00A.17 CHAPTER XIV.—The Immovable Kingdom
CHAPTER XIV THE IMMOVABLE KINGDOM The subject for our lesson tonight is “The Immovable Kingdom”, or “The Kingdom That Can not Be Shaken.” Paul speaks of this kingdom in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews. This is what he says: And this word, Yet once more, signified the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that nave been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain. Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that can not be shaken, let ui have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe: for our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:27-28.) Or to read it from the King James translation: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which can not be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which can not be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire.
Beginning at the eighteenth verse of this chapter Paul draws a contrast between the things to which we are not come and things to which we are come. He clearly describes the two covenants. He tells first of the phenomena that attended the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, when the earth shook and the thunders rolled and rattled and roared over the smoking summit of the quivering mountain. We are not come to that. But we are come to Mount Zion in contrast to Mount Sinai. Then he names the other things that are superior to and contrast with the Sinai covenant. The voice that spoke there shook the earth, but there is a time coming when be will shake both the earth and the heavens, for both are to pass away. But there is something that will not be shaken or moved and that something is a kingdom. This should encourage or inspire us with grace to offer service well pleasing unto God with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire.
If that thought would not so inspire us, what would? There is no thought that is more comforting in a world of change and decay than that there is something that is not subject to decay. Nothing that belongs to time or earth will remain. Every moment changes are taking place. Delapidation, death and decay are written upon everything around us. Men may feel that they have built something that will endure through the flight of years and through the ravages of millenniums, but their hope is vain. Old time moves on in his destructive march and effaces every mark that men have made on the earth We sometimes speak of things that are as enduring as the hills, but the hills themselves are brought low by the hand of time and the valleys are lifted up in the mighty upheavals of the restless earth. Even the earth itself must some day be consumed—dissolve into gases and pass out of existence.
Man himself only begins to learn how to live when his allotted time is out and he must relinquish his claim and leave his unfinished labors to another generation. He just begins to learn the proper use of his faculties when these faculties begin to become enfeebled and to fail. Does it not seem sad? Is not the thought depressing? In the Bible man’s life is likened to a weaver’s shuttle. It is likened to the flowers that blossom in spring and wither in the summer. And again it is likened to a vapor, a fleecy fleck of cloud that hangs out under the blue dome of a perfect morning, shimmering in the rays of the rising sun and then vanishes before the sun crosses the Meridian. Or yet again, man’s life is compared to a shadow that is cast upon the earth by a cloud that flits across the photosphere of the sun. William Cullen Bryant wrote:
Ar shadows cast by cloud and sun Flit o’er the summer’s grass, So in thy sight, Almighty One, Earth’s generations pass.
While through the years ar endless host Come pressing swiftly on, The brightest; names that earth can boast Just glisten and are gone.
Gone! The earth knows them no more.
“Only a grave in the vale and a memory of me”, and that grave will soon be lost and that memory will fail. And the unfortunate part is, tliat man does not realize that his years are passing, never to return until they are gone. He wastes his opportunities and trifles with time until his life is over. He is too prone to expect to do something great or good in the future and to let opportunities for service pass by unimproved. Man dreams of things that are passed and hopes and speculates about things that are future, and lets the precious present moments slip by unheeded.
It was Shelly who said:
We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter Often with some pain is frought; Our sweetest songs tell of saddest thought.
I sometimes illustrate this tendency in man by a man standing on an embarking ship. He stands upon the deck and looks out to his boyhood home, which can be seen from the ship, and as he waves a fond farewell to the old home, memory begins to awaken to the scenes of childhood and he lives over the days that are gone. He loses himself in reverie. But as he stands and muses over those happy hours spent in that loved spot the ship upon which he stands is silently bearing him farther and farther away. Farther toward the other shore.
Just so the swiftly moving chariot of time on which we are traveling is constantly bearing us farther out on life’s ocean, farther toward eternity’s shore. And while we are looking back on the scenes of long ago they are fading out of view in the dim distance. But in the midst of these transitory tilings there is one thing that does not change with changing seasons: one thing that can not be moved by the storms of time, nor affected by the laws of dissolution. That is the Kingdom of Christ. And this kingdom was here in Paul’s day and these people to whom he writes were in possession of it. It is here now and we all have the privilege of being citizens of it. It is not something that is imaginary and mythical. It is real. It is not something that is going to come to men in some far-off future day. It is here now. Daniel foresaw and foretold the coming of this kingdom among men. He told also that it would be an everlasting kingdom and therefore, of course, an immovable kingdom.
Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, and although the dream “had gone from him”, he remembered that there had been a dream and he was exceedingly troubled in spirit. He wished to know what the dream was and what was the interpretation. He summoned before him his enchanters and magicians and sorcerers and Chaldeans and required of them that they tell his dream and then interpret it for him. These wise men told him that never was such a thing required by any king or ruler. They said, “You tell us the dream and we will give you the interpretation. But it is impossible for any wise men to tell the king what he has dreamt.” But the king thought that if they had power to interpret dreams they ought also to be able to reveal his dream to him. He made it a test and told these wise men that if they did not make known his dream he would know that all their claims had been false. But the wise men insisted that the King’s request was impossible and that no man on earth could do the thing he required. The king became very angry and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed. This included Daniel and his three companions, for they were reckoned among the wise men, although they had not been brought before the king on this occasion. When Daniel knew of the decree he requested that the king appoint him a time and he would make known the dream. Then he and his three companions began earnestly to pray to God for light on this matter. In due time God answered that prayer and Daniel went before the king. He told the king frankly that it was not any superior wisdom that he possessed that enabled him to show the dream. He said that the thing was (impossible with men, but that there was a God in heaven and this great Jehovah had seen fit to make this matter known unto the king.
Then Daniel told the king what he had seen in his dream.
There was an image, in the form of man and its brightness was excellent and its aspect was terrible. It was a composite structure, The head was gold, its breast and arms were silver, its belly and thighs were brass and its legs were iron and the feet were part iron and part clay. This was the image that the king had beheld in his dream, and while he looked upon it and wondered he saw a little stone cut out of the mountain without hands and it rolled down and struck this image upon the feet and brake it—the entire image—in pieces. The gold and silver and brass and iron and clay all fell apart and in pieces. Then all these materials that composed this image were blown away by the wind like chaff from the summer’s threshing floor. Then the little stone began to grow and to spread until it became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This completed the story of the king’s dream and Daniel is ready to give the interpretation thereof. The image represented kingdoms, each material a separate kingdom except the clay. It was a part of another kingdom. The :ron and the clay together represented one kingdom, but it was to be a divided kingdom. Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that he was that head of gold, for he was a mighty king in power and splendor. He bore rule over all the earth. After him there was to come another nation or kingdom which was to be inferior to Babylon—Nebuchadnezzar’s empire. This was to be the silver kingdom. Following that there would come another kingdom—the brass kingdom—and it too would be a universal empire. Then next the iron kingdom would come. It would be destructive and would break down and crush out other nations, and it would also be universal in its reach. However, it would be a divided kingdom. Then “in the days of these kings” would the God of heaven set up a kingdom—represented by the little stone—which would break in pieces and consume all other kingdoms and stand forever—it would never be destroyed. This is Daniel’s interpretation; and since he tells who the first king was it is no trouble at all for us to see from history what kingdom succeeded the first and then what overthrew the second, and so on until we see the fou: universal empires rise on the ruins of each other, and it was in the days of these kings that the immovable kingdom was to be set up. Let us see those kingdoms rise and fall.
Nebuchadnezzar reigned in Babylon in splendor and great glory. You are acquainted with the history of that city, with its hanging gardens, its walls upon which four chariots could drive abreast, its streets that cut each other at right angles and divided the city into twenty-five squares. Then there was the river Euphrates, which ran through the city and brass gates across it and quays and brass steps leading down to the water. The king had made a great excavation up the river beyond the walls of the city, with a canal and gates, into which the high waters were diverted to prevent an overflow of the beautiful city. On either side of the river was a marble palace with a passage over the river and another under the river, from palace to palace. This is a brief description of the ancient city of Babylon.
Here Nebuchadnezzar—the head of gold of the vision —-reigned as king of kings and as lord over many defeated and subjugated nations. Among the nations that had come under his power was the Jewish nation—God’s people. Because of their sins God had permitted Nebuchadnezzar to defeat them and to carry them away captives into the land of Babylon. Daniel and his three companions were among these captives. Nebuchadnezzar had thrown down the walls of Jerusalem and sacked the temple and had robbed the Holy of holies of its sacred vessels of gold and had carried them away to Babylon. He, however, wicked as he was, had enough reverence for these vessels to put them away among his sacred things in the house of his idols. When Nebuchadnezzar had been removed Belshazzar reigned in his stead and it seems that he was even more wicked than his father. He made a great feast to a thousand of his lords and ladies. As they were reveling in the royal palace halls and drinking wine to inebriety the king commanded that the vessels of gold which his father had taken from the house of God be brought out for service. And he and his drunken lords drank wine from these sacred vessels and praised the gods of wood and stone. But while they were in the midst of this hilarity and the profanation of these sacred vessels there came out of the dark sleeve of night a hand that wrote upon the palace wall the sentence of doom for Belshazzar and his kingdom. Rapidly the mystic hand inscribed upon the plaster of the wall the bewildering words, Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin. The king beheld the hand as it wrote and it struck consternation to his soul. His joints were loosed and his knees smote each other. He cried out for some one to read the writing. The wise men were brought in before him, but no one could read the writing. Then the queen mother told Belshazzar of Daniel who interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. Daniel was brought in and he fearlessly read out the writing which told the king that he was weighed in the balances and found wanting, and that his kingdom was to be divided and given to the Medes and the Persians. That very night Darius, the king of the Medes, came down from the North with the swiftness of a bird and opened the canal gates and turned the river into that revervoir and led his soldiers down the river bed and under the walls into the city. The lords of all the land were there assembled in drunken revelry and the Medes slaughtered them and their blood ran like wine down the marble steps of the palace, Balshazzar was slain and Babylon was no more. The empire of gold had given place to the kingdom of silver. The Medes and the Persians divided their kingdom into a hundred and twenty-seven provinces and had their palace at Shushan.
Alexander the Great came in due time with his devastating hordes and overthrew the Medo-Persian empire and set up the third universal empire—the kingdom of brass. After the death of Alexander his kingdom was divided among his four generals and they fought each other and soon two of them were swallowed up by the other two.
It was out of these contending forces that the iron kings arose. Rome was the capital, the chief metropolis and finally became the mistress of the world, The Roman rulers were represented by the iron legs in the Nebuchadnezzar vision and some think that the two divisions of the empire were symbolized by the two legs. However I do not take to the idea of making too literal a figure of speech. I never try to trace out exact analogies to all incidentals or details of parabolic language. If we should do that we would find things in the Daniel prophecy that are not yet fulfilled. And we would be forced to have the complete image standing intact when the little stone stone strikes it. Therefore all those ancient empires would necessarily have to be reestablished and all exist at one time. To me that would be forcing a figure or making symbolic language literal. The rule of the Roman emperors has long been thought of as an iron rule. Rome and iron are synonymous in our thinking. Literature came through the Greeks and the knowledge of God came through the Jews, but law is a heritage from the Romans.
These iron kings did crush and destroy other nations. A battle with the Roman soldiers meant defeat and desolation for any nation, until finally all the nations bowed to Rome’s authority and sent their tribute into the em- perial city. Rome, proud mistress that sat upon her seven hills and from her throne of beauty ruled the world!
It was during the days of these kings that the immovable kingdom was to be set up in the earth. During the reign of Augustus Caesar Jesus was born in Bethlehem to be the King and Savior of men. Under the reign of Tiberias Caesar he was crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem. He was raised from the dead by the power of God and ascended to heaven and took his seat on the throne of the majesty of God. Then being enthroned and glorified, he sent the Holy Spirit back to the earth to guide, inspire and empower his witnesses. They received this power upon the day of Pentecost, and that day three thousand souls acknowledged Christ as their Ruler and by submission to his will entered into the benefits of his kingdom. That day the Holy Spirit began to execute the laws of the King and therefore he began that day to reign over his earthly subjects.
Then in the Epistles we read of people who were in the kingdom. (Colossians 1:13.) And in the text for this sermon we saw that those people were in possession of the kingdom which is unshakable. This is bound to be the kingdom of Daniel’s prophecy or else Christ will have two kingdoms at the same time, for this kingdom being immovable can not give place to another. If another is to be set up in future it will have to run parallel with this one.
It will remove hate from the hearts of men and fill them with love. It will, if truly received, remove war and strife from the earth and cause peace to flow like a gentle river to earth’s remotest bounds. It will take fear, dread and sin out of the heart and fill it with joy. Love, Peace and Joy in the Holy Spirit—-that is the kingdom. Now, in order for this kingdom to be immovable each of the three elements that we have mentioned must be imperishable. Let us consider them and see if they are all immovable.
1. THE KING. Of course we all know that Christ is the King and he must reign till all enemies are put under his feet. Peter announced that he was made Lord and Christ. Paul calls him the King of kings and Lord of lords, and in Revelation we read that the kingdom of this world are to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. Then is it necessary to argue that our King is immovable? Paul calls him immovable, invisible, eternal. He himself said to John, “I am he that was dead, and, behold, I am alive forevermore, And I hold the keys of death and of Hades.” He has all power in heaven and on earth and he can not therefore be deposed. He is beyond the touch of time ana the dominion of death. Therefore the King of the kingdom is immovable.
2. The LAWS. What are the laws of this kingdom? Common sense would reply: Why, the laws that are made by the King. His decrees, his commands. While Christ was here on earth he announced principles and gave laws that were to govern his followers. He had witnesses specially chosen to hear these things and to confirm them later. Then before he left the earth he told his disciples to go and make disciples and to enjoin upon them all that he had commanded or imparted to his original witnesses. (Matthew 28:18-20.) Then he told them that he had many other things to say to them, but they were not able to receive them. However the Holy Spirit would come after his departure and teach them all things, guide them into all truth and bring to their remembrance all the things Christ had commanded them. He, the Holy Spirit, would take of the things of Christ—his Avill—and declare them unto the apostles. (John 14:26; John 16:8-16.) The Holy Spirit did come upon these apostles and enabled them to work miracles to attest their message or to confirm their word. (Mark 16:17-18; Hebrews 2:1-4.) They were the ambassadors of the new King; envoys extraordinary and plenipotentiary. Through them the complete system of laws of the heavenly kingdom was made known. And all disciples of Christ in all the Christian age are told to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered unto these saints. (Jude 1:3.) We may say, therefore, that the New Testament is the law bool: of the immovable kingdom. It contains the divine enactments. The teaching of the apostles was normative.
Then are these iaws—the New Testament Scriptures —immovable ana imperishable? They claim to be. Isaiah said the “word of God liveth and abideth forever” and Peter repeats this and says, “And this is that word which by the gospel is preached unto you” (1 Peter 1:25; Isaiah 40:6). Jesus himself said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass awav” (Matthew 24:35). But some one may say that it looks now as if the Bible is going out of date and that it will soon have lost its influence over the hearts of men. We know that many people today reject the Bible and every now and then we hear a cry for a “new Bible” Even those who profess to believe the Bible want to edit the old book and expunge those parts that do not comport with modern ideas and speculations. But this is no new thing. It is true that there is more opposition to the Bible today than was ever before known in America. The United States Government was founded by people who believed the Bible and it will be maintained, if maintained at all, by people who believe the Bible. The propaganda against the Bible is also against the principles and traditions of our government. The more rapidly our people become victims of this propaganda the more rapid will be the decline of our government. But the Bible is much older than the United States Government, and it had been the object of many a violent attack from unbelievers before our government was brought forth. Infidels have tried to ridicule its claims and laugh it out of public respect. Ecclesiastic authority, jealous of its control over the conscience of people, has tried to destroy the Bible off of the earth, but the Bible has lived on in spite of all this hatred and has been triumphant over every scheme and device that have been employed for its destruction. Millions of copies are being sold every year, and although they may disregard much that the Bible teaches in their daily lives, most people—the great majority—in their subjective consciousness still recognize the teaching of Christ as final. The Bible has by no means been repudiated by the public nor has it lost its appeal to the inner nature of men when men will recognize that they have an inner nature with needs and longings. The Bible still lives and according to its own claims it will live on forever. And if its principles are true, as we believe they are, of course it must live. Truth can’t perish. In his debate with Douglass, Abraham Lincoln said,
Suppose this world should stand a million years longer. Think of a million years. Can you realize how long a time that is and the changes that would take place? It has not been a million days yet since Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Thing of a million years! Scientists claim that the earth has been here for many millions of years, but even if that is true we do not have the history of the earth except for a few thousand years. Seven thousand years are nothing compared with a million years. And yet in these few thousand years civilizations have grown up and blossomed in the earth and then withered and decayed. Kingdoms have been founded, have flourished and have fallen. Today we dig up the ruins of ancient cities and decipher the heiroglyphs of ancient people—though they lived only three or four thousand years ago. What would happen in a million years ? A million years from tonight men will dig up New York and Chicago and London and Paris, but they will have to dig through the ruins of greater cities than these that were built by men who perhaps knew not of the buried glory of our civilization. In that far off future day our political parties will have been forgotten and the issues over which they fought will have perished. Our religious denominations will have perished from the memories of men and the sectarian doctrines over which we fight and divide and disfellowship each other will have been forgotten and buried beneath millenniums of oblivion. Yet the Book of God will be there and it will tell in whatever language that race uses that Christ was born in Bethlehem. That he was crucified on the hill of Calvary. That he was buried in Joseph’s new tomb. That he arose from the dead and commanded his disciples to “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” They will read that “the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch’*. They will read that the disciples at Troas came together upon the first day of the week to break bread. They will read that Jesus is coming back to earth again to take his children home. They will read all this because it is in the word of God and it liveth and abideth forever.
3. THE SUBJECTS OF THE KING OR THE CITIZENS OF THE KINGDOM. Who are the subjects? All those who acknowledge the King as their Ruler and obey his laws are, of course, his subjects. All those who enthrone him in their hearts and allow him to rule and order their lives-—these are citizens of the Immovable Kingdom. All real Christians are citizens of that kingdom. Then will Christians live forever? Are they not subject to death? Yes, Christians must put off the body of llesh, but they do not cease to be. From our point of view they are defeated by Death and taken captives by him and locked in his prison house. But Christ has overcome him who has the power of death and he, Christ, now holds the keys of Death and of Hades, and at his call all the captives shall be set free and be brought forth shouting victory. This is the Christian’s hope, and what would life be worth without it?
Death is such a dark and hideous monster that stands down in the path of life and he casts his shadow so far down toward the cradle that from the dawn of mind till the day of death we would be compelled to walk in his gloom, if it were not for our faith in Christ, which dispels the shadows and enables us to see the sunlit shores of the land beyond.
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
Yes, Christians will live on forever. They, too, are imperishable. No part of the kingdom shall fail. It shall stand forever. When day and night shall he no more and the moon shall cease to wax and wane and the sea shall flow and ebb no more; when earth and heaven shall be shaken and shall pass away with a great noise, this kingdom shall firm remain. How enrapturing is the thought! How glorious the consummation: Are you a citizen of that kingdom? Have you sworn allegiance to the King? Take the step now, my brother.
I love thy kingdom, Lord, The house of thine abode; The church our blest Redeemer saved, With his own precious blood.
I love thy church, O God! Her walls before thee stand Dear as the apple of thine eye And graven on thy hand. For her my tears shall fall, To her my pray’rs ascend, To her my cares and toils be giv’n, Till toils and cares shall end.
Beyond my highest joy I prize her heav’nly ways, Her sweet communion, solemn vows, Her hymns of love and praise.
Jesus, Thou Friend divine, Our Savior and our King!
Thy hand from every snare and foe, Shall great deliv’rance bring, Sure as thy truth shall last, To Zion shall be given The brightest glories earth can yield, And blighter bliss of heav’n.
Amen and Amen.