Week 49 Sunday
Week 49 Sunday
The Kingdom over All
Matthew 6:33; Luke 8:1; 10:5-11
Last week we studied federal union as the form of world structure to which we believe we are destined to come. But we must now hasten to say that, while we believe in federal union, it is not our gospel. The Way is not the way of federal union but of the kingdom of God. The Way may include federal union as one of the ways of expressing itself, but the ultimate order is the kingdom of God.
If we should achieve the highest form of world federal union, it would not be the kingdom of God. That kingdom is the absolute. All our lesser orders are relativisms, related to something beyond themselves from which they draw meaning, value, significance. So the kingdom judges and redeems the most nearly perfect human order. We give ourselves tentatively to human orders; we give ourselves totally to the Divine Order. The loon, a water bird, sometimes alights on a small body of water surrounded by a forest or hills; and since it needs a long water surface runway to take off, it finds itself landlocked and perishes in that confinement. We, as Christians, must not become landlocked in lesser schemes. We will give ourselves to them, provided there is always room to take off for the ultimate resting place—the kingdom.
But even that comparison must be corrected, for we do not take off for the kingdom; we take off from the kingdom and give ourselves to the lesser. The kingdom is our starting point.
For the kingdom is the Way. Acts 19:8-9 (Moffatt) says, “Paul entered the synagogue . . . persuading people about the Reign [kingdom] of God. But as some . . . , decrying the Way. . . .” Here the kingdom and the Way are used synonymously. The kingdom, then, is the archpattem for nations and individuals. Everything that fits it lives, and everything that fights it perishes. The kingdom is our collective destiny. After the end of the war, two nations stand out, each embodying an idea: Russia embodying collectivism, America embodying individualism. They must both change and come to a third position, gathering up the truth in individualism and the truth in collectivism, making a society where you love your neighbor (collectivism) as yourself (individualism). That will approximate the kingdom of God—our destiny.
O God, you have a plan, and that plan is the kingdom, and that kingdom plan covers all life, individual and collective. Help us, then, to give ourselves to that kingdom plan with all our hearts and minds. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: The kingdom as the over-all, and the in-all is our central loyalty.
Week 49 Monday
The Kingdom Has the Final Word
Matthew 15:13; 1 Corinthians 15:24-25; Revelation 1:17-18
We saw yesterday that the starting point for the Christian is the kingdom of God. From this, we work down to all life. But this has to be clarified. The starting point is the kingdom of God embodied in Christ—the Order embodied in a Person. Christ + the kingdom = the Way. Everything not conforming to the kingdom is destined to perish.
During the war, I wrote an article, “The Score So Far,” in which I traced the movements of events spelling out one thing: the moral universe will have the last word; we lose as we go against it. Now that the war is over, we can see who has won. The moral universe won! Japan, wanting to dominate China, succeeded only in kicking China into being a world power and kicking itself into the dust. America, thinking largely in money terms, comes out of the war with plenty of it—and debt. Britain, exploiting India, comes out in debt to India. Russia lost its moral prestige through imperialistic attitudes toward border countries. And thus, it goes endlessly. The kingdom always has the last word—always. When you go against the kingdom, you go against yourself.
A woman writes, “Upon reading your book Is the Kingdom of God Realism? I whispered to myself, ‘It is too hard.’ Shortly after this I misplaced my affections and found I had taken the hardest road of all.” A passage expresses the fact that everything against the kingdom is “doomed to perish” (1 Cor. 1:18 Moffatt). On the contrary, for those in the kingdom “there is no doom” (Rom. 8:1 Moffatt). As the Wisdom of Solomon 16:17 (KJV) says, “For the world fighteth for the righteous,” or, as Goodspeed puts it, “For the universe is the champion of the upright.”* Everything that is un-kingdom is undone. Christ is not only goodness; he is wisdom, “Whom God hath made our ‘Wisdom’ ” (1 Cor. 1:30 Moffatt). An army officer said, “I have come to the conclusion that I cannot be what I want to be without God.” Whoever has the first or intermediate word, God’s kingdom has the last.
O God, my Lord, I see that your kingdom is my good, and my kingdom is my bad. Help me, then, to give myself to your kingdom with all my heart and with all my influence. For if this is true, then nothing else matters. But it is true. I know it. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom” (Ps. 145:13 Moffatt). All else has the doom of decay on it.
*Edgar John Goodspeed, The Complete Bible, An American Translation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939).
Week 49 Tuesday
How the Kingdom Comes
Matthew 13:31-33; Luke 17:20-21; 1 Thessalonians 1:5, 8
Yesterday we saw that the kingdom of God is to be sought first, last, and always. If you seek something else first, an inner restlessness will possess you; you will have a dull sense that you are not on the Way. Jesus said, “So do not seek food and drink and be worried” (Luke 12:29 Moffatt). Note that if you seek anything else first you do become “worried”; you know inherently that you’ve missed the Way. The kingdom, then, is a total way for the total life, a complete totalitarianism. But when you obey it completely, you find complete freedom.
A good many earnest and sincere Christians feel that the kingdom of God cannot be an issue now, since it will not come until Jesus comes. “No kingdom without the King” is the slogan. “He will come to set up his kingdom on earth, but until then we can do little or nothing to bring in a better order on earth. The best we can do is to rescue individuals, for the earth is going to smash, getting worse until he comes.”
But as we look closely at the teaching of Jesus, we find the kingdom comes in three ways. First, by gradualism. “First the stalk, then the head, then the full head of grain” (Mark 4:28 CEB). The kingdom of God “is like a grain of mustard seed . . . ; it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs” (Mark 4:31-32). The kingdom of God “is like leaven . . . till it was all leavened” (Luke 13:21). These and other passages teach that the kingdom will come by permeation, by gradualism.
Other passages teach that the kingdom of God will come suddenly, by apocalypticism, with the return of Christ. Some people extract the gradualistic passages, others the apocalyptic. That disrupts the account, for both are there, and we need both. The gradualistic gives me my task, and the apocalyptic gives me my hope. So I shall trust as if the whole thing depends on God and work as if the whole thing depends on me. As this passage puts it, “The hidden issues of the future are with the Eternal our God, but the unfolded issues of the day are with us” (Deut. 29:29 Moffatt). I shall therefore deal with the unfolded issues and leave the hidden issues to God. “It is not for you to know times or seasons” (Acts 1:7). Our task is clear: We can be the agents of the coming of that kingdom now.
O God, I see that there have been many surprises in history—the greatest surprise the first coming of your Son. There may be another—his second coming. And yet he is always coming to me—now. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: All of my influence, all of my power, all of my self are at the disposal of the kingdom—today.
Week 49 Wednesday
The Only Kingdom That Can Stand Everlasting Increase
Ephesians 1:5-10
We saw yesterday that the kingdom comes both by gradualism and by apocalypticism. But there is another set of passages that teaches that the kingdom is—not will come—but is. Jude speaks of God’s “dominion and authority, before all time and now and for all time” (v. 25 Moffatt). The dominion is “now.” “He must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Cor. 15:25). Not “when’’ but “until.” Christ is reigning now, even while those enemies are not under his feet. He reigns, and people get hurt when they do not obey that reign. “For thine is the kingdom” (Matt. 6:13 KJV)—not shall be, but “is.” Paul speaks of the “dethroned Powers who rule this world” (1 Cor. 2:6 Moffatt). They rule, but they are “dethroned.” They have the doom of decay upon them.
There is an important passage in Isaiah, “Of the increase of his government . . . there will be no end” (Isa. 9:7). Every government of every kind in every realm, must not increase beyond a certain point. When it does, it becomes tyranny and causes disruption and confusion. Every government must have an end beyond which it must not go. All except one, “Of the increase of his government . . . there will be no end.” God’s government can go on to the absolute and yet remain beneficial and freedom giving.
Take sex. Within certain bounds and under certain restraints sex can rule your conduct. But throw the reins over the neck of sex and tell it to ride where it will, there is no limit. Result? Hell—here and now. The people who enjoy sex least are those who restrain it least. Of the increase of the government of sex, there must be an end, or it is the end of the personality—it disintegrates.
Of the increase of the government of the self, there must be an end. It is right to love yourself; “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). If you didn’t love yourself, you wouldn’t improve yourself. But self-love can easily pass into selfishness. Of the increase of the government of self, there must be an end, if not, disintegration.
Of the increase of human government, there must be an end. Governments must govern only so long as they produce spontaneity within the individual. After that, they produce only suppression and tyranny.
O God, everything that rules us must have a limit except your rule. There we come to life’s fulfillment and completion. In that rule is our complete freedom. We have found that which fits life. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: God’s rule is the only rule that can be total and at the same time totally beneficial.
Week 49 Thursday
As It Grew It Withered
Matthew 28:18-20
Yesterday we saw that every government has to have a limit, an end. All except the government of the kingdom, “of the increase of his government . . . there will be no end” (Isa. 9:7). Nothing can stand infinite increase. “As it grew up, it withered away” (Luke 8:6); the seed that feel on the rock couldn’t stand increase.
There is this penetrating word about Egypt, “Their strength is to sit still” (Isa. 30:7). They were so loosely hung together that movement would cause them to fall apart. So we are told, “Don’t ally yourself to something that can’t stand movement and growth.” An institution founded on maintaining the status quo belongs to the category of those whose “strength is to sit still.” But such institutions are doomed. If you cannot change, you cannot live, for life is change. “Don’t rock the boat” means “Don’t leave the shore,” for a boat that doesn’t rock doesn’t move. As Halford Luccock says, changing the figure, “He has his feet on the ground” means “He has his feet in the grave.” Life is dynamic change. Therefore, the Christian faith will never be outgrown, for we are not following a fixed unalterable code. We are following a living Mind. The more you see in Christ, the more you see there is to be seen. He renders the good of today not good enough for tomorrow. The Christian way is therefore the Way for a growing world. For it grows with our growth, but it is always ahead of us.
Hebrews 2:10 (Moffatt) says, “It was befitting that He . . . should perfect the Pioneer”—One “perfected” and yet a “Pioneer”! The Perfect grows on us, and therefore cannot be outgrown, with us and yet forever ahead of us! We have Christ, and yet there is so much we haven’t! “Of the increase of his government . . . there will be no end.” The more God governs, the more we grow. It is a Government for which we are made; its commands are our demands.
We are fighting the increase of government in our country. We are afraid of its powers. Even the Communists say that the state will eventually fade out. They thus witness to the fear of governments—beyond certain limits. But we have hold of a Government that we want to increase infinitely and infinitesimally. We are not afraid for its rule to be extended infinitely. Its rule is our release; its sway is our way, “the faultless law of freedom” (Jas. 1:25 Moffatt).
O God, I thank you that in your kingdom I find my home and my perfect release. I walk in it, bound in every fiber of my being, and yet I walk without restraint. I thank you for this perfect liberty. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Perfect law and perfect liberty, perfect restraint and perfect release—this is my paradox and my perfection.
Week 49 Friday
“There Is a Grandeur”
Daniel 7:14, 26-27
The kingdom is the one Government of which there will be no end. The Chinese have a saying. “He has gone up into the horns of a cow,” gone up into something that ends in a dead end. There are no dead ends in the kingdom.
Hebrews 12:28 (Moffatt) says, “Let us render thanks that we receive a realm unshaken.” From my depths, I do give thanks for a kingdom unshaken amid a world shaken to its depths. A litt1e boy looked at the oil on a puddle of water in a street and said, “There’s a rainbow gone to smash.” A lot of our rainbows have gone to smash. God’s kingdom is unsmashed. Unsmashed? It is not even shaken. In the Panama Canal Zone, the government is testing different kinds of rocks to see what they will stand. The ages have tested the rocks upon which men build, and only one fulfills all the tests: the Rock of Ages—the kingdom of God.
And yet we cling to the little things in religion and miss this great thing—the central thing—the kingdom. It is said, “Asher sat still by the seaboard, clinging to his creeks” (Judg. 5:17 Moffatt). Here was Asher by the side of the great sea, and yet he clung to his creeks; by the side of the big, he clung to the little. He was creek-minded instead of sea-minded. Many give themselves to the marginal in religion and miss this center. A father told me he took his little son to see the president, and the boy’s eye got caught by a policeman’s hat, and he would look at nothing else; he missed the president. We get caught with the policeman’s cap in religion and miss the One embodying the kingdom of God, the government of the universe.
Charles Darwin closed On the Origin of Species with these words, “There is a grandeur in this view of life with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one. . . .”* Darwin was in search of origins; we are more interested in destinations. He wrote of the Origin of Species, and we point to the Destination of Species. And there is a grandeur, an unspeakable grandeur, in one Government bringing everything under its control and giving everything fulfillment.
O God, I thank you that in your kingdom I find my home and all life, bringing everything under its control and redemption. Here all compartmentalisms, all dualisms, are gone, and life is centrally unified. I thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I will work with, and not against, the Great Design.
*Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, second edition (1860).
Week 49 Saturday
We Need a Central Unity
Revelation 19:6, 16; 21:1-3
We saw yesterday that we need something to bring all life into a central unity. Our world unity has been broken; life has become compartmentalized. Science is abstracted knowledge; it picks things to pieces in analysis, but doesn’t know how to put them together again in a synthesis. Therefore, we live in an incoherent world.
A Chinese scholar recognizes three reasons why Christ attracts the Chinese mind: (1) because he is the great Synthesizer, bringing life into unity; (2) because of his scholarhood, instead of scholarship; the latter is analysis, the other is synthesis; (3) because of the kingdom of God. Here is a great scholar seeing the great things in the Christian faith. But often the church announces the big but deals with the little. A sign by the roadside said, “GREAT STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL SERVED BY CHURCH,” but in small letters, “Owing to scarcity of strawberries, prunes will be served.” Strawberries proclaimed, prunes provided! We must talk and provide the big, the ultimate; and the only ultimate is the kingdom.
You take on the significance of the thing to which you are attached. If you are attached to money, you have the significance that money can bring; if to yourself, the significance that the self can bring; if to the kingdom, then you have kingdom significance.
A French diplomat refused to let me ride with him in the same car from Pahlevi to Tehran, saying, “I am a diplomat.” I suppose I should have felt squelched, but I didn’t. Inwardly I said to myself. “But I’m an ambassador.” I was an ambassador of the kingdom of God and had its significance. He had the significance of France, I of a universal kingdom. France fell; the kingdom abides forever. “Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom” (Ps. 145:13). Of no other can that be said.
The significance of the Way is that it is the way for everything in heaven and on earth, for God and humanity, now and forever. Our significance, then, comes from the fact that we are attached to the Way that is Relevance. Everything else is irrelevant. Everything else is “off the beam”; this is “on the beam.” Said a businessperson, “You have the only answer to our industrial situation.” Yes, and for every situation.
O God, our Lord, how can we thank you enough that you have put us on the Beam. This is Life. We know it. We rejoice in it. Help us to shout our answer to the world, for it is not our answer, but your Answer. Your Answer is the Kingdom. Help us to give the glad news. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am on the Beam. I shall arrive at Home—the Kingdom.