CHAPTER IX — The Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken (1)

CHAPTER IX --- The Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken (1) IX. THE KINGDOM THAT CANNOT BE SHAKEN (1)
By E. W. MCMILLAN Theme: The Scope, Organization, and Ministrations of the Kingdom.

It would be profitable if we remind ourselves that the lectures this week are but another group in the already more than 500 which have been delivered on these annual lectureships, and that we are here again only through the kind ordering of loving Providence. The scripture text upon which the week’s lectures are based is in the 12th chapter of Hebrews. It says, “Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe.” The preceding chapters of Hebrews are given to a discussion of the fickle Hebrew people in being moved from simple faith in Jesus Christ as their Redeemer and King; all that follows in the books is an appeal for steadfastness in that Christ. It is further illuminated by the verses immediately preceding in the same chapter. They speak of Mt. Sinai and of Israel’s stay about it. From the Old Testament record we remember that Israel, under Moses, were on their way from Egypt to Canaan. More than 7,000 feet above sea level this giant of red granite and pink gneiss stood, “The hill of Jehovah.” For nameless centuries the rains had poured their torrents upon it and the winds had beat upon its wall, yet it had stood with not the least quiver. But when Moses stood upon its summit and the glory of the Lord crowned him, every stone and every foot of earth trembled. The author of Hebrews in our text points back to that trembling as proof that the sacred mountain some day will yield to another strength and be removed forever. But this is not all. The law which Moses that day received likewise has been removed. When our text was written, the Old Testament kingdom of David, with that covenant, had joined the long parade of kingdoms named for Egypt, Babylon, Media, Persia and Greece, in the silent death- chambers of empires long dead. United in a new empire, called the kingdom of Christ, the Hebrews would be, of natural consequence, uncertain of its duration. To that fear our text was addressed. It says, “We have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken.” This promise recalls one which Daniel made 600 years before. Looking through the crumbling empires of the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans, he said, “In the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and shall stand forever.” Isaiah, foreseeing that kingdom, said, “Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even forever.” This conforms to the promise of our Lord when he said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” “Stand forever”; “No end”; “Not prevail against it.” These are the guarantees made by inspiration concerning the permanency of the kingdom in which our citizenship is now enjoyed. . It is to that kingdom that we now direct our study. Our lecture this morning will consist mainly in the external manifestations of that kingdom—including the scope, organization, and the ministrations of the kingdom. This evening’s lesson will consist entirely in the inspiring study of the unshakable, imperishable qualities in that kingdom. That system of Divine government called a kingdom in the scriptures had its beginning during the lifetime of Saul, more than a thousand years before the birth of Jesus the Christ. Introduced in Saul, it was glorified in David, tinged with world renown, but desecrated in Solomon, divided in Rehoboam, and carried into final captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, about 600 B.C. The period of God’s rule, known in the New Testament as the church of Christ, church of God, or kingdom of Christ, was established on the first pentecost after our Lord arose from the dead and will remain in the earth to the end of this world. A third sphere of God’s kingdom is called by Peter “the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Of that sphere as a kingdom we are told little, but we do know it will be beyond the life we now live, and that those who are blessed enough to enter there will be admitted because they did the will of God in this present life. With this much understood, we shall confine the remaining time this morning to a study of the reign of Christ on the earth.

Matthew, writing for the Jewish mind, presented the Christ as a King. John called him. the “Son of God”; Luke called him a “Physician”; Mark called him a “Saviour.” But Matthew consistently called him a “King.” By count,.Matthew names more than a hundred laws of that King. He closed.by presenting, him as a lawgiver, turned judge, of all men in the ages to come. Among the King’s last utterances on earth, Matthew states that he said, “All authority hath been granted unto me in heaven and on earth.”

Among those present at the ascension was Luke. He claims to have written an accurate, chronological account of our Lord’s work from the first public act to the day he ascended. In that pursuit, he went on recording what occurred for "about fifty years, under the preaching of inspired men.

Chapter Two in the Acts records the greatest job any speaker ever had, and how well he did. Peter was that man. Empowered by his King with the keys of knowledge on the terms of citizenship, he addressed more than 3,000 men, some of whom constituted the Jewish court which condemned our Lord, then forced the Roman governor, Pilate, to confirm their decree of death upon Him. They gladly would also have done the same with Peter. That he well knew. In the sermon which the Holy Spirit was then moving his tongue to speak, his one task was to change those doubting men and convince them that Jesus of Nazareth was not an imposter; at that moment he was a King, in the fullest sense for which a Jew ever dreamed; that he had met all the prophecies concerning him. No small job—that. If he failed, his would be the former fate of his Lord. And this job could not be done in some partial or indirect sense. He had to convince them that the man, Jesus of Nazareth, was at that moment a ruling King. And to the Jewish mind, this had to mean that he was then in the exercise of the power which Isaiah said he would have upon David’s throne. So fully did he succeed that about 3,000 souls were convinced, among them a large number of the priests. Of the many arguments which can be made for the complete enthronement and power of the Christ as King now, there is not another as strong to me as Peter here made. It is strong, first, because it was the voice of Inspiration making the argument upon that specific subject, and if it had been less than the strongest that could be made, it would have been the fault of the Holy Spirit. It is the strongest that can be made, in the second place, because its results prove the strength of the argument as no other argument has ever proved its strength. I have always believed the argument, because I believe all that God says. But if I had ever entertained the disposition to reason toward another conclusion on the kingdom of Christ, I would have felt lost in the first attempt, because it would have been clear to my own mind that I was demanding more proof than the Jewish infidels of Pentecost required. Others may endure that em-barrassment if they wish; but I shall elect the course of faith, as I have always done. But this is to me a solemn fact that my Lord and King is now a ruling King. It is infinitely far more than a doctrine for controversy. It is an argument which involves well-known “isms” and detrimental dissensions over them; but it has never been to me, and is not now to me, a mere matter of discovering a doctrinal truth as such. It is a question of conscientious acceptance of a Ruling King of heaven in the personal life—in the largest, fullest sense involved in the undimmed expressions of what he taught upon all subjects in the New Testament. It is infinitely far more than just an argument over whether something called the “Kingdom of Christ” actually started on Pentecost. It includes that, but it is more than that. It is to me, and has always been, a question of whether we who so contend do, in fact, allow him to indwell us as his subjects, directing our worship, our ambitions, our motives, our daily thoughts, our humility, our speech, and all that we are and all that we profess to be. Is He in fact that King in us?

I am reminded here of an amusing incident in Chicago a few months ago. A taxi was trying to make a train, but found itself in the midst of a traffic jam. Nothing, simply nothing, could be done. The college president in the rear seat was impatient, so was the taxi driver. At last, when the jam somewhat cleared, it was revealed that the real obstruction was an elderly lady, looking over her spectacles, probably seventy-five years of age, and riding in the first model of a Ford sedan. Her car was plastered all over with streamers which said, “Youth for Christ movement.” What a contradiction—no youth, nor much movement. It must be under-stood, likewise, that when we say “Kingdom of Christ,” we are more than merely giving the name of something. We are describing a quality of government which has been left on earth for people now to accept. It is a government of justice, mercy, and faith—not merely preached, but in fact lived by us; it is a government of worship—not merely standing against what has no right in the building of worship, but also standing for true worship in the spirit of those who enter that building; not merely standing against promoting mission work through the unwarranted agencies, called “societies/’ but also in fact doing the mission work as the King requires. It is a government of kindness and benevolence—no* merely required on my part of others toward me, but even more a government under which I demand of myself this regard toward others. It is not a democracy which votes a decision upon the group; it is a kingdom of ideals which is accepted by each individual in his own conscience. It is not a dictatorship which names the terms of unity for the citizens blindly to accept and follow; it is a system of glorious ideals and standards in which all the citizens, with equal rights, have the happy privilege of accepting and regarding the terms of citi-zenship, each of them losing his own selfish interests in the larger interests of group service. It is a government in which no group has the right to impose its opinions upon others. It is a government of a King in heaven, delivering his laws to every single citizen directly, and independently of all other citizens. ‘

LOCAL CHURCH GOVERNMENT
But having said this, I should go on to discuss the further fact that our King also has arranged ah order of local church control, which is as bmding as any of his other laws. Men called elders, or shepherds, have been placed in charge of the congregation’s Spiritual welfare. Every disciple is expected to hold, membership in one of these congregations. The preachers, the Bible teachers, the deacons, the business men and professional men—all of them as children of God— are under the shepherding care of those elders. And they are not, in turn, policing dictators but are the directing leaders of the spiritual welfare and the peacetul ongoing of the con gregation. No man, or group of men, has the spiritual right to discredit, override, or abuse their good name. They have no power in the sense of adding laws, or ruling where God has not spoken; but as long as they remain within the will of God, others are commanded to “obey them that have the rule over you.” In matters of opinion, or policy, or procedure, their judgment is final. Being human, they make mistakes; but these mistakes do not justify others in bringing discredit upon God’s arrangement. Granting all the human in them, it does not exceed the human in the rest of us. So it is that in the large sense, the government in all religious matters is purely a matter of the King’s rule. There is no ecclesiasticbm with the right to increase, or decrease, or modify God’s laws. If a council votes to approve them, it is a group of religious simpletons; if it votes to modify them, it is a group of presumptuous bigots; if it votes to reject them, it is a group of fools. And in the local group, all the authority is vested in the men called elders. They are limited by the New Testament law of their King. But within the prescriptions of that law there is no man w'th the right to discredit, or reject, or otherwise hinder the peaceful work of r.he church under them. When their final decision has been prayerfully reached and announced, unless it is entirely out of harmony with plain Bible teaching, the other members of the congregation are commended to cooperate with that judgment. An ecclesiastical hierarchy would be highly presumptuous if it should step in to try those elders; a Southern or Northern Convention likewise would be fully as presumptuous if it should step ;n; a preachers’ meeting, likewise, would be fully as presumptuous if ’t should even presume the right to publicly discuss it; and a lone preacher would be fully as presumptuous if he should step in. These are the laws of our King. They must be respected in fact, as well as in word.

LAWS CLASSIFIED
For the citizens of the Old Covenant the King’s laws were classified The first four of the Ten Commandments legislate a man in his direct relations with his God. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” and “Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image” require that God shall have the first considerations in one’s devotions. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” controls the speech. And “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy” controlled the day of public, worship. The second sphere of control in the Ten Commandments is the home. The Fifth Commandment says, “Honor thy father and mother,” and this law is enlarged in Leviticus and Numbers, being broadened to include all the duties of home —parents to children and children to parents; husband to wife and wife to husband; brothers and sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts; the in-laws and the out laws. The last five of the Ten Commandments legislate neighbor with neighbor. The physical life, the character, the property possessions, and the reputation are all protected by law— “Thou shalt not steal,” and “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” and “Thou shalt not kill,” and “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” In the King’s regulations of his New Covenant laws, these obligations are not systematized, as they were in the Old; but they are scattered throughout the entire group of writings and are clearly stated. The family life is ordered with strict regulations. Father and mother must regard the proper rearing of their children as part of their Christian duty; husband and wife are bound as church members with Christian obligations, not as just two reproductive machines; children are taught that disobedience to parents is disobedience to God. And the entire family life is set in an atmosphere of spiritual guidance. Disobedience to these laws is sin; it endangers the soul’s interests, as lying and stealing do. No human government or Religious Congress can vote a modification of them without being presumptuous sinners. In the second place, these Christian laws legislate a citizen’s social and business life. Lying, stealing, murdering, slandering, bearing false witness, tattling, backbiting, injustice, the lack of mercy, unjust judgment, and even an unfair opinion of a man—all of these are sin. The control of liquor is a moral and a religious principle. Church members who revolt when the preacher delivers a sermon on whisky or speaks against the promiscuous manufacture and sale of these beverages is either a willing sinner himself or an ignorant church member. I know what the Bible says against them; I know my responsibility to repeat what it says. Good government, just courts, a moral society—all of these are a vital portion of my business. They are a part of my moral and spiritual interest, therefore, and I can be counted on to speak my mind on my own religious business. Preaching on such things is as much a part of preaching the gospel as any other part of Bible teaching is. While living in Abilene fifteen years ago, I delivered a series of sermons in another town on the subjects of Love, God, Prayer, Worship, Justice and Mercy, and several other such things. At the close, an elder said, “Sometime, give us a good old gospel sermon.” Such ignorance is more than pathetic. The classroom teaching in Christian schools should include an extended study in source-materials on all these subjects; it should include Bible teaching against the evils in such things; and it should include instruction on how these things can be included in the local congregational work so as to give the members who can never see the Christian college an opportunity of learning on these things. Preachers of the local congregation and elders in them should get their under-standing and hearts together in the forming of teaching programs which will educate all the members to a conscience on all these matters. It is only the beginning, though an indispensable beginning, when a preacher has taught people the truth on how to become a Christian. “Teaching them to observe all the things which I have commanded you” is also a second part of the King’s assignment to his kingdom. “Go ye into all the world” is another. Leading the members, as Paul prayed, to “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ,” continuing that leadership until the members reach a “full measure of the fullness of the stature in Christ Jesus,” is a portion of the Ring’s assignment to us, and this can never be done with merely two sermons on the Lord’s day and a mid-week prayer meeting. Members must be trained to be large-hearted, sympathetic and understanding toward people who are in sorrow or otherwise troubled. Young people need to be led, not lectured, in courtship, love, marriage, home-making. Young men need training in the honors which will so admirably and gracefully adorn their business and professional careers. There is not one single right of the Lord’s church to correct a violation of Divine Law among its members, in which life-experience that church did not previously have the obligation rightly to train that member on how to act in that relationship before he entered it. And if that church, or its minister, failed to train that member iff the right thing, they share the guilt of ihat member when he has sinned. And these laws of the King also control the worship. They control the form, the day or meeting, and what goes on—to the extent even that no mechanical instrumentation is allowed, no doctrinal error is permitted in the sermons, and no substitutions or modifications in the acts of obedience will he accepted. But merely standing at the front door saying to error, “You shall not get in” is not enough.

People who pretend to worship God must do more than make sure of NOT doing- the WRONG thing. They ALSO must make sure of DOING the RIGHT thing.

Worshipping God is a principle of heart. It is an experience of heart which relates directly to God. It is the pious, reverent feeling of devotion m soul to its God. It includes a profound sense of appreciation for salvation from God; it contains the yearnmg of heart for closer communion with God; it carries a homesick feeling of desire to feel the most tender touches of his love in the heart. Lintil we have trained our members to experience these things they have not been prepared for the best type of citizenship in the kingdom of God. The lack of experience in the joy of the right things is one factor which, at times, leads to the substitution of the wrong things. These substitutions cannot be justified; but neither can the neglect in right things.
If the kingdom of God is to become through us a kingdom which cannot be moved aside from its original standards, its program of training and experience for all its citizens must enlarge until they comprehend and embody every duty and every rightful experience of those citizens.

WHAT IS THS KINGDOM OF GOD?
But who constitute the kingdom of God? There could not be a more important consideration than the honest answer to this question.
That answer, in the nature of things, would consist in learning what it is NOT, and what it IS. The kingdom of God is not just a system of high morals. It cannot exist except as its citizens accept and observe high standards of morals, but accepting and observing these alone can nev er constitute citizenship in the kingdom of God. People are responsible to God for every thought, word or act of life, but they do not receive salvation merely because they observed a fezv of God’s precepts—such as the moral code. What the kingdom is will come later, but let it be understood now that a mere high standard of morals observed with utmost scruples does not constitute citizenship in the kingdom of God. In the second place, the kingdom of God does not consist in merely following through on a definite ground of honest religious convictions. People can be wrong and be honest in that wrong. I most highly esteem many who will not agree with me this morning. I honor their sincerity and would not in the least insult that sincerity. Most respectfully, though, I do also regard my responsibility in stating what to me are some indisputable facts on this subject. As it seems to me, religious honesty among modern denominations has become clothed in a measure of pride for being charitable and broadminded; and through this means it has sacrificed the one single fundamental in the King’s teaching on Christian unity. I admire a broad-minded man; I most highly esteem Christian charity, as such; but these must never lead one to transcend the bounds of loyal adherence to plain commands, lest they become a master and make of us sinners. This, I sincerely believe, modern denominations have done. Here is my reason. There are among denominations eleven distinct and contradicting views on the law of induction into citizenship in the kingdom of God. On matters of church government, worship, and missions, denominational differences are even more, and these distinct differences constitute the basic reasons for denominations as such. vSet over against these differences, the Bible requires that we “All be of the same mind, the same judgment, all speaking the same thing,” and that there be “No divisions among you.” Denominational differences are not opinions which are held in charitable regard for others; they are the expressed convictions, the results of which expressions is the formations of the denominations. Destroy the differences and you destroy denominations as such. Denominations, therefore, begin and live upon contradictory differences, conscientiously taught. However, much charity may be rightly regarded as such, and whatever of merit there may be in broad-mindedness, it would seem a most inexplicable inconsistency for anyone to contend that these should ever lead us to the positive violation of any law of God. But merely learning what the kingdom of God is not is only a half of duty. What is the kingdom of God?

WIIAT THE KINGDOM OE GOD IS
People become citizens in God’s kingdom through the exercise of a personal faith in Christ Jesus as their Lord, through a devout and genuine repentance of all their sins, through the acknowledgment of the Christ as their Saviour, and through their baptism by immersion for the remission of their sins. There is no other revealed way of God by which they can become naturalized into God’s kingdom. No amount of assumed authority upon the part of religious hierarchies, no amount of combined wisdom among men, and no amount of well-intended charity by sincere individuals can change these laws. They are the laws of Him Whose Kingdom was to dissolve and consume all the wisdoms of men. All who everywhere have been thus joined unto God did thereby become citizens in his kingdom. The votes of men for them or against them cannot alter their standing before their King. The world’s religious creeds but add to the long list of ignorance and confusion, and increase the high presumptions of men. Upon their own understanding, faith and obedience they stand or fall.

CONTINUED GOOD CITIZENSHIP
But through misguided judgments a citizen may go astray in becoming united with an unauthorized institution; through weakness of the flesh, one may become alienated through prodigality; or there may be one of many other means by which one may lose good standing as a citizen in God’s kingdom. This evening’s lecture will discuss in more details the never-to-be-shaken principles and qualities of God’s kingdom, but this lecture must not end until some general outlines of kingdom life are named. The first of these is an active, energetic, constructive leadership in all that Christian people may rightly do. Combined Catholics, combined Protestantism and the Jewish people have earmarked one billion dollars to be spent the next five years in the spread of what they conceive to be the will of God. This money will be spent on buildings and equipment alone. Proportionate amounts will go in for teaching, literature, and preaching. Already they had in these United States 289 schools, which were members or accredited in the Association of American Universities, scattered throughout 36 states. In addition, they had 606 lesser schools scattered throughout 43 states. And what is more, the Roman Catholics, whose religion we believe to be now the farthest of them all from the Newr Testament pattern of God’s kingdom, own and operate the following schools in the United States alone:

99 seminaries of major importance.
90 seminaries of lesser rank.
196 colleges and universities.
7 diocesan colleges.
25 normal schools.
2,119 secondary schools.
8,017 elementary schools. This makes a total of 10,553 such schools. In all of the institutions named above, accelerated by the billion-dollar program of expansion, things which we believe to be destructive of the real kingdom of God in some fundamental respects, will be promoted. Those who claim themselves to be THE church of God, THE kingdom of Christ, can not be insensible to their obligations under these conditions. A second general characteristic of this kingdom is that its good citizens make certain of being honorable at all times and of retaining an humble heart. They will not bow at Baal’s altar of self-exaltation; they will not stoop, or encourage others who have stooped, to anything cheap; they will not use or be influenced by the cheap and vile propaganda technique now everywhere; they are honest and truth-centered; they blow no horns and they disdain all flattery; they recognize that all life is sacred. To them, Christianity is not a Sunday coat to be worn to church, then hung in a closet for the week. They know that the name "Church of Christ” above a front door of worship can be a mere empty and false boast, as well as a sublime truth. The third and last of the general qualities that we now name for God’s kingdom is its broad, understanding, sympathetic wish to be of help to all mankind. Society surely has lost a chord—a very melodious chord. We stand tall and erect when we know that a radar beam has been sent to the moon and brought back a response within less time than three seconds. We settle to a feeling of better security when told that these contacts will much better assist us during another war. And then the mind’s eye looks out across two thousand miles to an airplane carrying fifty beloved lives to a sudden death because the pilot is facing a heavy snow storm and cannot see the mountain just ahead. Three hundred miles per hour his plane fast moves toward a crash and sure death for his fifty trusting passengers. In the heart we grow faint and sick, but the plane suddenly takes an upturn and soars above the mountain, and on to a safe destination. That approximate miracle came from a radar message. A man in a tower two thousand miles away knew how low the plane was flying and beamed the pilot a message to rise in haste. No language can speak the joy in such contacts, especially if my loved ones are in that plane. But there are contacts even more important than these all around us. Society needs men as leaders who beam in on lives in gloom, discouraged from the gripping vice of circumstances; men whose own souls resound with understanding ; men whose unselfish wish sounds a melody of hope to these discouraged lives. In politics, as in religion, we need leaders who can form and keep contact with God and with men. In our national Capitol, on both the Congress and our President, as in all State legislatures, there are pressure groups, paid to remain always on the job to force a certain vote on bills before those bodies. The president and our state governors likewise are hard pressed at all times. It is no longer exactly a question of what is right. It is more a question of who can put on the most pressure. Not alone in politics, but in religion as well, the propaganda technique has taken advantage of the gullible and unsuspecting public to propagandize them with misleading information. Some preachers boast of their prowess in the field of propaganda, and their records show that their boasts are justified. But in their propaganda they have not been mindful of God’s will on the subjects of justice, mercy and faith.

What we greatly need is for all leaders, especially religious leaders, to form a conscientious contact with God; men who are afraid to be unfair, or selfish, or deceitful, or conceited, or proud and boastful; men whose own sympathies demand that they be helpful, not hurtful, to others.

We also need men who can form contacts across conference tables; men who can bury their pride in the dust, in whose souls can be found a warm glow of desire for the betterment of all peoples—a light which all other men would be safe to follow. O God, fill our world with such men, disperse them throughout the earth, that all men, wherever they live, may be able to keep faith for better things than the abundance of greed and selfishness, and deceit that they see all around them. When these laws, and these standards, and these customs, and these ministrations have been observed—AND ONLY THEN—we shall have in fact the kingdom of God in this world.