Word of Salvation – Vol.11 No.28 – July 1965

 

Thy Kingdom Come

 

Sermon by Rev. G. De Ruiter on Matthew 6:10a

Scripture Reading: Matthew 13:1-9 & 18-23; Matthew 24:42-51

Psalter Hymnal: 324; 136 (after Law); 196:1,2,5,6; 174:1,2,4,5; 449:1,3,4

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

We will conclude our short series of sermons about the Kingdom of heaven-parables with the prayer of our text “Thy Kingdom come”.  To start with a general remark: “praying is very difficult”.  What are you talking about in your prayers?

What do you pray for?

In a prayer, as in all christian life there is a vertical and a horizontal dimension, through our relation with God, and our being man, created, intended for the earth.

But isn’t it true now that our prayers very often are too earthly, too horizontal?  Why do so many Christians start really praying, beseeching, imploring God when they are in trouble, for whatever reason?  And as soon as the problems are solved the tension in the prayers ebbs again.  God is good for solving our insoluble problems – isn’t He?  The rest you can manage yourself can’t you?

Maybe you know that story of Peter Eldersveld about a boy whose family was entertaining the minister one evening.  They were talking about the great importance of prayer, and to bring the lad into the discussion the minister turned to him and said: “Johnny, do you pray too?” Immediately the boy answered: “Yes, I do”.  “Well, that’s fine, and I suppose you pray about many different things, and always ask God to help you?”  Johnny was a bit more cautious this time, but still he said: “Yes, I do.”  Then the minister became more specific (as a minister has to, not always pleasing his people with such a specification): “do you pray about your school work too?”  Johnny hesitated for a moment, then looked him straight in the eye, and said: “No sir, I am sorry, but you know, I don’t need to, since I get all A’s in school, you see.” Isn’t that very often our way of praying?  And the background of this is that we keep God and our praying up our sleeve to solve our problems we cannot handle.

And so the heart of the matter, the heart of our bad, poor way of praying is egoism, selfishness.  That is what the disciples felt too, when they asked the Lord: “Lord teach us to pray; teach us to put Thee, and Thy Kingdom in the centre of our thinking and praying, in the heart of our dreams and hopes and expectations.”

And that is why the Lord’s Prayer starts and finishes with the Kingdom of God, with Christ’s Kingship.

So that is what we have to pray for: the Kingdom of God in this world, with all its aspects as we have talked about in previous sermons.  God’s Kingdom, it is not only a kind of ideal state to come, a sort of future Utopia; it is no less a reality, here and now.

We know how the Kingdom comes: “behold the sower went forth to sow.”  Jesus doesn’t speak of the Reaper at the end of time – no , He speaks of the sower, sowing in this time, in our world.  There is nothing spectacular in the work of the sower, in the progress of the Kingdom of heaven.  The sower sows the seed and waits patiently.  He knows that part of the seed will go to waste.  There are stones and rocks, there are thorns and thistles, and some of the seed is simply carried off by the birds (just as in some cases the seed of this sermon will be carried off by Satan’s birds – present in this church in the case of people who will go home thinking, saying: “a worthless service.”)  But yet there is going to be a crop!

At harvest time there is going to be a good yield!

That is how the Kingdom comes.  That is how God gains back His world.  Not by sending fire from heaven, not by sending the reaper, but by sending the sower.

So as yet nothing spectacular has happened.  The King has come, but He came, for the time being, in the form of a servant.

All seems to remain as it has always been.  However, those who know about and believe in the mystery of the Kingdom are holding their breath: for a sower went forth to sow…!

And here the prayer of a real subject of this King starts, a prayer not self-centred, but Christ-centred, and a life-long activity starts, as Christ-centred as that prayer, as our F.C.Y.A.  anthem reads:

Come forth young people, come and sing,
to Christ our everlasting King.
The master of our heart is He,
the Ruler of our life shall be,
to whom we, standing in life’s gate
all our future dedicate.
All as one our tribute bring
Christus regnat, Christ is King!

And so His Kingdom comes – it has to come – all over the world, since everybody must know King Jesus, and in all languages this tribute has to be brought.

So we pray: “Thy Kingdom come,” that it may be spread over all the continents.  But since this King does not have a voice but our voices to make known His name and proclaim His glory, this our prayer, “Thy Kingdom come,” includes a lifelong Christ-centred activity for pious, praying people.

You probably know what our Heidelberg Catechism says about this prayer in Lord’s Day 48: “So rule us by Thy Word and Spirit that, we may submit ourselves more and more to Thee; preserve and increase Thy church; destroy the works of the devil, every power that exalts itself against Thee, and all wicked counsels conceived against Thy Holy Word, until the perfection of Thy Kingdom arrive where in Thou shalt be all in all.”

So you hear it again: the Kingdom of heaven is a very-present reality and it includes our lifelong active obedience as subjects of the great King.

No doubt if we were asked what it means that the Lord’s Kingdom has to come, now and here, we might begin by saying that fellows like Fidel Castro and Soekarno should bow before the will and authority of King Jesus, and that all communists should repent.

The Catechism starts in a different way, saying: “Lord, so rule me by Thy word and spirit, take hold of my life, that I may submit myself more, and more to Thee; King Jesus, I want Thee to take charge of my life and heart, making me really and truly

obedient, as a good, faithful subject, honouring Thee with my daily behaviour, making known Thy name and fame in the world.”

All this is included since the perfect and complete Kingdom of God means a society upon earth where God’s will is as perfectly done as in heaven.

Here we have the explanation of how this Kingdom can be past, present and future, all at the one time.  Any man, who at any time in history wanted or wants or shall want to obey King Jesus consequently was and is and will be in the Kingdom of heaven; and such a man wants to make everybody else obedient, since only accepting Jesus as King means being in the right position with God.  But since this world is very far from being a place where Gods will is or ever will be perfectly and universally done, the consummation of the Kingdom is still in the future, and will always be something we have to pray for.

The Kingdom of heaven, it was the central message of Jesus.  The centrality of the idea of the Kingdom of God is made clear from the fact that this phrase appears in Matthews’ Gospel 49 times.

Maybe it is better to translate it with “Kingship”, since this Kingdom is not a territory, but rather the reign of God.  “The Kingdom of God is at hand” means that God is on the point of beginning His reign, showing His royal power in the world, in a completely new form and dispensation.

A curious fact is that in the Bible there is no clear-cut definition of this Kingdom.  It is described in pictures and analogies, in its demands and effects, but it is never in so many words defined.  Combining all aspects we could say: the kingdom of heaven is a society of people who live around their King, serving Him perfectly, honouring and glorifying Him without interruption, obeying Him faithfully and unconditionally.

Well, and here the great problem for you and me starts, since all of us want to be our own boss, our own King, with everything and everybody in the first person singular I, me, mine – in the spirit of that little girl who said:
I gave a little party this afternoon at three;
‘t was very small, three guests in all,
just I, myself and me
Myself ate up all the sandwiches,
while I drank up the tea,
and it was I who ate the pie,
and passed the cake to me.

So we piously pray, “Thy Kingdom come”, but with our daily behaviour we are often proved to prefer the idea of “my Kingdom come.”

We sing “glory to Thee, King Jesus,” but we often are sincere only when we can harmonise and compromise His Kingship with ours.

In the Kingdom of heaven this whole approach to life has to be turned upside down completely.  King Jesus and His claims have to be put in the centre, His name and fame and glory.  To be in the Kingdom is to obey the will of God, recognizing Jesus Christ as King.

So we see that this Kingdom is not something which primarily has to do with nations and peoples and countries, with missionaries and monarchs and dictators.  It is a very personal thing, something which in the first place has to do with each one of us.  This Kingdom is in fact the most personal thing in the world, and it demands the submission of your will, your heart, your life, as entirely as we can sing so piously and generously: “Take my life and let it be…  consecrated Lord to Thee, and my time and my money, my hands and brains, my heart and love.’

Once a Chinese Christian prayed: “Lord, revive Thy church, be- ginning with me.”  So we might well say: “Lord, bring Thy Kingdom, beginning with me, in my heart and home, in my family-life, in my surroundings.”

Another point is to underline the word “come”.  It is so much easier to pray “Thy Kingdom go”.  It is not nearly as hard to pray for the conversion of Auca-Indians, or of boys in Hong Kong and to give money for the mission-work in West Australia, as it is to face up honestly to the sins of our own lives, to repent and change our ways, and to accept our task as a congregation in our own city.  It is easier to crusade piously for world peace, than it is to forgive someone who has done us wrong.

“Thy Kingdom, Thy Kingship come”, it means spreading that Kingship in simple, obedient, daily behaviour, e.g. in the sense of Matthew 25 paying a visit to someone who needs you as representative, ambassador of the good King Jesus.

There is a verse in Scripture that should haunt you; it is 1Corinthians 9:27 where Paul says: “but I keep under my body, and make it known its master: lest after having preached to others, I myself should be a cast away”.  If one of the greatest preachers of all times was in such a danger, of becoming disqualified, because of formal, cold hearted Christianity and disobedient behaviour, what then about you and me?

“Thy Kingdom, Thy Kingship come” it means that I look into my own heart, and plead for God’s help and cleansing power.  It means that I bow before Him, in great humility, in faith and gratitude, praying for simple consistent obedience, praying for the Holy Spirit’s help:

“O send Thy truth, Thy Holy Spirit, to guide, to quicken and inspire
our feeble will and clouded purpose; purge us as silver in Thy fire.”

In this our world of triumph when our word goes forth as swift as light,
our circling comets span the night and power is given unto men,
to bloom with fire the cloudy pillar – forgive our pride, forgive our shame,
teach us, King Jesus, to spread Thy Kingship, teach us, to glory in Thy name.

In this our time of trial, come and speak again Thy saving Word, let everywhere Thy truth be heard to strike our empty boasting dumb.

Arise upon our blind confusion,
for Thou wert worthy, Thou alone,
to take the seat of highest honour;
raise us to worship at Thy throne.

And now we realise, I hope, why on the last page of the Bible there is that prayer: “come King Jesus, come soon”, and why we have to be very busy.

We pray “come soon”, since we have seen our imperfection and have experienced own failures, foibles, weaknesses.  For a good subject of King Jesus wants to be obedient, but he fails time and again, and therefore he prays: “Lord, please, help me to get rid of my weakness; come Lord, in Thy power, and help me out of my night of sorrows and sins that I may serve Thee without any blame or shame”.  And when that same subject of King Jesus thinks of the persecuted church and the many suffering Christians again he prays:

“Lord come soon, to deliver Thy people, and to give it rest.
Once this was Paradise,
the ageless air was keen with God’s own breath – divine.
The sky was purely sapphirine
all things were fresh and clean.
Once this world was Paradise.
We filled it with brute rebels,
to boss the show – but none survives
this stenchy swamp where foulness thrives.
Come Jesus, please, King Jesus, come
to recreate Thy Father’s world
and to restore that Paradise lost.

But praying this we cannot take it easy now.

It is pretty late on the clock of King Jesus.  Maybe later than you think.

There is a fable which tells us of three apprentice-devils who were coming to this earth to finish their apprenticeship.  They were talking to Satan their boss, about their plans to tempt men.  The first said: “I’ll tell them that there is no God.”  “NO good” Satan said, “for by nature everybody knows that there is a God.”  The second said: “I’ll tell them that there is no hell.”  Satan answered: “You’ll deceive no one that way; punishment of injustice is just a natural thing”.  The third said: “I’ll tell them that there is no hurry.” “Go” Satan said, “Go, you’ll ruin men by the thousands.”

And there it is: one of the most dangerous of all delusions is that there is plenty of time – plenty of time to repent – plenty of time to become an obedient subject of King Jesus – plenty of time to start working at the King’s service – plenty of time to warn your neighbour, to make known King Jesus to your unbelieving boy – or girlfriend, your colleague, your mate.

“Plenty of time” – yes, it is one of the most dangerous of all delusions.  For King Jesus is on His way, to establish His eternal Kingdom in divine perfection, and He has told us that He is coming soon.

He is coming quickly.

And if He should come today
and find your hands so full
of future plans, however fair,
in which King Jesus has no share,
what would He say?

If He should come today
and find your love so cold
your faith so very weak and dim
you had not even thought of Him,
what would He say?

If He should come today
and find you had not told
one soul about your royal friend
whose protection you attend,
what would He say?

If He should come today,
would you be glad, quite glad,
remembering that He died for all
and none through you had heard His call,
what would He say?

So what do you mean, when you are praying: “Thy Kingdom come”?

Amen.