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Part
14 THY
KINGDOM COME (continued)
“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in
heaven...Thy kingdom come...” (Mat. 6:9).
The prophets of Old Testament times regarded the
There are two errors abroad in the land today in respect to the
The second error recognizes no present literal
The great truth I declare to you today is that Jesus Christ came
two millenniums ago and brought the Kingdom and established the Kingdom
within the hearts and lives of the sons of the Kingdom. “Now after that
John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the good news
of the Kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom
of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the good news” (Mk. 1:14-15).
And again, “The law and the prophets were until John: since that time
the
Upon your table today there is or should be a book we call the
Bible. This book alone reveals God’s secret plan of the ages. It unfolds
with unerring accuracy the mysteries of ages in the dim and misty past and
points with unerring finger to the purpose of countless eons yet to come.
The Christian Church as we know it has been living in a fool’s paradise,
propounding pet doctrines, ranting and raving about an endless eternity
with golden streets and harps and white nightgowns for some and crackling,
searing, tormenting flames for others, but almost completely overlooking
God’s wonderful
As men with the aid of God’s Word have gazed into the vista of
the future, it seems to have missed their understanding that God says very
little in His Word about eternity, while devoting many hundreds of
passages to His will and works wrought through THE AGES. “God, who at
sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by
the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He
hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds”
(Heb. 1:1-2). What tremendous statements we have here! God has spoken to
us through His Son — literally, “spoke to us in Son,” or, God spoke
to us in One who has the character that He is a SON, revealing the realm
and relationship of sonship to God. This Son is heir of all things and,
blessed be God! we are joint heirs with Him. “By whom also He made the
worlds.” Many people believe this refers to the creative act — “In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” It does not refer
to that at all. The word here for “worlds” is AIONAS. It means ages
— “...by whom He framed the ages.” This goes beyond His being
Creator of matter and its arrangement into multiplied billions of
galaxies, stars, suns, planets and moons with their atmospheres and
inhabitants. This lends purpose to everything. He is the heir who GIVES
THE
The age we are now living in is not the last age nor is the age to
come the final age in God’s vast Kingdom program. The apostle Paul tells
us that God “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the AGES TO COME He might show
(put on display, exhibit) the exceeding riches of His grace in His
kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6-7). According to
these inspired words there are “ages” yet to come — so there can be
no less than two ages beyond our present age and there could be many, many
more. It is during these “ages to come” that God shall take the
wonderful work He has so meticulously wrought in His elect throughout the
past ages and put it on display in and through them for the whole creation
to behold and consider. This will certainly not be to the condemnation of
creation, the masses of unregenerated men that have lived and died upon
this planet, but rather redounds unto their blessing, deliverance and
transformation; for it is HIS
While the scriptures speak in the Greek of an age, and the ages,
and the ages of the ages — one age proceeding from, or out of, a
previous age until all the ages have run their courses — it also points
to that glorious climatic age of all ages. We read the phrase, “Thy
throne, O God, is for ever and ever” (Heb. 1:8). These words “for ever
and ever” come from the Greek which literally reads TO THE AGE OF THE
AGES. This is very familiar terminology in scripture.
Few men have been caught away by the spirit of inspiration as was
the wise king Solomon when he penned the beautiful Song of Solomon. God
dropped one thousand and five songs down into the heart of Solomon, but of
these, only five comprising the Song of Solomon, have been preserved and
found a place in holy scripture. Inspiration named it “The Song of
Songs,” that is, the one song that was above and beyond all the songs
that have ever come from human heart and human lips. Just as the “Song
of Songs” was chief above them all, just as the “Holy of holies” was
the holiest place of all, just as the “heaven of heavens” is the
highest heaven of all, just as the “King of kings” is the greatest
King of all, so all through the scriptures, though obscured by many
translators, we have this remarkable phrase TO THE AGE OF THE AGES. It
points to that age that shall be the most glorious of all, and which finds
its type in the year of Jubilee.
This is the Holy Spirit’s way of expressing the superlative, and
so far as God’s plan of the ages is concerned this AGE OF THE A
The Word of God is crystal clear that there is to be an increase of
the Kingdom from age to age. The very fact that there are yet “ages to
come” shows that the Kingdom advances from one age to another.
Historically, every new age has superseded the previous ones, bringing
greater light, a further revelation of God, and more advanced dealing with
mankind. Each new age inaugurates a higher dimension of God’s purposes
in the earth. Nothing is clearer in the scriptures than the fact that THIS
IS NOT THE LAST AGE. There is no “final windup” at the close of this
present dispensation. We can expect, therefore, fresh and greater
manifestations and administrations of Kingdom dominion as we move from
this age into the next. What anticipation this evokes in our hearts!
The apostle James made a statement to the council at
God’s purpose in His Church is not to save men from sin and hell
and take them off to some far-off heaven somewhere. God’s plan is to
first set up His government in the hearts of His elect and then as they
become totally committed unto Him to imbue them with His own mind, spirit,
thoughts, will, nature and power until they have grown up into the measure
of the fullness of the stature of Christ. But most Christians will not
come to this! They are too busy playing church, rejoicing that they are
not going to hell or that they are going to heaven when they die, and
blundering around in the carnal programs and immaturity and shame of a
wretched, fleshly, Babylonian religious system which falsely calls itself
“the church.” But just as the dispensation of the law, at its
conclusion, brought forth that which it typified and pointed to — Jesus
Christ the Son of God — so this present Church age must, in these last
days, at its conclusion, bring forth that for which it was intended and to
which it pointed — a many-membered BODY OF CHRIST, perfected, matured,
overcoming, and full grown into the exact likeness and full glory of its
Head and Lord.
God never intended that Christ should rule over all the earth and
all nations during this age. His reign is confined completely to that
company of footstep followers who have heard His voice and follow Him all
the way into sonship to God. Baptized in His fullness these sons of God
become the very embodiment of His government in the earth. This may seem
to be an extremely slow method and a very small Kingdom for such a great
and exalted King, but we cannot over emphasize the importance of this
lowly beginning for a government whose authority is destined to “subdue
ALL THINGS.” So let us see that not only is God establishing His
government in the lives of His elect, but through His dealings with them
He is actually FORMING THEM INTO A GOVERNMENT — a ruling body of sons of
God, kings and priests after the Order of Melchizedek! God is calling out
a people to bear His name, to be His nature, authority and power in the
earth. To bear His name WHERE? WHEN? HOW? To bear His name only through
their fleeting years in the flesh? Not at all. James says, “AFTER THIS
(after the Lord has completed His work of calling out a people for His
name), I will return and build again the tabernacle of David...THAT THE
RESIDUE OF MEN MIGHT SEEK AFTER THE LORD, AND ALL THE GENTILES...saith the
Lord.” The “residue” of men denotes “all the rest,” that is, all
who were not part of the “called out.” I tell you, my beloved, God is
now forming a government composed of faithful sons (the tabernacle of
David) whom He shall use in the coming age and ages as kings and priests
after the Order of Melchizedek to bring God’s Kingdom to pass in all the
earth and in all realms. Through this glorious anointed body of sons ALL
THE REST OF MEN...ALL THE GENTILES...SHALL SEEK THE LORD. Hallelujah! This
is not the “coming” of the Kingdom, it is the next stage of
“advancement” and “increase” of the Kingdom. The Kingdom has
already come! But this next step of the Kingdom’s expansion cannot come
until the sons of God are fully matured, perfected, trained, prepared and
equipped. God, through nearly two thousand years, has been slowly, surely
and wisely choosing this body of sons, preparing them through the furnace
of affliction and the discipline of testings to sit together with Him on
His throne, for those that suffer with Him shall also reign with Him!
The promise is sure. “And He that OVERCOMETH, and keepeth my
works unto the end (of the processing), to him will I give POWER OVER THE
NATIONS: and he shall RULE THEM with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a
potter shall they be broken to shivers” (Rev. 2:26-27). “To him that
OVERCOMETH will I grant to SIT WITH ME IN MY THRONE, even as I also
overcame and am set down with my Father in His throne” (Rev. 3:21).
“And now they sing again a new song, saying, You are worthy to take the
scroll and to break the seals that are on it, for You were slain and with
Your blood you purchased men unto God — from every tribe and language
and people and nation. And You have MADE THEM A KINGDOM AND PRIESTS to our
God, and they shall REIGN OVER THE EARTH!” (Rev. 5:9-10, Amplified).
This great truth cannot be any more forcefully presented than it is by the
prophet Daniel when he writes, “These great beasts which are four, are
four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the SAINTS OF THE MOST
HIGH SHALL TAKE THE KINGDOM, and POSSESS THE KINGDOM for ever, even for
ever and ever. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and
prevailed against them; until the Ancient of days came, and JUDGMENT WAS
GIVEN TO THE SAINTS OF THE MOST HIGH; and the time came that THE SAINTS
POSSESSED THE KINGDOM. And he shall speak great words against the Most
High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High...BUT THE JUDGMENT
(of the saints) SHALL SIT, AND THEY (the saints) SHALL TAKE WAY HIS
DOMINION TO CONSUME AND DESTROY IT UNTO THE END. AND THE KINGDOM AND
DOMINION AND THE GREATNESS OF THE KINGDOM UNDER THE WHOLE HEAVEN, SHALL BE
GIVEN TO THE PEOPLE OF THE SAINTS OF THE MOST HIGH, whose Kingdom is an
everlasting Kingdom, and ALL DOMINIONS SHALL SERVE AND OBEY HIM” (Dan.
7:17-18, 21-22, 25-27).
The work of the sons of God only begins at the opening of the age
that follows the Church age. “Then I saw thrones, and sitting on them
were those to whom authority to act as judges and pass sentence was
entrusted...blessed and holy — spiritually whole, of unimpaired
innocence and proved virtue — is the person who shares in the first
resurrection...and they shall be MINISTERS of God and of Christ...and they
shall RULE WITH HIM a thousand years” (Rev. 20:4,6, Amplified). Ah, yes,
they shall rule for that age but the Kingdom doesn’t end there, for,
“of the increase of His government and peace THERE SHALL BE NO END!”
It is my deep conviction that God’s Kingdom program for the past
two millenniums has been the calling out of the body of Christ, the
formation of God’s divine government of Kings and Priests after the
Order of Melchizedek. These are called out by God, called out of the
world, and called out unto God. Furthermore, they are called out of every
religious system on earth including those man-made systems which have the
audacity to call themselves “the Church,” although their organizations
are unscriptural, their programs unspiritual, and their ceremonies
uninspired. They are in reality a pretense and a sham. The true Church is
the ecclesia, the “called out” ones. They are called out by the Holy
Spirit of God and they are called out unto God. Their ears know His voice
and not the clamoring voices of strangers. Well they know by the Spirit
that the Babel of voices which clamor to be heard from the pulpit and
radio and television are too often the voices of strangers posing as the
ministers of Christ who seek to draw away disciples after themselves, and
not to point men to the Christ of God upon whose shoulder is the
government of the world.
God has had no plan to save the world during the Church age, only
to call out a people unto Himself. If God had purposed to save the world
during the past two thousand years He most certainly would have done so,
for His IS GOD ALMIGHTY. God’s Kingdom program for the next age, as His
Kingdom progresses from age to age in that glorious increase of which
there is no end, is the subjugation and salvation of all the living
nations on earth. The promise is sure. Hear what the Lord is about to do
through His Anointed Christ Body in this, our day! “He that overcometh...to
him will I give POWER OVER THE
Scripture could be piled upon scripture, but it should be clear to
every honest heart that God has a plan beyond this age and beyond the
Church, the called out, a plan that includes ALL THE NATIONS OF EARTH. The
Church age is the age of the called out, the formation of God’s elect
into a
Within this principle lies the nature of the For
many years now multitudes of preachers and people in the church systems
would have us believe that God has been in this great work of the ages for
the short period of 6,000 years. They tell us that in this day God is
about to become so disgusted with the whole mess that He is going to close
it down, take a few saints away to a planet called heaven, and give up on
the rest of creation, the work of His love. What a WEAK and STUPID God
some folk have and worship! They worship a God who changes, one who in the
beginning did start out to bring about a glorious end, but somewhere along
the line lost control of the situation and has now thrown up His hands in
despair and decided to destroy the whole thing and content Himself with a
“little flock” of followers for all eternity. What great pity I feel
for such people and for the god they serve! For this is going to put their
god in the unenviable position of being filled with regret throughout all
eternity because He was unable to carry out His purpose, a large segment
of humanity and creation forever lost to Him, and He will have to always
remember that over in the hell He created is the vast majority of men for
whom Jesus died suffering the tortures of the damned for ever and ever.
What a prospect for God and His creation! What a prospect for God and His
Kingdom! What a prospect for God and His Anointed body of Kings and
Priests after the Order of Melchizedek! What an unthinkable prospect!
There are worlds beyond this one, scattered throughout the
vastnesses of infinity, all created by our Lord Jesus Christ and all
included within the scope of His ever-increasing Kingdom. Long millenniums
ago God “created the heavens and the earth.” A universe of raging
infernos called stars came into existence. Astronomers estimate that their
number is equal to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or one sextillion —
yet, their utter extremity has never been seen! There seems to be no end
to the twinkling points of light. And scattered among these myriads of
stars and nebulae are millions of solar systems composed of suns, planets
and moons. Those worlds, too, are to be explored and God’s great purpose
fulfilled in them through the sons of God, for God’s Christ is heir of
A-L-L T-H-I-N-G-S. Ages to come...it will take them all, precious friend
of mine, though there should be billions or trillions of them, to complete
the great and grand purpose of our Creator. What a calling! What a plan!
What a destiny! How magnificently awesome and meaningful the words of the
inspired prophet: “And of the INCREASE OF HIS GOVERNMENT AND PEACE there
shall be no end!”
When Jesus came revealing the great truth and reality of sonship
and the Kingdom of God He taught us to pray, “Our Father...Thy Kingdom
come.” In offering this prayer we must not stop at ourselves. The prayer
embraces the whole wide world in its sweeps and indeed all of creation.
Thy Kingdom come! Where? Everywhere. All nations are to bow down before
Him, all people are to serve Him, and unto all principalities and powers
in the heavenlies the wisdom of God is to be revealed. Men discuss the
question sometimes as to which race is likely to become the dominant race
in the earth. Hitler thought that the Aryan race was the master race and
set about to conquer the world. The Jews believe that they will eventually
rule the earth. We who live in the United States, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, England and Northwestern Europe are sometimes inclined to believe
that this unique destiny is reserved to the ten-tribed house of Israel —
the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples. There is abundant evidence that the ten-tribed
house of
As a part of the many-membered Christ of God I want to see the
banner of HIS LIFE raised high in every heart and in every land. I want to
see every nation, every tongue, every tribe, every people and every race
acknowledging one and the same King of kings, even Jesus. I want to see
the crown of the world on the brow of the Christ of God and the government
upon His shoulder. And, brethren, I know that this shall surely come to
pass! HE is seated upon the throne of the universe today and we, in Him,
are destined to rule all things. The hour is wonderfully nigh at hand when
that great company of the manifested sons of God shall arise to deliver
creation from the long tyranny of sin, sorrow and death. This sonship is
the hope of all creation and, even now, every created thing on earth and
throughout the vastnesses of infinity is standing on tiptoe to see the
wonderful sight of an age and ages governed by the holy sons of Love.
What redemption there shall be! What reconciliation! What
salvation! What peace and joy and righteousness! What health and blessing
and life more abundant! The time is coming when every evil heart shall be
made pure as the lily and clean as the driven snow. The time is coming
when every man’s life day by day shall be sweet and holy and happy. The
time is coming when lying, deceit, greed, strife, violence and shame shall
be banished from the earth. The time is coming when mental hospitals and
penitentiaries shall no longer openly proclaim our shame. The time is
coming when the drunkard, the drug abuser, the fornicator, the homosexual,
the harlot and the criminal 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 there shall be no more weeping widows nor starving
orphans, nor manhood and womanhood debased from the image of God. The time
is coming when the clash of arms shall be heard no more; when there shall
be no more war of armies or tanks or battle-ships; no more missiles
streaking through the sky, or bombs bursting.
The time is coming when business and politics and pleasure shall be
carried on to the glory of God. The time is coming when literature and art
and television and movies and the media shall be cleansed from all their
impurity, vulgarity, violence and immorality, and shall speak of God as
our own hearts speak of Him today. The time is coming when the THE JEWISH VIEW OF THE KINGDOM
The children of THE KINGDOM WITHIN
I do not hesitate to tell you that the sphere of the Kingdom is the
individual heart. This is the end for which man was made, the final cause
of his creation, that he might be a province and principality of God: the
King eternal septering him throughout his whole nature, spirit, soul and
body. When I pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” I do not feel that I am praying
solely for my city, my nation, the world, or the vast reaches of creation.
I do not think first or foremost about the harlots, drunkards, drug
addicts, criminals, atheists, or the masses of sinners throughout the
world. When I pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” I am not content with adding
to the thought my unpleasant neighbors, the Mafia, or Fidel Castro. No!
When I utter the prayer it is with the deep conviction that I am praying
for myself. I am praying that God’s rule may come fully and powerfully
in my own heart, mind, nature and life.
Oh, yes, this prayer has reference to ourselves. There is a problem
and that is that we have our own kingdom, the kingdom of man. My business,
my enterprise, my family, my ministry, my church, my elders, my people, my
thing that I am doing, that we are concerned with. And over against all
that, Jesus sets His “Thy.” “THY Kingdom come.” When we pray,
“Thy Kingdom come,” we pray, “Father, come in Thy Lordship into my
own heart; rule there; take Thy throne there; make me completely Thine.”
See what it means. It means that we are asking that every wicked way,
every cherished sin and passion, every self-serving desire and ambition,
every carnal thought, word and deed may be cast out of our hearts. It
means that neither money nor pleasure nor prestige should have any power
over us. It means that the Father’s will and not our own may dictate
fully our lives. It means that the precious mind that was in Christ Jesus
so possesses us until all death is swallowed up into HIS VICTORY. Oh, that
is a great prayer!
I have known men that loved their sins too much, their pleasures,
their money, their position, their religion, their traditions, their
power, themselves too much, ever to be able to pray sincerely, “Thy
Kingdom come!” The Kingdom is, first and foremost, the reign of God in
the hearts and lives of men. Less than this it cannot be; more than this
it will not be. There is no department of human life where the Kingdom can
rule unless first God rules the heart. God cannot rule nations until first
He rules in the hearts of the citizens of those nations from the king,
president or prime minister all the way down to the garbage collector and
the shoeshine boy. God cannot rule over things or institutions until first
He rules the hearts of those who form, own and control those things and
institutions. Imagine God trying to rule over an army without first
winning the allegiance of the general who commands that army and the
soldiers who fight in it!
Is it not a right thing and a possible thing, that all men should
in their hearts yield allegiance to God? And were this allegiance yielded,
would it not necessarily result that all our relations with one another
would be transformed and hallowed by the law of His life within? Would it
not necessarily result that the whole constitution of the world, in all
its domestic, political, social and economic arrangements, would be guided
by the Spirit of God and would show in every situation and circumstance
that God was ruling? You see, to bring the
As brother Paul Mueller has aptly written: “The Psalmist
continued this Psalm, by saying, ‘The king is not saved by a mighty
army; a warrior is not delivered by great strength. A horse (or any of
man’s weapons of warfare) is a false hope for victory; nor does it
deliver anyone by its strength’ (Ps. 33:16-17, N.A.S.). Indeed, God does
not change the world by man’s armies, or by any of man’s carnal
systems of government. The Lord is beginning to change the world by first
changing the hearts, souls and minds of mankind. People shall be changed,
not by human agreements or by war, but by the operation of the Spirit of
God in their lives. The Lord also is beginning to dispel the darkness in
the world by imparting the greater Light of His presence into the hearts
of His elect. This is the method by which the just and righteous rule of
the
This door into the Kingdom is open to every man on a personal and
individual level. I wonder if you can get that. You cannot enter the
Kingdom by multitudes, even if six billion people were brought into it in
one hour. You have to enter the Kingdom individually, and enter in at the
gate one by one. You came into this world one by one, no matter how many
other babies were born the day you entered. Men pass out of this life one
by one, and you must pass from the power of darkness into the Kingdom of
Life, Light and Love one by one, giving up your self till it is no more
“I” but “Christ” that lives. We must clear our minds of fantastic
and carnal notions about the Kingdom. We must refuse to think of the
Kingdom in terms of the overturning of human rule by the descent of
legions of angels and the establishment of such military might, judicial
authority and legislative coercion as never existed in any empire in
history.
We are to clear our minds of the idea that the
The Kingdom comes not by observation or outward show, as our Lord
Himself has taught us. The Pharisees came to Jesus one day with their
crafty question demanding of Him when the
It is called the
Two positive and incontrovertible facts are written of the Kingdom.
It is said that the
There comes the time in the life of every son of God when he claims
the Kingdom as a present tense reality in his life. The
It is a great folly to conclude that we can pray the prayer, “Thy
Kingdom come,” by rote, in cool detachment. The Kingdom is not an
antiquated Jewish dream, dusty with the history of centuries. It touches
us at all vital points — if we are sons of God. It is an immediate and
personal concern. It is God’s plan of the ages, His time-abiding
strategy for redeeming us from ourselves and the vanity of the flesh and
the world. It is God’s way of conforming us into the image of His Son
and making us one in Him. We are faced then with the solemn truth that
when we pray for the coming of the Kingdom we are not praying for the
advent of some great world-wide political or economic program. We are not
praying for the end of the world, or for the rapture, or for the
millennium, or blessing upon the state of THE NATURE OF THE KINGDOM
Let me close this Study with the question: “How is this Kingdom
to be administered?” Let me first say how it cannot be administered. It
cannot be administered by force. As a preacher of yesteryear ably wrote:
“Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon and many others built up their empires with
the sword, and cemented them with blood, but not so is the
“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.
The Captain of our salvation is not General Joshua, but Jesus the
Lamb of God. Therefore He made His triumphal entry into
There are different kinds of government but of one thing we may be
very certain — the
God is love; and love does not impose its will upon us, or enforce
it against ours. Love woos and wins by a principle far higher than brute
force. Should Jesus return to earth to enforce the laws of His Kingdom
with carnal weapons all that could be accomplished would be the erection
of larger and more secure prisons overflowing with ever-increasing masses
of rebellious humanity. Force does not transform — it merely breeds
contempt. Love transforms. Love changes the nature. Love wins the
allegiance of the heart. Love forms an indissoluble bond. Love makes one.
Love captivates the will. Love, though omnipotent, is very gentle. God
reigns by infinite wisdom, power and love and the greatest of these is
love. Love conquers all! And King Jesus came to earth to reveal that love
and the Father’s Kingdom.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave...” From childhood
most of us have heard these blessed words, yet they are so freighted with
heaven’s riches that one instinctively shrinks from talking about them.
Who presumes to be able to measure the magnitude of God’s love? “God
so loved the world.” Charles Spurgeon once struck off a bold figure when
he exclaimed, “Come, ye surveyors, bring your chains, and try to make a
survey of this word so. Nay, that is not enough. Come hither, ye that make
our national surveys and lay down charts for all nations. Come ye, who map
the sea and land and make a chart of this word so. Nay, I must go further.
Come hither, ye astronomers, that with your optic glasses spy out spaces
before which your imagination staggers, come hither and calculate
imaginations worthy of all your powers. When you have measured between the
horns of space, here is a task that will defy you: “God so loved the
world!’” Although we may completely despair of calculating the love of
God, there are nevertheless in these classic words of Jesus some very
clear statements that help us compute, to some extent, the greatness of
the heart of God.
This little word so finds its definition, I think, in the object
and gift of God’s love. God loved “THE WORLD” — the world that
then was and now is. That means His love sweeps around the whole earth and
flows out to men of every race and tongue and nation; but it means more.
It means He loves the men and women of the world who by their own evil
have wrenched themselves away from Him. It means that He loves the
blaspheming atheist, the scornful skeptic, the lecherous outcast, the
criminal behind bars, the grafter who swaggers about as a good citizen and
the unscrupulous leeches who drain the very lifeblood of widows and
orphans. God so loved THE WORLD. ALL of it! And He loves it still. He
loves the men living now upon the earth, and He loves those who have lived
and died in dim and distant ages past. He loves them on earth and He loves
them in hell. God so loved! Herein is manifested the love of God; He loves
the unlovely, the unloving, and the humanly unlovable! Let holy and
powerful angels from the extended galleries of heaven sing it! Let the
redeemed in rapturous wonder take up the song and let sinners fall
prostrate in penitence before the almighty Creator and Redeemer! “God so
loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.” It was in Jesus
Christ that the love of God’s great heart embraced us. But God still
loves the world. As we move from the Church age into the age of blessing
upon all nations, God so loves the world that He will now give His sons,
the many brethren of the first-begotten.
The sons of God must be preeminently the Sons of Love. “God so
loved the world...” And so will all who are called to sonship! Small
wonder, then, that the glorious message of the reconciliation of all
things is sweeping like a tidal wave through the ranks of those who
treasure the beautiful hope of sonship to God. It could not be otherwise!
Only those who are possessed with the spirit of Infinite and Omnipotent
Love shall be able to minister on the level that will persevere through
all obstacles and all ages until ALL CREATION is reconciled unto God and
delivered from the realm of death. I do not hesitate to tell you that
those who fight against the ultimate triumph of Jesus Christ, those who
wage war against the salvation of all men for whom Christ died, those who
set themselves up as Prosecutor and plead before us and God and His Word
for the eternal damnation of the billions of helpless souls who have lived
and died like beasts upon this darkened planet are not the sons of God at
all — they are the DEVIL’S ADVOCATE! They plead not for the [ENTER TEXT OF WRITING / SCRIERE HERE] |
Other Writings in This Series:
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