"The land shall not be sold for ever," says the Lord; "for the land is mine." Lev. xxv. 23. Man has a term of years granted him, in which it is left in his power to disturb the divine order. For forty-nine years in Israel disturbing traffic might go on, but in the fiftieth year the Lord asserted His right, and restored all things according to His own mind; for it was a time of "refreshing" and of "restitution" as from His own "presence."
Bright and happy expectation! "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof," is the proclamation of Psalm xxiv. And then the challenge goes forth, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?"--that is, Who shall take the government of this earth and its fulness? And the answer is made by another challenge to the city gates, to lift up their heads to the Lord of hosts, the King of glory; a fervent form of words whereby to convey the truth, that the Lord, as in strength and victory, the Lord as Redeemer and Avenger, should take the government. As again in Rev. v. a like proclamation is heard, "Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?" And the answer from every region is this, "The Lamb that was slain, the Lion of the tribe of Judah." He who sat on the throne gave that answer by letting the Book pass from His hand into the hand of the Lamb. The living creatures and crowned elders joined in that answer by singing their song over the prospect of their reign over the earth. The hosts of angels add to it, by ascribing all wisdom and strength and honour and faculty of dominion unto the Lamb--and every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth and in the seas, in their order and measure, join in uttering this same answer. The title of the Lamb to take dominion in the earth is thus owned and verified in the very place where alone all lordship or office could be rightly attested--the presence of the throne in heaven.
And so it is. The nobleman has now gone into the distant country to get for himself a kingdom. Jesus, who refused all power from the god of this world (Matt. iv.), or from the desire of the multitude (John vi.), takes it from God, as He owns in Psalm lxii. that to Him it belongs. And in due season He will return, and those who have owned Him in the day of His rejection shall shine with Him in the day of His glory; those who have served Him now shall take another city with Him then.
In the prospect of such a day, Paul says to Timothy, "Keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in His time He shall show, who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords." And in the like prospect the same dear apostle could say of himself, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing."
May the Lord give our poor hearts--for they need it much--more of the like spirit of faith and power of hope! Amen.
ABRAHAM.
GENESIS XII.-XXV.
In earlier parts of the book of Genesis, I have already traced two distinct histories--that of the antediluvian saints, or the times from Adam to Enoch; and that of Noah and of those who followed him, down to the scattering of the nations.
The first of these histories occupies chapters i.-v., the second, vi.-xi.
In the chapter which follows--xii.--the story of Abraham begins, and is continued down to chap. xxv. This forms the third portion or section of the book of Genesis, and presents to us a new era in the ways of God. And in all this, I am sure, there is beautiful moral order, and an unfolding of the dispensational wisdom of God. For in these things the heavens and the earth are made, by turns, to take up the wondrous tale of that wisdom, and to rehearse divine mysteries--such mysteries as, "in the fulness of time," will be accomplished, when, as we know, He shall gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth. Eph. i. 10.