“Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.”—Matt. vi. 10
The third petition, which is omitted from Luke’s version of the Prayer, springs directly and naturally out of the second petition, and is really explanatory of it. We have been taught to pray, “Thy kingdom come.” God’s kingdom will come, when His will is done on earth, as it is done in heaven.
The central idea of kingship is that of rule, authority, power. Kingship is only real and effective when the King commands and the people obey. In heaven God’s kingship is a reality. The eyes of all the inhabitants of the better land wait upon God. Cherubim and Seraphim, saints and angels, delight to do His will. In heaven, God speaks and it is done. This third petition is a prayer that men may learn to obey God as the angels do, so that His kingship may be as real and as effective here on earth as it is now in heaven.
Jurists draw a distinction between kings de jure—kings by legal right, and kings de facto—in actual possession and exercise of the royal power. Now God, if I may be allowed to say so, is the world’s King de jure. He is the world’s lawful Sovereign and rightful Lord. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein.” But God is not King de facto. His kingship is not effective. His people do not obey. There are large sections of the world, whole departments of human activity, where His rule is not recognised. Ireland is part of the Queen’s dominions; but there have been times when the Queen could scarcely be said to reign in Ireland. At the time when the Irish troubles were at their height, it was a common saying that in certain districts of Ireland it was not the Queen who ruled, but the Land League. Cuba was until last year part of the dominions of the King of Spain. The Spanish flag floated over its arsenals and forts. It was with the ministers of the King of Spain that all negotiations with reference to Cuba had to be carried on. Cuban coins and Cuban postage stamps bore the image and superscription of the Spanish sovereign. But for all that, for the past ten years or so the kingship of Alphonso over Cuba was merely nominal. Outside Havanna and Santiago Alphonso could not be said to reign. Not all the armies of Spain could make his kingship real and effective over the rebellious interior. In much the same way God is the King of the world. He is its lawful Sovereign. No one else has a shred of title or claim to an inch of its territory or to the allegiance of one of its inhabitants. “The kingdom is the Lord’s, and He is Governor among the nations.” But while God is King of the world de jure, He is not King de facto. His kingship is nominal—not real and effective; for there are parts of the world over which God cannot be said to rule. There are multitudes of men who are in rebellion against Him, and who refuse to acknowledge His authority. God’s writs do not run. His law is not obeyed. His will is not done.
And here we come across that solemn and awful power which is the prerogative of manhood—the power of resisting the will of God. Nature obeys God’s will. The flower that blooms in hedge-side or meadow; the lark that sings its way up to heaven’s gate in the spring sunshine; the rivers that roll towards the sea; the ocean with its regular ebb and flow; the sun and moon and stars observing their seasons and travelling along their appointed orbits—all these are what they are, and do what they do in obedience to God’s will. The wind is God’s messenger; the thunder His voice; the lightning His sword. Nature obeys God. And above, in heaven, the angels and the blest do God’s pleasure. “Thousands at His bidding speed, and post o’er land and ocean without rest.” Is there any one then who resists God’s will? Yes, there is one, just one, and that one is man. In all God’s universe he is the only one who is disobedient. He is the only one who clenches his fist and says “No” to God. He is the only one invested with the terrible power of resisting, thwarting, opposing the will of God. And that awful power he possesses because he possesses a free and independent will of his own. God made man, we are told, in His own likeness. The special feature that marks man off from the brute creation and links him on to the Divine, is his possession of moral freedom. God is a moral Being. Man, too, is a moral being. But in order to make man a moral being, God had to limit Himself and make man free. For there can be no moral quality where there is no freedom. Nature is un-moral because nature acts under necessity. Man is not under necessity. He can either obey or disobey. He is a moral being because he is free.
Now all the misery of the world is due to the fact that man abused his freedom, that he chose not to obey, but to dis-obey. What was the first sin? An act of disobedience; and that act of disobedience brought in its train a multitude of woes. I want you to remember that vice is not here by God’s will; lust is not here by God’s will; strife and malice and envy are not here by God’s will; war and bloodshed and slaughter are not here by God’s will; misery and poverty and shame are not here by God’s will. They are here by man’s will, because man set up his own will in opposition to that of God. The secret of the world’s unhappiness and sorrow and pain you will find in these familiar words of the General Confession, “We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.” “Selfishness,” as Bishop Westcott says, “lies at the root of all sin.” Here is the fountain of the world’s woe, that man preferred his own will rather than the will of God. While man was obedient there was happiness and joy, happiness that lasted. As John Milton says—
—till disproportioned Sin
Jarr’d against nature’s chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway’d