p. 36 | Untitled article by A. SMITH

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · February 2, 1893

Offers of a Kingdom Rejected.

By A. SMITH

THE devil once offered the kingdoms of this world to Christ, but his offer was spurned with a severe rebuke. At another time our Lord's disciples and the people were determined to make him king of Israel, but neither would he accept it at their hands, but taught, rather, that they should render tribute to Cæsar who was their king. The Papacy next undertook to make Christ rule as king of the nations by proxy; they placed their chief bishop on a throne as Christ's vicegerent, and the history of the Dark Ages written in the blood of about fifty millions of God's people, illustrates the wickedness of such a scheme. Last of all, National Reformers, so called, and their host of allies are trying to make Christ king of this Nation, and to place the laws, and usages of Christ's church "upon an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the land." But Jesus will in no wise accept it of them; and it will certainly result, as did the papal usurpation, in great affliction to Christ's own people—in fines, in boycotts, in imprisonment, in torture, in banishment, in chain-gang labor, in sentence of death, until the limit of God's forbearance is reached, and he arises in anger to vindicate his down-trodden cause.

But will Christ ever receive the kingdoms of this world? Yes, but not as the gift of the devil, of the people, of Pope, or of National Reformers. Will it be difficult for him to obtain the kingdoms of the world when he wants them? No, he has only to ask his Father for them, and they will be speedily given. No change of Constitution, no Supreme Court decisions, no legislative enactments, nor executive approval, will be requisite. Says God the Father, to his Son Jesus: "Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." Ps. 2:8.

But when they are thus given to Christ what will he do with them? The Father says: "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." Ps. 2:9.

In Dan. 2:44, referring to earthly kingdoms, the prophet says: "And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever."

God has commissioned his servants to persuade and entreat men to accept the gospel and obey its precepts, but he never instructed them to fine, and imprison, and torture their fellow-servants who should fail to believe or do as they themselves might believe or do; he warned them rather that the devil would do that kind of work, and taught them to patiently endure, even to a martyr's death. It is unsafe to entrust a fallen church and ministry with civil power.

A. SMITH.

Grandville, Mich.