unkind, are doing
insult to His love. If you want to hallow God’s name, trust Him to the
uttermost; “rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.” Job hallowed
God’s name, when, amid the wreck of all his earthly fortunes, he said,
“Even though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” Paul hallowed God’s name
when, looking at the cross, he said, “All things work together for good
to them that love God.” Samuel Rutherford honoured God’s name when,
writing from his prison in Aberdeen, he said, “I have nothing to say of
my Lord’s cross but much good.” I have read of a child who in the midst
of a storm at sea remained quiet, calm, and fearless, and who, on being
asked how it was she was not afraid, answered, with the simplicity of
childhood, “My father is the captain.” She honoured the name father by
her perfect trustfulness. We find ourselves in storms sometimes—storms
of trouble, storms of doubt, storms of bereavement and grief. It is in
such storms we have the most glorious opportunities of hallowing God’s
name. Let us ask Him for grace to honour His Fatherhood by trusting Him
in the dark and cloudy day. Man, the child, cannot hallow God’s name of
“Father” better than by a quiet, simple trustfulness.
(3) We can hallow God’s name of “Father” by _our obedience_. The Italian
brigand will repeat the Pater Noster and then go on with his robbery.
The Mussulman will interlard his filthiest talk with appeals to Allah.
But nothing is so dishonouring to God as profession without practice.
God will have obedience and not sacrifice. God was weary of the outward
marks of respect the Jews paid Him, because all these outward marks of
reverence were accompanied by gross and persistent disobedience of life.
Does a child want to honour his father? He cannot do it better than by
being an obedient child, by giving prompt and willing obedience to his
father’s commands. Do you want to honour your Father in heaven? Obey
Him. Obey Him in the home; obey Him in society; obey Him in your
business; obey Him in your public and political life. Obey Him promptly,
absolutely, willingly. That was how Jesus hallowed His Father’s name.
From the earliest dawn of life He was about His Father’s business. It
was His meat and drink to do God’s will. He was born at Bethlehem, He
laboured in Galilee, He drank the bitter cup in the garden, He died upon
the Cross—all because it was God’s will. He gave to His Father full,
absolute, glad obedience, so that in His prayer He could say to God, “I
have glorified Thy name,” and God could look upon Him and say, “Thou art
My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” If you want to honour your
Heavenly Father, _obey Him_! We try to put God off with a little outward
respect, we bow at His name, we bend in prayer before Him, we sing hymns
to His praise; but better than all your bowing and hymn singing and
multiplied prayers is the daily obedience of the life. “If ye love Me,”
says God, “keep My commandments.” To-morrow, in the shop and the office
and the school and the home, make it your meat and drink to do the
Father’s will and to finish His work; so will you, too, like your great
Elder Brother, glorify God’s name, and like Him you, too, will one day
hear God say, “Thou art My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
IV
The Second Petition
“Thy Kingdom come.”—MATT. vi. 10; LUKE xi. 2.
The Bible is a book of hope. It looks, not backward, but forward. It has
its face turned towards the light. It always speaks of “a best that is
still to be.” We open its pages and we read of Eden; of a time when the
world was free from pain and sorrow and sadness, because man was free
from sin. While man was innocent his home was a garden, all nature
served him, a sky that was always blue smiled down upon him, and God was
his familiar friend. But we read on a chapter or two and a change comes
over the aspect of things. Eden disappears, and has never been found
since. Joy, harmony, peace vanish, and leave behind them discord,
sorrow, hate. When man sinned, pain and grief and death entered the
world, man’s sky grew black with clouds; God no longer spoke with him in
the cool of the evening, and he was driven out of the garden, at the
gates of which the cherubim were posted with swords of flame which
pointed every way, as if to say, “No return, no return.”
But even in the story of that bitter loss I detect the note of “hope.”
You perhaps remember the old Greek legend which says that when Pandora
was married to Epimetheus the gods gave her a box, which was full of
winged blessings, as a wedding present. As long as Pandora kept the box
locked, so long life was like a summer’s day. She and her husband
enjoyed every blessing. But one day, tempted by curiosity, she opened
the box, and on the instant the little winged creatures who were locked
inside took flight and left her for ever. All? did I say. No, not quite
all. _Hope_ remained at the bottom of the box, the only blessing left to
Pandora and her husband! And so exactly man lost everything by sin
except _hope_. When God made man He gave him every blessing. But when
man unmade himself, these blessings took flight. He lost his innocence,
he lost his peace, he lost his happiness, he lost his home, he lost
everything but _hope_. God left him _hope_ to comfort him in his bitter
grief. God left him _hope_ to save him from despair. When man’s night
was blackest, God sent into his sky a star, a star that was the promise
of a day to come. In pronouncing doom upon disobedient man, God also
gave him a promise as if to say, “It shall not always be midnight and
deep despair with thee. Thy dayspring shall again arise.” That note of
hope, struck even in the story of the tragedy of the fall, is the
key-note of the Bible. The Bible is a book of the future, and the
spring-time, and the dawn. You will not find its pages taken up with
regrets for the Eden which has been lost; it looks forward to a better
Eden still to come. It does not spend its time in bewailing the sunshine
that has disappeared from the earth; it rather bids men wake and watch
that they may be ready to greet the still more glorious day which is
about to break. For as you read the Bible, what do you discover? You
discover one glowing promise after another given by God; you find hope
ever waxing stronger; you find the assurance that the night is
departing, ever waxing more confident, until at last some prophet, of
keener vision than the rest, catches on the peaks of distant hills the
foregleam of the dawn, beholds the vision of the light, not of moon or
stars, but of the sun, and announces to a world sick with longing for
the day, that “the light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen
upon thee.” It is to the future the Bible looks. From its first page to
the last it preaches the glad gospel of _hope_. The old Eden which has
been lost is a prophecy of the better Eden to be gained. The “golden
age” of the Bible is before, not behind. Paganism could only look back
wistfully to the past and sigh for the reign of Saturn, when the earth
had peace and plenty and joy—those glad days which had been, but could
return no more. But the Bible teaches us to look forward. Our good time
is still to come. Our golden age is still in the womb of the future. We
are still looking for that glorious “last for which the first was made.”
It is of the golden age to which the Christian looks forward that this
second petition speaks. “Thy Kingdom come” is a prayer for the good time
coming, a prayer for the golden age, a prayer for the better Eden. For
the earth’s golden age will come when God is King. I say the _earth’s_
golden age advisedly. Let me emphasise it—_the earth’s_ golden age! For
many have misinterpreted the reference of this petition. Tertullian, the
old Latin father, would have made this petition the third, not the
second. He would have read the prayer thus, “Hallowed be Thy name, Thy
will be done, Thy Kingdom come,” because he thought this prayer for
God’s kingdom referred to the end of the world and the second advent.
But when Jesus teaches us to pray that God’s kingdom may come, He means
that we are to pray that God may reign _here_ upon the earth, that men
_here_ may acknowledge Him as King, that life _here_ may be regulated by
His commands. This is not a prayer that we may be taken out of earth
into heaven, but it is a prayer that heaven may come down to earth, so
that earth itself may become heavenly. It is a prayer for the “new earth
wherein dwelleth righteousness.” It is a prayer for the world’s golden
age—a golden age which shall come when there is established here on
earth that kingdom of God which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the
Holy Ghost. Have you noticed how in most men’s minds the idea of a
“golden age” is associated with the name of some king? The Israelites
associated it with the name of David; the Germans associated it with the
name of Frederick Barbarossa; for us British folk a special halo of
romance gathers round the time of Arthur and his Knights of the Round
Table. And as a matter of fact, the world’s good time is inseparably
connected with the coming of a King and the establishment of a kingdom.
But the kingdom is no earthly royalty, and the King is no David or
Barbarossa or Arthur come back to life again. The kingdom is the kingdom
of God, and the name of the King is Jesus. When that Kingdom is
established, when that King is enthroned, a better Eden shall be here
than the Eden we have lost. It is the world’s evil time just now. Earth
is full of misery and grief and pain. Many are the schemes propounded
for mending matters, and God knows they need mending. Each man has his
own nostrum, every quack his own panacea; but if we leave God and Christ
out of account every plan is doomed to fail. We shall mend matters only
by making God a reality, and the final establishment of right and
justice, and joy will come only when _He_ is enthroned as King. But you
may say to me, “Is not God King now? Is not the world His? Are not all
men in His hands?” That is perfectly true! I do not forget that the
earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof, the world and they that
dwell therein. It is my joy and strength to remember that in spite of
all the bluster and brave show made by the forces of evil, the Lord God
omnipotent reigneth! But if you will examine the basis of _that_
Kingship you will find it rests on God’s _Creatorship_. He is Lord of
the world and of men because He has created them—because in Him they
live and move and have their being. But God wants to be King in Jesus
Christ—that is to say, He wants to be King in virtue not of His power,
but of His _love_. He wants men to obey Him not because they are afraid
of Him, but because they love Him. Look at the prayer: “_Thy_ kingdom
come.” Whose kingdom is it? Well, it is “our _Father’s_” kingdom. Oh,
this is a kingdom of love! God wants to be King not because He is
Creator, but because He is _Father_. He wants men to be obedient to Him
not under the pressure of force, but under the sweet constraint of love.
God has been King by the title of Creator since the world began; but He
is not even yet King by the title of “Father.” He is not even yet King
in Jesus Christ. It is for _this_ kingdom we are to pray; for the time
when men shall realise what God’s Fatherhood means, for the time when
men’s hearts shall be so touched by God’s love to them in Jesus Christ,
that out of pure and grateful affection they will render Him a willing
and glad obedience.