as something still to be realised. As yet it is in the future. In other
places in the New Testament it is talked of as actually existent. Both
views are true—the kingdom is both _present_ and _future_. You remember
that when the Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God should come,
he observed, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, for lo,
the kingdom of God _is in your midst_.” The Pharisees were treating as
future what was already present. The kingdom of God was already in their
midst. But it was not surprising that the Pharisees failed to discover
the presence of the kingdom. It was a very tiny affair at the time. Its
subjects were only a handful of Galilean peasants. Our Lord Himself,
speaking of the tiny, unnoticed beginning of the kingdom, said it was
like unto leaven which a woman took and _hid_ in three measures of meal!
The kingdom is not hidden to-day. The leaven has been working through
the centuries. The presence of the _kingdom_ is the most noticeable fact
in the world’s life to-day. We talk about the great empires of the
world! We talk about the British Empire embracing one-fifth part of the
habitable globe: and the great Russian Empire claiming a sixth part of
the world; and the German Empire and the French Empire, and the rest of
them. But there is one Empire greater, vaster than any other—the Empire
of King Jesus. It is _in our midst_, the mightiest kingdom, the most
potent force on earth.
And yet, while the kingdom of God is thus _present_ and potent, it is
still _future_. Its full realisation has yet to come. So long as there
is in this world one man who has not yielded his heart to Christ, so
long as there is a single department of life which is not brought into
subjection to the law of Christ, so long will the kingdom be
_unrealised_, so long shall we need to pray this prayer, “Thy kingdom
come.” All the misery of this world is due to the fact that there are
multitudes of men still in rebellion, that there are whole departments
of human activity which are not regulated by the spirit of Christ. The
kingdom is still imperfect, incomplete. Its full establishment lies in
the future somewhere. Until that full establishment takes place, until
God is King everywhere and over everybody and everything, the world’s
golden age will never come.
_What kind of kingdom is this?_ It is worth while noticing that the
“kingdom” occupied a large place in the thought and speech of Christ.
His gospel was a gospel of the kingdom. He announced that He had come to
found a kingdom; He claimed the title “King” for Himself; and in what is
known as the Sermon on the Mount, He gave us, shall I say, the laws and
rules of the kingdom. Christ was not the first to picture an “Ideal
State,” Plato had already done it in his “Republic.” But Plato’s picture
would not satisfy you or me. It is an impossible, fantastic dream.
Plato’s state, with its philosopher king and its destruction of the
family, repels instead of attracting us. But the kingdom of God which
Christ has pictured for us, that gleaming vision of a new earth in which
love shall rule, fascinates and enthrals us, and the hope of its
realisation becomes the mainspring of all human progress and attainment.
Well what kind of a kingdom is it? Let me answer in the words of the
great Apostle Paul, and say, “The kingdom of God is righteousness and
peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” There you have in one brief sentence
the characteristics of the kingdom. The kingdom of God is
_righteousness_, or, in other words, the kingdom of God is _justice_.
There is cruel wrong in this world of ours, wrong that daily cries up to
God for vengeance. Man wrongs man, brother oppresses brother. The dark
places of the earth are full of cruelty, and places that are usually
supposed to be “light,” like this favoured England of ours, are full of
cruelty also. Oh, brethren, to see the wrong, the oppression, the
wickedness of life, is a maddening sight! I can understand how men are
sometimes driven by it into the blasphemy of despair! But the kingdom of
God is justice—strict, level, even-handed justice. When _His_ kingdom
comes, tyranny, oppression, wrong shall cease; men shall do right out of
love for their righteous King.
The kingdom of God is _peace_. Peace between men, peace between nations.
All strife and mutual distrust shall be for ever buried, and the noise
of war shall be heard no more, but men shall beat their swords into
plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks. Hate and enmity shall
die. “The wolf and the lamb shall lie down together, and the lion shall
eat straw like the ox. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy
mountain,” saith the Lord.
The kingdom of God is _joy_. We are in the winter of our discontent just
now. Life is full of tears and grief and pain. The tears and the grief
and pain spring from the hate and the oppressions and the injustices of
life. But when God is King there shall be justice and peace, and joy
will follow as a natural consequence. Justice, peace, happiness those
are the characteristics of the kingdom of God! Is not this a kingdom
worth praying for?
Now let me go on to ask the question, _What is the sphere of the
kingdom?_ First let me say, the sphere of the kingdom is the _individual
heart_. When I pray, “Thy kingdom come” I do not feel that I am praying
solely for the work of foreign missions. I do not think only of the
millions of heathen in China or India or Africa. When I pray “Thy
kingdom come,” I am not satisfied with adding to the thought of the
heathen abroad remembrance of the heathen at home. No! when I utter that
prayer I feel I am praying for myself. I am praying that God’s kingdom
may come in my own heart. Oh, yes, this prayer has reference to
ourselves. When we pray “Thy kingdom come,” we pray “Lord, come into our
own hearts; rule _there_; take the throne _there_: make us completely
thine.” “Thy kingdom come!” Brethren, do we mean it? Do we honestly
desire it? For see what it means. It means that we are asking that every
cherished sin and passion may be cast out of our hearts; it means that
we desire that neither money nor pleasure nor fame should have any power
over us or draw away our love from God. It means that God’s will and not
our own may rule. Oh, that is a great prayer! Do we honestly and
sincerely mean what we say? I have known men who loved their sins too
much, their pleasures, their money, themselves too much, ever to be able
to pray sincerely “Thy kingdom come!” May God give us grace honestly to
pray this prayer! May He make us able and willing to give to His
commands a glad and complete obedience! God’s kingdom must come in our
own hearts before it can come in the world at large! It is only true and
loyal subjects of the kingdom who can extend its boundaries and further
its interests. Men will not enter the kingdom, though we preach to them
till Doomsday, if we ourselves remain without. But if God truly reigns
in our hearts, and His kingdom begets in us righteousness, peace, and
joy, we shall then be able to go forth and win others as loyal subjects
to our King.
But in offering this prayer, we must not stop at ourselves. The prayer
embraces _the wide world in its sweep_. Thy kingdom come! Where?
Everywhere. All nations are to bow down before Him, all people are to
serve Him. Men discuss the question sometimes as to which race is likely
to become the dominant race in the earth. We people who live in this
little island are inclined to believe that this splendid destiny is
reserved for the Anglo-Saxon race. We stand among the nations for the
principles of liberty and truth and justice; and as I heard Dr. Clifford
say some months ago, we believe that “the momentum of these ideas will
carry us to the government of the earth.” And so far as England does
stand for those great ideas, I am not ashamed to confess I am an English
Imperialist. But there is something I am more anxious about even than
the dominion of England, and that is the dominion of Christ. Above
everything else I am a Christian Imperialist. I want to see the banner
of the Cross floating over every land. I want to see every nation
acknowledging one and the same King—even Jesus. I want to see the crown
of the world on the brow which bears still the scars of the crown of
thorns! And, brethren, I know that all this shall come to pass! The
place of England in the future of the world is, after all, a matter of
conjecture. But there is no conjecture, no doubt, no perhaps about the
place of Christ. He is destined for the throne! He shall reign till He
hath put all enemies under His feet, “Thy kingdom come” in my own heart,
over all the world, and let me add _in every department of life_. When
we pray this prayer, we are praying that God may rule in our business
life, and our social life, and our political life. We are asking Him to
preside in our Parliaments and our Council Chambers. We are asking Him
to take the government of our markets and our offices and our exchanges.
We are asking Him to be Lord in the realms of art and literature. What
an enormous sweep this prayer has! And we must not only pray this form
of words, but if our prayer is not to be a sham and a pretence, we must
_toil_ to realise the kingdom. “Laborare est orare,” says the old Latin
proverb: “To labour is to pray.” At any rate, no one has truly prayed
this prayer who does not bend all his energies to the task of seeking to
establish this kingdom on earth. England keeps in every important
foreign town consuls to look after the interests of English people. Let
me use that to illustrate the duties of Christian people. We are in this
world to look after the interests of God and of His kingdom. We are His
consuls. You business men, you are in business to look after God’s
interests and to promote His kingdom! You professional men—doctors,
lawyers, schoolmasters—you are in your professions to look after God’s
interests and to promote His kingdom! You politicians, you are in
politics to look after God’s interests and to promote His kingdom! You
fathers and mothers in the homes, you are there to look after God’s
interests and to promote His kingdom. You must be Christian business
men, Christian lawyers, Christian doctors, Christian teachers, Christian
politicians, Christian parents. Be faithful to your trust! _So_ live,
_so_ labour, that God’s kingdom may come! No wish or prayer of ours can
make the summer come an hour before its time, or stave off by one hour
the approach of grim winter, but it _does depend_ upon our prayers and
labours whether it shall be soon or late that summer gladness shall come
into the souls of men; whether it shall be soon or late that Christ
shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.
Let me now proceed to the question, “_How is this kingdom to be
established?_” Let me first say how it _cannot_. It cannot be
established by force. Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon built up their empires
with the sword, and cemented them with blood, but not so is the kingdom
of God to be established. Men have tried that method; they have used
fire and sword to make God’s kingdom come. Peter had that spirit when he
pointed to the two swords the disciples possessed. Mahomet followed this
plan when he gave to men the alternative, either Islam or death. The
Crusaders, spurred on by the burning eloquence of Peter the Hermit,
committed the same blunder. The old Saxon and Gothic kings, who when
they accepted Christianity themselves compelled their people to be
baptised as well, followed the same mistaken method. But these people
did not advance the kingdom of God one whit. You do not make a man a
member of this kingdom by baptising him, or enrolling him among the
adherents of a church, or by _calling_ him a Christian. Men must have
their hearts changed, they must be born again. They must be willing to
render glad obedience to their _Father_ King before they become members
of this kingdom. Force may increase the numbers of a sect, it cannot add
one to the membership of the kingdom. The sword may compel a man to
change his name; it can never compel him to change his heart! Oh no; it
is not by the sword that God’s kingdom will come. To all ecclesiastical
persecutors Christ says, “Put the sword up into its sheath.” Not by the
sword is the kingdom to come, but by the Cross! Constantine of old, when
on the eve of a critical battle, dreamed he saw a cross in the sky, and
around it this legend, Σὑ τουτῷ vῖκᾳ, “by this conquer.” That is the
weapon we have to use in our warfare. That is the weapon whereby God’s
kingdom is to be established. We are to conquer “by the Cross.” We are
to conquer by the power of love. For the Cross means love—love at its
best, love in the glory of sacrifice. The Cross is the power of God. It
is by the story of the Cross that men’s hearts are to be broken, and
their affection and allegiance won. “By this conquer” is the charge
given to us. Preach the Cross! Exalt the dying Redeemer of men! When we
lift Him up He will draw all men unto Him.
“Thy kingdom come.” It is a prayer to-day; but the time will come when
the prayer shall be changed into praise, and we shall be able to say,
“Thy kingdom has come!” It has been coming for eighteen hundred years,
and it is not here yet; but doubt not, despair not, faint not, it SHALL
come. Men have called the visions such men as Plato and Sir Thomas More
have given us of the “Ideal State,” “Utopias,” “Nowheres,” to mark their
idea of those visions as fantastic, impractical, impossible. But let no
one dare to call the kingdom of God a Utopia. Let no one dare to say of
the new earth which Christ foretold that it is a vain, an impossible
dream. To say that is to deny the faith, and to be guilty of the great
Apostasy. Do you say that the establishment of a kingdom of justice and
peace and joy is impossible? I will tell you nay. God is pledged to it,
and He shall not fail nor be discouraged. The time is coming when our
evil hearts shall be made pure and clean; the time is coming when our
life day by day shall be sweet and holy and happy; the time is coming
when lying, deceit, and greed and strife, and distrust and shame shall
be banished from the earth; the time is coming when asylums and
penitentiaries and gaols shall no longer openly proclaim our shame; the
time is coming when the drunkard and the profligate and the criminal and
the harlot shall be no more, but the people shall be all righteous—a
branch of God’s planting, that He may be glorified! The time is coming
when trade and politics and pleasure shall be carried on to the glory of
God. The time is coming when literature and art shall be cleansed of all
impure taint, and shall speak of God as the Bible speaks of Him to-day.
The time is coming when China and India and the Dark Continent and the
isles of the sea shall place their crowns on the head of Christ. The
time is coming when every idol shall be broken and every superstition
destroyed, and the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the
waters cover the sea. The time is coming when righteousness, peace, and
joy shall everywhere prevail, and sin and wrong shall be words whose
meaning men no longer understand. _Sursum corda._ Lift up your hearts!
That glorious time is coming! That glorious day is about to break. “The
world is grey with morning light.” Thy Kingdom come! It _must_ come; it
_will_ come. Its coming does not depend upon you or me, but upon the
risen and exalted Christ. “The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His
hands.”
Break, triumphant day of God,
Break at last, our hearts to cheer;
Throbbing souls and holy songs
Wait to hail thy dawning here.
Empires, temples, sceptres, thrones,
May they all for God be won;
And, in every human heart,
Father, let Thy kingdom come.
V
The Third Petition
“Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.”—MATT. vi. 10
The third petition, which is omitted from Luke’s version of the Prayer,
springs directly and naturally out of the second petition, and is really
explanatory of it. We have been taught to pray, “Thy kingdom come.”
God’s kingdom _will_ come, when His will is done on earth, as it is done
in heaven.
The central idea of kingship is that of _rule_, _authority_, _power_.
Kingship is only real and effective when the King commands and the
people obey. In heaven God’s kingship is a reality. The eyes of all the
inhabitants of the better land wait upon God. Cherubim and Seraphim,
saints and angels, delight to do His will. In heaven, God speaks and it
is done. This third petition is a prayer that men may learn to obey God
as the angels do, so that His kingship may be as real and as effective
here on earth as it is now in heaven.
Jurists draw a distinction between kings _de jure_—kings by legal right,
and kings _de facto_—in actual possession and exercise of the royal
power. Now God, if I may be allowed to say so, is the world’s King _de
jure_. He is the world’s lawful Sovereign and rightful Lord. “The earth
is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, the world and they that dwell
therein.” But God is not King _de facto_. His kingship is not effective.
His people do not obey. There are large sections of the world, whole
departments of human activity, where His rule is not recognised. Ireland
is part of the Queen’s dominions; but there have been times when the
Queen could scarcely be said to _reign_ in Ireland. At the time when the
Irish troubles were at their height, it was a common saying that in
certain districts of Ireland it was not the Queen who ruled, but the
Land League. Cuba was until last year part of the dominions of the King
of Spain. The Spanish flag floated over its arsenals and forts. It was
with the ministers of the King of Spain that all negotiations with
reference to Cuba had to be carried on. Cuban coins and Cuban postage
stamps bore the image and superscription of the Spanish sovereign. But
for all that, for the past ten years or so the kingship of Alphonso over
Cuba was merely nominal. Outside Havanna and Santiago Alphonso could not
be said to _reign_. Not all the armies of Spain could make his kingship
real and effective over the rebellious interior. In much the same way
God is the King of the world. He is its lawful Sovereign. No one else
has a shred of title or claim to an inch of its territory or to the
allegiance of one of its inhabitants. “The kingdom is the Lord’s, and He
is Governor among the nations.” But while God is King of the world _de
jure_, He is not King _de facto_. His kingship is nominal—not real and
effective; for there are parts of the world over which God cannot be
said to _rule_. There are multitudes of men who are in rebellion against
Him, and who refuse to acknowledge His authority. God’s writs do not
run. His law is not obeyed. His will is not done.
And here we come across that solemn and awful power which is the
prerogative of manhood—the _power of resisting the will of God_. Nature
obeys God’s will. The flower that blooms in hedge-side or meadow; the
lark that sings its way up to heaven’s gate in the spring sunshine; the
rivers that roll towards the sea; the ocean with its regular ebb and
flow; the sun and moon and stars observing their seasons and travelling
along their appointed orbits—all these are what they are, and do what
they do in obedience to God’s will. The wind is God’s messenger; the
thunder His voice; the lightning His sword. Nature obeys God. And above,
in heaven, the angels and the blest do God’s pleasure. “Thousands at His
bidding speed, and post o’er land and ocean without rest.” Is there any
one then who resists God’s will? Yes, there is one, just one, and that
one is _man_. In all God’s universe he is the only one who is
disobedient. He is the only one who clenches his fist and says “No” to
God. He is the only one invested with the terrible power of resisting,
thwarting, opposing the will of God. And that awful power he possesses
because he possesses a free and independent will of his own. God made
man, we are told, in His own likeness. The special feature that marks
man off from the brute creation and links him on to the Divine, is his
possession of _moral freedom_. God is a moral Being. Man, too, is a
moral being. But in order to make man a moral being, God had to limit
Himself and make man _free_. For there can be no moral quality where
there is no freedom. Nature is un-moral because nature acts under
necessity. Man is _not_ under necessity. He can either obey or disobey.
He is a moral being because he is _free_.
Now all the misery of the world is due to the fact that man abused his
freedom, that he chose not to obey, but to _dis_-obey. What was the
first sin? An act of disobedience; and that act of disobedience brought
in its train a multitude of woes. I want you to remember that vice is
not here by God’s will; lust is not here by God’s will; strife and
malice and envy are not here by God’s will; war and bloodshed and
slaughter are not here by God’s will; misery and poverty and shame are
not here by God’s will. They are here by _man’s_ will, because man set
up his own will in opposition to that of God. The secret of the world’s
unhappiness and sorrow and pain you will find in these familiar words of
the General Confession, “We have followed too much the devices and
desires of our own hearts.” “Selfishness,” as Bishop Westcott says,
“lies at the root of all sin.” Here is the fountain of the world’s woe,
that man preferred his own will rather than the will of God. While man
was obedient there was happiness and joy, happiness that lasted. As John
Milton says—
—till disproportioned Sin
Jarr’d against nature’s chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway’d
In perfect diapason, whilst they stood
In first obedience and their state of good.
But from that day, that day of disobedience, the whole creation has been
groaning and travailing together in pain until now. But to discover the
fountain of the disease is also to discover the secret of the remedy. If
the world owes its present misery to the fact that man has followed his
own will, the world will see its perfect day when man submits his own
will to the will of God. “Come and let us _return_” is the prophet’s
cry, “let us get back to the old allegiance.” “Come and let us return”
is the preacher’s call to-day. The way to the millennium is along the
path of obedience. When God’s kingship is real and effective, because
men everywhere are obedient, the Golden Age will have dawned. The new
earth wherein dwelleth righteousness will be a blessed fact when—
We learn with God to will one will,
To do and to endure.
_Thy Will be done!_ This petition teaches us that it must be our supreme
desire that God may have His way with us. You will notice, as I pointed
out a Saturday or two ago, that this petition comes before the petitions
for personal blessing. It is infinitely more important that God’s will
should be done than that we should have the things upon which we have
set our hearts. “_Thy_ will be done!” Do you not feel humbled and
reproached by this petition? I will speak for myself, and say that this
petition and its place in the prayer put me to utter shame. Why, our
very prayers are selfish! A secularist once said with a sneer that
“prayer was a machine warranted by theologians to make God do whatsoever
His clients want.” Have not our prayers given some ground for the sneer?
Have not our wants and interests occupied too large a place in our
petition? This is the true order in prayer—God first. This is the
petition that must dominate every other, “Thy will be done.”
Let me not be misunderstood. I am far from saying it is wrong to tell
God about our personal wishes and desires. No! Tell Him everything.
There ought to be no reserve in the conversation between a child and his
Father. I am not afraid or ashamed to tell God about my personal
affairs. I ask Him to preserve me from trouble and loss. I ask Him to
keep me safe from harm and danger. I ask Him to ward off from me
sickness and suffering. I ask Him to watch over those I love. But there
is another prayer I must learn to pray, another prayer I must learn to
pray _first_—and oh! what a lot of learning it takes—and that prayer is
this, “Thy will be done.” For it may be God’s will to send me the very
things I shrink from. He may see that it is the discipline of trouble
and loss and sickness that I need. I am but as a little child, blind and
ignorant as a little child, and when I pray for temporal gifts, I may be
only praying to my own hurt. This is the only prayer for me, for you,
for all men, “Father, Thy will be done.” We wish for success in life,
but because such a success might prove a curse and not a blessing, we
must add, “Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.” We pray for
freedom from bereavement and sorrow, but because such discipline may
result in truest blessedness, we add, “Nevertheless, not my will but
Thine be done.” We pray for peace and comfort and quietness, but because
struggle and conflict may be necessary, in order to make us strong, we
add, “Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.” We have not learned
to pray truly at all, until every petition in our prayers is made
subject to this one; until it becomes our chief and supreme desire that
God’s will may be done.