|
Sermon Book / SM435 - The Heathen-Messiah's Inheritance
(Use your Browser's "Find" or "Search" option to search within this page)
SM435 THE HEATHEN—MESSIAH’S INHERITANCE
"Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession."—#Ps 2:8.
Our text is from one of the Messianic
Psalms. It represents our Lord as making known to His people the
Heavenly FatherÂ’s decree rewarding Him for His faithfulness as our
Redeemer, assuring Him of His exaltation to the Kingdom, and declaring
that with this will come the inheritance of all the earth, with power
to subject all things to the FatherÂ’s will. He was to have it for the
mere request—"Ask of Me." As a matter of fact, this world-wide dominion
has not yet come to Messiah; the heathen are not yet His inheritance;
the uttermost parts of the earth are not yet His possession. Indeed, as
the Prophet declares, "Darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness
the heathen."—#Isa 60:2  .
When we remember our RedeemerÂ’s love for
the race, the love which led Him to lay down His life to seek and to
recover that which was lost, we are at first inclined to amazement that
He has not yet asked the Father for His inheritance of the heathen. We
are astonished that He has permitted the Prince of Darkness and the
reign of Sin and Death to exist for more than eighteen centuries since
He suffered, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God."
But perplexity in the matter might well be answered by our LordÂ’s reply
to the Sadducees: "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power
of God." As we come to understand the Scriptures more fully, and to
appreciate how the power of God will be exercised in bringing the
heathen under the domination of the Redeemer, the eyes of our
understanding open, and we are enabled to rejoice accordingly.
SM436
WHY DID HE NOT ASK?
Our Lord did not ask for His great power
to reign at an earlier date because He knew the FatherÂ’s Plan, and was
well contented with the Divine times and seasons.
He had no wish for a change in this. He
did not ask to receive the heathen for an inheritance at the beginning
of the Gospel Age, but has been content to wait, and to place that
request in its due time, in harmony with another feature of the Divine
Program which must first be fulfilled. That other feature is the
selection of the Church, the Bride of Christ, the members of His Body.
It pleased the Father to make our Lord
not only the worldÂ’s Redeemer and King, but also the High Priest of an
under-priesthood, the Bridegroom of the Church His Bride, the Elder
Brother of these saints of glory whom the Father is pleased to develop
during this Gospel Age as New Creatures in Christ Jesus, to be sharers
of His sufferings and of His glory to follow.
Meantime the heathen have been suffering no injustice.
Born in sin, shapen in iniquity,
condemned to death, they have been having experiences with sin and
death, and going down into the great prison-house for periods of
unconsciousness—until the Redeemer, at His Second Advent, shall call
them and all mankind from this great prison-house, the tomb. This He
foretold, saying, "All that are in the graves shall hear the voice of
the Son of God, and shall come forth."—#Joh 5:28,29 R.V.
Not only will this include the Church of
the First-borns who have been approved of God and who, passing trial
now, will come forth unto life eternal, but it will include also the
remainder of mankind, those who have not had GodÂ’s approval, all of
whom, because redeemed, shall come forth unto judgment—trial. A fair
trial will be theirs, to determine their worthiness or unworthiness of
life everlasting by the manner in which they shall receive, or by their
rejection of, The Christ of God when during the Millennium He shall be
made fully known.
SM437
It was also part of the Divine purpose
that the whole earth should be filled with people; and hence the
bringing forth of a progeny is a part of the Divine will for mankind.
The few short years of the present life,
with an experience of sin and death conditions, will in due time be
supplemented by the glorious period of the Millennium, with its grand
opportunities for lessons of righteousness and its rewards for
obedience. Its corrective "stripes," or punishments, will be to the
intent that so many as possible may ultimately be entirely recovered
from death conditions and brought into full accord with God in Christ.
But those who demonstrate their unwillingness to come into heart
sympathy with righteousness will be utterly destroyed from amongst the
people.—#Ac 3:23; #2Pe 2:12.
THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY
So, then, our LordÂ’s reason for not
asking sooner for the heathen as His inheritance and the remotest parts
of the earth as His possession, was that He knew the FatherÂ’s Plan to
be a different one, the more excellent way; and He delighted to do the
FatherÂ’s will. And so with all the followers of Christ. As soon as they
ascertain the FatherÂ’s glorious Plan of Salvation, they find it to be
soul-satisfying, and greatly prefer it to any plan of their own.
Undeveloped Christians, whom the Apostle designates "babes" in Christ,
are the ones who are continually praying to the Heavenly Father for a
change of the Divine Program, imagining that their wisdom and their
love in respect to the heathen are superior to those of the Infinite
Creator. Nearly all Christian people have had their experience with
such ignorance; and we are glad to suppose that the Heavenly Father
laid not the sin of such presumption to our charge, but rather
sympathetically appreciated our interest in the heathen, although He
must have deprecated our lack of reverence, our headiness, our
highminded assumption of more than infinite wisdom!
SM438
We are not saying a word against
missions—home or foreign. Quite to the contrary, we believe that every
Christian should labor with heart and hand to do all in his power to
glorify the Father and the Redeemer, and to enlighten his fellow-men
respecting the Cross of Christ, and the blessings which it secures. But
while willingly, gladly, serving the Divine Cause, "instant in season
and out of season," we should "learn to labor and to wait."
We should learn that the laboring under
present conditions is arranged chiefly for our benefit—for the
development in the minds of the Royal Priesthood of the sacrificing
qualities and the graces of the Holy Spirit—meekness, gentleness,
patience, faith, long-suffering, brotherly kindness, love.
"WORKERS TOGETHER WITH GOD"
Let us be sure, dear friends, that any
theory of ours respecting the heathen, or any other feature of the
Divine Program, which in any degree implies superior wisdom, superior
energy or superior love on our part, as compared with that of our
Heavenly Father and our Redeemer, must be wrong. The sooner we learn to
pray from the heart, "Thy will be done," the better it will be for us,
the more shall we be able to get into harmony with our Lord, and the
more shall we be used as His ambassadors and representatives. The
wisdom of man is foolishness with God, and the Wisdom of God is
foolishness with man. Hence we must not take the human standpoint in
investigating or reasoning upon the Divine purposes and Program.
Rather, we must go direct to the Word of God, that we may be taught of
God, that we may discern the beauty, the harmony, of His plans.
It is written that "obedience is better
than sacrifice"; and this being recognized, how careful it should make
us to inquire what the will of the Lord is; to search the Scriptures,
that we may there ascertain the Divine Program, and be found in harmony
therewith! There we find that the LordÂ’s present work is the completing
of the
SM439
Royal Priesthood, the Royal Judge, the
Royal Prophet, the Royal Mediator, the Great King, for the world of
mankind—for the world’s deliverance from the bondage of Sin and Death,
and their assistance back to harmony with God. Thus seeing, we shall
have patience in respect to the heathen, and strive now to make our own
calling and election sure and to lay down our lives for the brethren,
in assisting to build them up in the most holy faith, "until we all
come to the measure of the stature of a Man in Christ"—the great
Mediator of the New Covenant, of whom Jesus is the Head—the Church His
Body.
CONVERTING THE WORLD
When will the world be converted? When
will Christ ask for the heathen? When will the Father give them to Him?
How long, O Lord? The Scriptural answer, dear friends, is that it has
pleased the Father to select the "jewel" class during this Gospel Age
by means which the world would think foolish—by means of the preaching
of the Good Tidings. But His Program for the future Age is different.
There are millions who have no ear to hear the preaching of the Cross
of Christ. (#1Co 1:18.)
There are millions who have no eye of faith to see the glorious things
of God. In fact, according to the Scriptures, only a Little Flock,
comparatively, can be brought into accord with the Lord under the
conditions of the present time, because sin abounds, because Death
reigns, because Satan, the Prince of this world, now works
antagonistically in the hearts of the children of disobedience.
Hence it has pleased God to have a
different method of dealing with the world of mankind in general from
that which He has adopted in dealing with the Church in this Age. In
the next Age, force will be used, and not merely moral suasion. Force
will be employed in putting down the reign of evil. Satan will not
merely be requested to desist from deceiving the world, but will be
bound for a thousand years, and be unable to deceive the nations.
Likewise, mankind will no longer be invited to accept
SM440
Christ, and to give their hearts in obedience to Him; but on the contrary, they will be compelled to be obedient.
As it is written, "Unto Him every knee
shall bow and every tongue confess, to the glory of God." Offers of
grace will no longer be held out, with reward for faith attached;
instead, knowledge shall fill the whole earth, as the waters cover the
great deep. (#Php 2:10,11; #Isa 11:9 .)
As a result, no one shall then say to his neighbor or to his brother,
Know thou the Lord! for they shall all know Him, from the least unto
the greatest of them.
HEATHEN FALL UNDER HIM
Another Psalm describes MessiahÂ’s
triumph in the Millennial Age, saying, "Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh,
O Most Mighty, with Thy glory and Thy majesty. And in Thy majesty ride
prosperously in the cause of Truth and Meekness and Righteousness; and
Thy right hand shall teach Thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp
in the heart of the KingÂ’s enemies; whereby the people fall under
Thee." (Psa: 45:3-5.) Instead of people here, read heathen,
as in the original, and we have a picture of the conversion of the
heathen as it will shortly be wrought. We are not to suppose that the
Lord will ride upon a horse, or that literal arrows will literally
pierce the hearts of His enemies. We are to understand this picture to
signify our LordÂ’s triumphal conquering of the world; and that the
arrows of Truth, which will go forth unto the whole world, will reach
the hearts of men and smite them down. Even so we read that when St.
Peter preached at Pentecost that the Jews had taken and crucified the
Son of God, the hearers were "cut to the heart" —with the lance of
Truth. Thank God for such arrows from the quiver of Divine Wisdom,
Justice, Love! We rejoice that the heathen will thus be conquered for
the Lord, and thus eventually every knee bow and every tongue confess.—#Ac 5:33; 7:54; #Ps 72:11.
The work of dealing with the heathen, with the world—with all except the Church—will begin with the generation
SM441
living at the time of the establishment
of the LordÂ’s Kingdom. In due time it will proceed and will ultimately
include all that are in their graves in the reverse order from that in
which they entered. And the last shall be the first to come
forth—"every man in his own order," or class.—#1Co 15:20-23.
DEEP HUMILIATION PROMISED THE WORLD
Too frequently do Bible students neglect
to see whether or not their interpretations are in harmony with the
context of the passages under discussion. Let us not make this mistake.
Turning to the second Psalm, we find that following our text is the
declaration, "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash
them in pieces like a potterÂ’s vessel." (Verse 9.) The application of
this evidently is to the time of our LordÂ’s Second Advent, when the
selection of the Church shall have been completed and she shall have
entered into His glory as the Bride, the LambÂ’s Wife, symbolically
pictured as the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven.—#Re 21:1-5; 22:1-5.
From that New Jerusalem, we are told,
the River of the Water of Life shall flow freely, and whosoever will
may freely partake of it. On either bank will grow the Trees of Life,
whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. And the Spirit and the
Bride will say, Come; and whosoever will may come, and take of the
Water of Life. But in the meantime, before the nations, the world, will
be ready for that blessing from the New Jerusalem, they must needs pass
through a period of very deep humiliation—"A Time of Trouble such as
never was since there was a nation."—#Mt 24:21.
As for the nations of that time, the
extent to which they will suffer destruction will depend largely upon
their own attitude, as is intimated by the verses following our text.
Those of the nations who freely and heartily accept of MessiahÂ’s rule
will be correspondingly saved from the breaking process. Hence it is
urged, "Be wise, O ye
SM442
kings of the earth! Kiss the Son, lest
He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but
a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him."
But while this seems to offer leniency,
mercy, these favors are conditional on the manner in which the
Messianic Kingdom shall be received. Other Scriptures intimate that all
the nations, not only heathen but civilized, will be found in violent
opposition to the Heavenly Kingdom, and hence that all together they
will be crushed as the vessels of a potter.—#Re 2:27; #Ps 149:7-9.
THE GLORIOUS OUTCOME
The Lord tells us that as the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than manÂ’s ways, and
His plans higher than manÂ’s plans. And this we find true as we come to
better understand the Scriptures.
Who ever dreamed of such lengths and
breadths and heights and depths of "Love Divine, all love excelling,"
as are implied and included in GodÂ’s great Plan of selecting first The
Christ—Jesus the Head, and the Church, His Body—and then through these
blessing all the families of the earth with a knowledge of Himself and
the opportunities for life eternal!—#Joh 11:25,26.
We make no claims of universal
salvation; for the Scriptures distinctly speak of some who will die the
Second Death, having proved themselves not sufficiently in harmony with
righteousness to be worthy of eternal life—even after being brought to
a knowledge of the Truth.
But the Scriptures show us that when all
the unwilling and disobedient shall have been cut off in the Second
Death, the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory
of God.
Let hope cheer those who weep; E’en now the rays of dawn Above the eastern hill-tops creep— We’re near the light of morn.
|
