Conclusion
“Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” (Luke 22.42.) These words, more than any others, represent what it is to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. At his trial after the test in the garden, Jesus said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18.36.) Maybe it can be said, if we dare to say it, and as reverently as we can, that Jesus had just come from seeking the supernal kingdom like he never had before. Jesus sought the kingdom of God when it was most difficult to do so. No test in history, or vexation in hell, for that matter, can compare with what the Lord went through in Gethsemane. No prospect can be worse than dying for the sins of others and satisfying the wrath of God; no one had done it before; no prospect worse than to be the first and only one. How could the expectation not be as agonizing as the crucifixion? How could it not be the beginning of his greatest torments? Why did he sweat great drops of blood except that tortures had begun? Yet, in the garden, because he had his eye and mind on the future kingdom of God and his righteousness, Jesus sustained his entire surrender. The temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane had a greater Adam to deal with than the temptation in the Garden of Eden had in the first Adam. The kernel of victory was gained in the Garden of Gethsemane; ripened victory was gained on the Cross. “Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12.2.) Because of the Lord’s submission, all the promises made to him are sealed; the sinners that he died for are his; the sinners that reject him are his to judge; and Satan’s final fall is owing to his obedience to the law, his death for sin, and his victory over death. He is ‘the author and finisher of faith.’ In seeking the righteousness of God, and in doing what is right, the sinner will find that the righteousness of Christ is his through faith, and that the kingdom is his by inheritance. As an heir, moreover, he will have a significant role to fill in this kingdom: he will rule over all that the Lord has (Luke 12.44.) A sinner comes under the dominion of God in no other way but by grace through faith; no sinner comes into God’s kingdom through any other door than Jesus Christ, who is full of grace, the object of faith, and the embodiment of truth and glory (John 1.)
Seek first the kingdom of God, ‘and his righteousness.’ Righteousness is intimately connected with the kingdom. It is pondered by the Psalmist; it is predicted by the prophets. The word comes up again and again; next to holiness, it is perhaps the primary virtue to dominate the kingdom. It runs alongside the virtue of peace; there is no peace without righteousness. “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Psalm 85.10.) The word ‘righteousness’ carries the idea of justice by equitable judgment. This is why the word is difficult to distinguish from the words ‘equity’ and ‘judgment.’ To seek the righteousness of God is to seek after what is right, fair, just. But it is more than this. By faith the disciple is credited with the righteousness of Christ. He then seeks to broaden the sphere of that same righteousness by disseminating the gospel and doing good deeds. He puts his faith into practice, demonstrating this righteousness by doing the things that the Lord did during his ministry. Jesus fed the hungry. Jesus ministered to the sick. Jesus showed the way to heaven. The disciple can do these things with the time and resources that would have gone into treasures and worries. He can imitate and intimate, by graces like peace, generosity, kindness, and joy, what the future kingdom of God will be like. If a ministry worthy of support cannot be found—if a ministry that is doing what is right on the basis of what truth really is cannot be found—then we may direct our support to a cause that exposes works of darkness, for this too is part of our Christian calling. Since we are called to reprove works of darkness (Ephesians 5.11), they must often be exposed, and therefore muckrakers need support. The muckraker can dredge up sin; then we can reprove sinners as they come out from their holes. There is a sense in which we are called to ‘judge.’ If we are supposed to prosecute our mission joyfully, and part of our mission is to judge, then we may judge gladly though not arrogantly. Blessed are they that judge? Since the word ‘blessed’ means ‘happy,’ then yes, blessed are they. To help expose deeds of darkness will make a Christian happy.
Every religious effort ought to be done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sadly, much that is done in his name is not of his kingdom. This is why partnership with others in the doing of good works and in the sowing of seed must be done only insofar as the league runs along biblical lines. To try to bring about some ecumenical union by a pact that compromises cardinal doctrines like faith, intercession, and the sacrifice of Christ is to walk in darkness with the devil. Interfaith unions, Roman Catholic overtures, and alliances with cults are all to be shunned. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness” (2 Corinthians 6.14.) We must be wary of eyeing unity at the expense of truth. This is to have an evil eye more than a single one. The body may become dark through our use of the eye. How dark is the body that is communing with darkness! Those who push for peace at any cost hate verses like the one just quoted. To be religiously joined with persons who do not endorse creedal formulas like the Five Solas, and who do not live lives that are set apart from worldly lifestyles is to be joined with what God condemns. A campaign with Roman Catholics to save sinners, for example, is a divided kingdom that can do no good and that will do great harm. This is why the Billy Graham Crusades did not leave in their wake a moral America. The Roman Catholic priest does not reckon the Bible as the sole authority in matters of faith and practice; and if God is no respecter of persons, he certainly disrespects the underestimation of his word. The word ‘sola’ is the Latin word for ‘alone.’ The Five Solas, then, are: grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone, Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. When any one of these is missing in a campaign or a program, or when these five are added to, where salvation is concerned, the Christian must shun it, not unite with it.
Some persons are misguidedly seeking the righteousness of God by attempting to bring the kingdom in through social programs and political schemes. This kind of activity cannot be found amongst the first disciples. Neither, to say the least, do we see Jesus resort to these secular measures. “The perfection of humanity, to be effected by human agencies, is a dream of the philosopher that will never be realised. The great experiment of man’s ability to rule himself and the world around him, that has been in operation throughout all the generations, from the Builders of Babel to the philosophers and legislators of our own days, is still working with intensity that increases as his dominion over the elements of nature is increasing. But war and discord, fraud and violence, still prevail, and will not cease, until God shall take to Himself His great power, and ‘the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ’” (Dominick M’Causland, The Builders of Babel, pp. 284-285.) We ought to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, to share the gospel so that God’s kingdom will enter souls, and to live lifestyles fit for saints. This is essentially what God’s children are called to do. The kingdom of God, with his perfect righteousness, will finally fully reign on earth, if not for a thousand literal years, then certainly immediately preceding the judgment, and for sure after that forever, in the New Jerusalem, with its new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21.1, 2.) Once God’s will is done on this old earth, the eternal kingdom will ensue. Our endeavor is to seek the righteousness of God by falling in line with what is right, by bringing the gospel to sinners, and by escorting penitent sinners into God’s kingdom. It is vain to seek righteousness any other way. “The pride of intellect, the love of riches, and the lust for power, which are the natural products of increasing civilization, do not harmonize with the self-sacrificing humility and submissiveness that are the essence of the true Christianity which was taught by the Saviour, and preached by the Apostles. Hence it is, that the rapid advance of material civilization has never been accompanied by a corresponding advance in the moral culture of the community; on the contrary, it is found, that the higher the intellectual attainments, and the greater the prosperity, the more prevalent is the contempt or perversion of God’s word. The Babylon of Revelation, which typifies the climax of progressing civilization, presents to view a community which combines the highest commercial prosperity and the most refined luxury with a low moral condition and gross apostacy; and all are buried together on the confines of a better dispensation, typified by the New Jerusalem, which is to be the scene of a future reign of righteousness and peace on earth. With such a downward moral tendency of those engaged in the development of the great physical agencies of civilization, those of Japhet’s sons [us Westerners] who recognise the presence of the Lord God of Shem [the Jews] in the affairs of mankind must, each of them in his own time and place, labour to leaven their generations with the knowledge that realizes a future beyond the narrow precincts of human life” (Dominick M’Causland, The Builders of Babel, pp. 282-284.) Notwithstanding the fact that humility and submission are not of the essence of Christianity, as this author teaches, being the fruit of it, not the root; and notwithstanding this author’s failed theory of pre-Adamite man, he is nevertheless on the mark respecting man’s failure to reform and the tendency of prosperity to end in degeneracy. An advanced civilization does not ensure a moral one.
The teaching of Scripture is that despite our efforts the Lord will not find universal righteousness on earth at his second coming. “Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18.8.) Where faith is largely absent, where will righteousness be? On the other hand, it seems that a revival will precede his second coming. Zechariah 12.10: “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.” It is more than plausible that Zechariah’s prophecy has been at least partially fulfilled in the thousands of Jews that believed on Jesus during the revivals recorded in the book of Acts. After Peter informed ‘the house of Israel’ that they were guilty of crucifying the Messiah (Acts 2.36), many were ‘pricked in their heart’ (verse 37), and the result was the repenting of ‘about three thousand souls’ (verse 41.) I say only partially fulfilled for the following reason. In the book of Revelation we read, “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen” (Revelation 1.7.) This verse may point back to the prophecy in the book of Zechariah, which prophecy may be a prediction of a future revival among Jews, even if it may also teach that some persons will wail because of judgment, not out of penitence. That there will be a major revival among the Jews before the second coming of the Lord seems conclusive from Romans 11.25-27. After the ‘fulness of the Gentiles be come in,’ the apostle says, “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, there shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” Among the reputable commentators who believe that this has reference to a time nearing the end of the world, we have such theological heavyweights as John Gill, Matthew Poole, and Robert Haldane. When asked by his disciples when the kingdom would be restored to Israel, Jesus does not entirely put them off, but tells them that it is not for them to know ‘the times or the seasons’ (Acts 1.7.) To perfectly know, even in outline form, what will occur near the end of this world is perhaps impossible. It seems there will be a Jewish revival; and it seems that conditions on the earth will be whatever unbelief begets: apathy, entertainment, misery, turmoil, and violence. “Who hath known the mind of the Lord?” (Romans 11.34.) Only the King has what it takes to usher in a kingdom of righteousness. By his power he will do it. And soon after there will be a new earth and even new heavens (2 Peter 3.13.) We must be alert to the Bible’s use of language, or we will dogmatize where we should hesitate. If the literal millennium swings at all, it swings on the hinge of one single verse that would have to be interpreted in the face of how the Bible so often uses the number thousand in a figurative sense. Speaking of apocalyptic language, the moon turning to blood and the sun into darkness (Acts 2.20) seem like figures of speech that are used to highlight the miracles and wonders that are recorded in that chapter. Sensational things do happen—even wonders in the cosmos. But the greater things are the things done to men, in men, and for men, by God for his own glory. With such things in mind we must aim to live well for the kingdom now; this cannot, and will not, be done if we are immoderately fond of blood moons in the sky as if that means the world is coming to an end, and before which a literal millennium of peace on earth will be ushered in. In fellowship, in prayer, in Bible study, or during a walk enjoying the grandeur of God as reflected in creation, we have perhaps paused in holy awe, and thought: “This experience is a sliver of heaven to come.” Such moments are kingdom moments: moments of bliss under the dominion of God—if we can back them up with faith and lifestyle to match. Exulting in thoughts of God through Nature is healthier than seeing nothing in a meteor shower except some ‘last things’ that may never be.
The ‘last things’ that are left to come to pass are conspicuously difficult for the most learned men to judge. Whenever Christians have relied on the finer points of their interpretation of the consummation of this world, exhilaration has turned to disappointment as the end that was thought to be coming, ended up being out of reach. I give one example. In 1800 after atheism had polluted France with blood and was threatening to do the same all over Europe, Robert Hall, one of the great pulpit orators of his time, preached the following passage in a sermon: “…The kingdom of God, we know, cometh not with observation; but still there are not wanting manifest tokens of its approach. The personal appearance of the Son of God was announced by the shaking of nations; his spiritual kingdom, in all probability, will be established in the midst of similar convulsions and disorders. The blasphemous impiety of the enemies of God, as well as the zealous efforts of his sincere worshipers, will doubtless be overruled to accomplish the purposes of his unerring providence. While, in inflicting the chastisements of offended Deity on corrupt communities and nations, Infidelity marks its progress by devastation and ruin, by the prostration of thrones and concussion of kingdoms; thus appalling the inhabitants of the world and compelling them to take refuge in the church of God, the true sanctuary; the stream of divine knowledge, unobserved, is flowing in new channels, winding its course among humble valleys, refreshing thirsty deserts, and enriching with far other and higher blessings than those of commerce the most distant climes and nations, until agreeably to the prediction of prophecy, the knowledge of the Lord shall fill and cover the whole earth….” (Robert Hall, Modern Infidelity Considered.) Robert Hall was hinting here that the most comprehensive reading of Habakkuk 2.14—of the earth being ‘filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD’—was on the edge of being fulfilled—that ‘tokens of its approach’ were manifesting in his day, by which he meant, no doubt, that the time of worldwide grace might be at hand. But that time was not at hand. Here we are more than 200 years later. We might say that this time is at hand right now, for all of Europe seems to be falling. We might; but we shouldn’t. To Hall’s credit, however, there is nothing wrong with his hinting. He did not set dates; nor did he make end-time speculation his trade. Robert Hall was not the spiritual forefather of Hal Lindsey.
How shall we live presently, seeing that we have this kingdom—this kingdom that cometh not with observation—inside of us? This is more important than dates and times. Every Christian would like to be alive when the gospel sets multitudes right; possibly every Christian would like to be alive when the Lord comes back to resurrect, judge, rule, purify, and create whole worlds anew. But while we keep watch, we should be acting as if we have 200 years more to wait. What about the dominion of God right now? Perhaps we complain about a dull and powerless life under God’s dominion. If so, are we really living for his kingdom and righteousness? Or are we living for the world to gratify the self? It may be that even as we seek his kingdom and righteousness, we honestly feel that it is a dark walk sometimes, and a frustrating search. But if we persevere during this, the darkness that we feel will be in proportion to the light that others see in us. To be made to walk in the dark while the light is in us is an opportunity to shine. This is that candle not hid under a bushel. “Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house” (Matthew 5.15.) It is the blessing that was vouchsafed to Noah, Job, and Daniel; and to Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and John the Baptist, to list but a few. Our greatest potential is achieved through faith on trial. Regardless of what we are selected to live out and to persevere in and through, we must be missed in the ‘counsel of the ungodly’ in order to ‘run the race,’ not to mention win it. We will be looked at with suspicion when we shun the television programs, the movies, the magazines, professional sports, and popular music. We will be looked down upon because we lack the treasures of the world. We will be laughed at when we trust God for the essentials. We will be scorned when we stand for what is just. We will be persecuted when we judge and preach. We must clear a passage to the kingdom for others. Infirmity and sabotage will make us limp as we work. When our light shines in the dark—in this darksome world of treasure and worry—we will be asked what our focus is fixed on. Then we’ll be assured that we are living the lifestyle that Jesus commands us to live.
“And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever” (Daniel 12.2-3.) It follows that if we are to turn sinners toward righteousness, we must be seekers of righteousness ourselves. The Christian should be obsessed with what is right because he possesses what is right: the kingdom of God inside him, and the righteousness of Christ that is his by faith. If we have the righteousness of Christ by faith, we are Christ’s, and all things are ours; that is, all good things that the Lord has to give (1 Corinthians 3.21-23.) He who has an eternity of good for his own has an unlimited bounty to share. To turn a sinner toward righteousness, then, should be, as far as spiritual action is concerned, our meat and drink, our essence and treasure. One man points to the door, another man chaperones, God opens the door and brings the sinner through it; which is another way of saying that one man seeds, the other waters, and God grants the increase. If our eye and mind are properly fixed, this mission of seeding or watering is the frontlet, as it were, on our forehead. “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased” (Daniel 12.4.) It may be that sometimes even dedicated Christians appear to be crazily running about. We can say this about that: the person who is habitually occupied in running to and fro across the world, down the streets, and through the web, looking for treasures and worrying about essentials, must not be interested in anything or anyone outside the borders of this present life in a world condemned by God to burn (2 Peter.3.10.) He is not a Christian who lives like that. The evil eye should be a single eye instead; the worried mind should be a trusting mind instead; the kingdom of God should be daily sought; the righteousness of God should be reckoned ours as much as the kingdom of God is inside of us. We should know this; we should feel this; we should regularly check to make sure that our knowledge and feeling run parallel with what the Bible says the lifestyle of a saint should be.
