I do not mean to weary you with any proofs that this is so. The whole language of Christ, the whole tenor of Scripture, the common sense of the case, the testimony of our own souls as to what we want most, confirm this. But it is enough to note the admitted fact; to enforce the thought that thus the kingdom assumes a purely individual character, and that thus its power over individuals is the pledge of its power over masses, and is its way of exercising universal sway. We have all of us one human heart, and therefore what the kingdom can do and has done for me or for any other man, it can do for all.
Let me remind you of two or three consequences that flow from this thought.
1. Lessons for politicians, for all men, as to the true way to cure the evils of the world: Not by external arrangements; not by better laws; not by education; not by progress in arts; not by trade, etc.
You must go deeper than these pills to cure an earthquake '--it is the soul, the individual will that is diseased; and the one cure for the world's evil is that it should be right with God; and that loyal, hearty obedience by Christ should be in it.
2. Lessons for Christian men as to hasty externalising of the kingdom:
Theocracies, State Churches, and the like.
3. We pray for a kingdom that will be external. If spirit, then body; if individuals, then communities.
It is to be all-comprehensive governing:--institutions, arts, sciences. All spheres of human life are capable of sanctification and will receive it. A prophet had a vision of a day when the very bells of the horses should bear the same inscription of holiness to the Lord' as was engraved on the High Priest's mitre, and when every pot and pan in the kitchens of Jerusalem should be sacred as the vessels of the Temple.
The fault of Christians in losing sight of this--how all the aspects are reconciled--and how this must be the completion--the point to which all tends; how clearly maimed the gospel would be if such were not the goal.
So much, then, the prayer assumes:--the certainty that the world is wrong; the certainty that the kingdom is the only thing to set it right; the certainty that it can set it all right; the certainty that it will.
4. We pray for a kingdom to come which cannot be fully realised on this side the grave. Large as are the capabilities of this scene, they are not large enough for the full display of all the blessedness that lies in that kingdom. And so it is not all a mistake when men say, All, this world can never do for us'; it is not all an unhealthy dream that says, I am weary of this; let me die.'
Think of the chorus of voices that present this prayer--the unconscious cries that have gone up; the voices of sorrow and want. The cry hath entered into the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth; the creature groaneth and travaileth; all men unconsciously pray this prayer when they weep and when they hope. Christian men pray it when they mourn their rebellious wilfulness and when they feel the weight of all this anarchic world, or when their work in bringing it back to its King seems almost vain, the souls underneath the altar pray it when they cry, How long, O Lord, how long?'
And all, dear friends--there should come a sadder, humbler cry from us, each feeling his own sinful heart. To me the glory of that coming, and the life from the dead which it shall be to the world, will be as nothing unless I know the King and trust Him. Let us each re-echo the cry of that dying thief, which He cannot refuse to answer, Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom.'
