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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 Father’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 Father’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 Redeemer’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 Lord’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.
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WHY DID HE
NOT ASK?
Our Lord did not ask for His great power to
reign at an earlier date because He knew the Father’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 world’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 God’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.
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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 Lord’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 Father’s Plan to be a different one,
the more excellent way; and He delighted to do the Father’s will. And so with
all the followers of Christ. As soon as they ascertain the Father’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!
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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 Lord’s present work is the completing of the
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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
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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 Messiah’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 King’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 Lord’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
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living at the time of the establishment of the
Lord’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 potter’s
vessel." (Verse 9.) The application of this evidently is to the time of
our Lord’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 Lamb’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 Messiah’s rule will be correspondingly saved from
the breaking process. Hence it is urged, "Be wise, O ye
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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 man’s ways, and His plans higher
than man’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 God’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.
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