Till we clasp His hands at last.
ii. The Far-stretching Kingdom.
The text is to be considered as the great prophet's vision of a Divine King who reigns over the earth from the heaven of heavens. It is the great foreshadowing of a universal empire, a kingdom bounded only to human view by the far- distant horizon of man's outlook. It foretells that blessed time yet to be when all the kingdoms of the world shall merge into that one abiding Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, by the extinction of all racial differences in the one spiritual and endur- ing nationality of a new life through a new birth. The text is indeed but a poetic anticipation of those plain words of the King of kings Himself which He addressed to the astonished Jews in Matt. viii. 11: " And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven."
But the Kingdom of God is to be a kingdom of far distances, not only as it stretches geographically over the surface of the earth. More than that, there is to be an expansion of view and a deepening of experience on the part of every member of the kingdom.
1, An expansion of knowledge. — There are godly men and women who never get beyond the first principles of the doctrine of Christ. The cross and resurrection, the victories of the Holy Ghost, the richness of the Christian hope — these are continents that lie waiting for their exploration.
2. The onward march of holiness. — The character of the disciple of Christ is an unlimited and immeasurable Paradise. He never comes to its margin. However long he may have been crucifying the flesh and following hard after Jesus Christ, is there not still some lurking sin to be dragged out and slain ?
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is there not still some grace in the incomparable Law to be appropriated and wrought into the fibre of his being ?
3. The development of service. — In teaching, in healing, in comforting, in seeking to make the rule of Christ a reality among those around us, in doing the will of the Father, what oppor- tunities we have for ingenuity, for originality, for improving old enterprises, and for initiating plans untried before ! Out of my love for Him, and my longing to win men to Him, I should be ambitious to strike forth in fresh directions, to pray more fervently, to give more liberally, to turn duty into delight, to spend and be spent.^
Life is a leaf of paper white Whereon each one of us may write His word or two, and then comes night.
Greatly begin ! though thou have time But for a line, be that sublime, — Not failure, but low aim, is crime.^
Ill
If the streams are so sweet, what will the fountain be ? If the King is beautiful in these His lower courts, what must He be when the veils are removed, and the pictures are at an end ? Well may the poet sing —
The King there in His beauty
Without a veil is seen ; It were a well-spent journey,
Though seven deaths lay between !
All the bright and blessed things God's people know on earth are but feeble foretastes of the joys of heaven. Yes, I have a word of comfort for thee, aged pilgrim. Thine eyes, often so tear-stained, red with weeping, weary with anxiety, perhaps half-blinded with infirmity, or dim with age, thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty. And more than that they shall see the far-stretching laud, the undulating plains of heaven, the hills and valleys of the glory-land.
* A. Smellie, In the Secret Place, p. 41, * J. R, Lowell,
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2IO THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
I. Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty. Of all the senses, sight affords us the largest, the most perfect, and the purest fruition. By this marvellous faculty we seem to take actual possession of what we behold. To see what we desire is to enjoy it. It comes nearer than voice or touch ; we inwardly embrace and hold it. The eyes dwell on, run over it, feast and are satisfied. What is the single wish of those who have been long separated but to see one another again ? "What was the exclamation of Jacob when he heard that his beloved and long- lost son was still living ? " It is enough ; Joseph my son is yet alive : I will go and see him before I die." When the Queen of Sheba had seen all Solomon's glory — type as that was of some- thing infinitely higher — " There was no more spirit in her. And she said to the king. It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts, and of thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not their words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it." When Simeon beheld the infant Saviour in the Temple, he said, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace. . . . For mine eyes have seen thy salvation." To the pure in heart it is pro- mised that they shall see God. When our Lord prayed for His elect before His Passion, He said, " Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am ; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me." And St. John says, " Now are we the sons of God ; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him as he is." To see Him, then, is the final consummation of all. There is nothing more held out to man, as nothing higher could be. For this great vision our whole life here is but a preparation. This is the end of creation, the end of redemption, the end of struggle and victory. They to whom it is vouchsafed will have reached the greatest height and the most perfect bliss that any creature can attain.