and the way of the stars is all measured. There are clear tokens that not one of them is its own master or gives its own law. One government moulds them all. They say “We serve.” I take up the blade of grass and at once feel He that made that grass made the light of day, the dew of the morning, the beast that feeds upon it. One law pervades them all. I take up the corn. He that made that made the sun that ripens it and the soil that fattens it, and my blood that is my life. Everywhere is one mind, one plan, one hand, one sceptre, and all nature says “I serve, I serve. There is a force external to myself. I am measured. I move by rule.” “I revolve,” says every wheel in the heaven, “I roll round by regular law.” “Measure” always means “beginning.” That which is measured must have begun. Beginning always suggests the possibility of end. That which once was not hereafter may not be. Nature fails to fill the mind of man in any one of the three directions—the past, the future, the outward and the infinite. It cannot fill up this thought of ours that claims an eternity before, an eternity coming, an infinity on every side; and we feel nature is like ourselves—a servant, a creature, a machine, an organ, and every part of it proclaims a mind that lived before it.
Then will all things fail? all decay? No—“Thy years shall not fail.” We turn to Him that made the law whereby the blade of grass grows, that whereby the sun statedly comes to it, that whereby the animal feeds upon it, that whereby the man lives upon the animal, and that whereby the human mind reigns over the animal, cultivates the grass and makes use of the light. We come to that great Being whom all these things indicate and proclaim. In Him we find no external law or force compelling Him. At his footstool all say “We serve,” and to all He says either “Be” or “Do” or “Do not.” We find in Him no internal decay. Years come, ages come, worlds arise and worlds pass away, but “Thou art the same”—the same in strength, the same in youth, the same in beauty, the same in glory, the same in wisdom. Never old, only “ancient of days.” “Over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.”
The years of his divine existence shall never fail, the years of his redeeming reign shall never fail. As I said, this Scripture is quoted from the hundred and second Psalm. If you turn to it you will find in it a contrast between man’s perishing life and the eternal lifetime of the Lord; and especially the glorious lifetime of his Messiah and Messiah’s kingdom. “My days are like a
shadow that declineth, I am withered like grass.” The Bible makes everything preach—it makes the sparrow preach and the bush preach, and the grass and the lily. It makes even the very shadows preach—“My days are like a shadow that declineth.” Perhaps sometime in the morning you have stood and seen the great tree lying on the east of the hill, throwing its shadow broad and thick over the hill-side as if it really was a substance. But as the sun went up in the sky that shadow gradually shrank down until it totally disappeared under the leaves of the tree. My days are like that shadow—perhaps not like that only. You may have seen in the very bright moonlight shadows lying across the street till they looked solid as if they were something, so much so that the young colt started from them. But a cloud passed over the moon and where was the shadow? My days are like that. “But thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever; and thy remembrance unto all generations.” The remembrance of man is calling to mind those who are no more; the remembrance of God is calling to mind Him that is unseen. “Thy remembrance shall endure unto all generations. Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time is come. For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour
the dust thereof. So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory.” Not only will his days endure but his kingdom will endure; not only will it endure but it will go forward with a perpetual progress. “Thou shall arise and have mercy upon Zion.” The Lord is building a city in the world, a city that hath foundations, a city that is compacted together, a city that has its families and houses and companies, its solemnities and social joys; a city that is all one brotherhood though composed of every nation and kindred and people. The Lord will arise in his strength to build this city and one of the signs for his time to favour her is when her children take pleasure in her stones and favour the dust thereof. We have that sign in our day. God’s children are taking pleasure in the stones of Zion and favouring the dust thereof. Let us then, looking at the sign, lift up our eye for the fulfilment of the promise, “When the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in his glory.” We are trying to build Zion and the Lord is pleased to see it; but let us call upon Him—“Appear in thy glory! Do thou come and build! Give us the living stones, bring them to us by thy power out of the rocks, out of the heights and depths we cannot reach unto wilt thou not bring living stones to thy
temple?” Call and He will come and He will build, and “the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord.”
You will say, “They have not heard it yet”—but they shall. You say many that have heard it do not fear it, but they shall, they shall fear the name of the Lord—“and all the kings of the earth thy glory.” The kings fear his glory! They think of ancestral glory, courtly glory, military glory, political glory; they do not think about Christ and his glory. But they shall, they shall fear his glory. The proudest kings in the earth shall feel that the glory of Jesus Christ of Nazareth is to them much as the sun is to that shadow I have spoken of upon the hill. Their glory must pale and pass away. It is but a little time ago, only nineteen centuries ago, since Christ had no kingdom in the earth, no follower, no temple, no power. Now is there a monarch in the world will come out and say, “I shall sweep the name, the law, the love, the power of Christ out of the earth?” No, of all powers now acknowledged there is none so deep, wide and mighty.
Every day adds to that power; every year opens to it new spheres, new languages, new adherents, and on will it go and on till the whole earth is subdued under the power of the Lord and his
Christ. What is the instrument of its progress? “He will regard the prayer of the destitute and not despise their prayer.” Not despise prayer! Why, do not the wise men of the world despise prayer? Do not many talkers tell us that prayer is a thing not to be looked upon as a force in the light of elevated reason? You may despise it if you please and try to rear a kingdom over human souls on a system that does. God will not despise it, Christ will not despise it. There is a kingdom to be invoked by prayer, with its throne and its crown and its sceptre. All the powers of that kingdom are moved with the cry of a destitute heart. It is so, and you cannot alter it. “This shall be written for the generation to come,” how you go and write down that prayer is of no effect, and we will write “He will not despise their prayer,” and let the “generation to come” judge. Your predecessors, eighteen hundred years ago, wrote what you say—ours wrote these words, and see the kingdom of Christ to-day! “This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people.” What people “shall praise the Lord?” The people that are in Jerusalem? No. In Rome? in Athens? No. What people? The people that are not anywhere; the people that are neither in heaven nor in earth; “the people that shall be
created.” “That shall be created”—existences now not existing, beings now not being, offspring of God and members of the family of immortals not yet born—they shall praise the Lord. Coming up out of the dark of that great future they shall rise to obey the King we worship and to praise the Saviour we love. “For He hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary: from heaven did the Lord behold the earth.” Ay, from that holy place, that sanctuary—from that high place, that heaven—He looked to behold this earth, this vile place, this base place. Yet it was not to curse it—He looked “to hear the groaning of the prisoner; and to loose those that are appointed to death.” Here in every corner of the world you will see a man who is appointed to death, accused, guilty, a lawbreaker, with witness heard and evidence taken and judgment recorded—the sentence is against him. Oh, if we had an eye such as looks from above how many might we see in this fair congregation who are condemned to death. You know it; you are breakers of eternal law; just judgment is against you; you are appointed to death, and unless you are delivered from that condemnation die you shall, die by a public execution before all worlds in the great day. But He comes to deliver them “that are appointed to death”—