“GO THOU AND PREACH THE KINGDOM OF GOD.”
By W. N. G.
A PREVAILING idea with the masses of professed Christians in this country is that God can not use this or any other nation in the line of His purpose unless it be a “Christian nation.” Therefore they would make it a Christian nation by a process of human law, as Constantine did with Pagan Rome. In that case, however, the result was the Dark Ages of religious persecution; would not another like attempt produce a like result? God never made a Christian nation on the earth, and it is clear that man can not do it. All that the Christian commission includes is to “preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15), and let its light shine in good works (Matt. 5:16; Titus 3:14). God will manage the nations Himself. “The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will.” Dan. 4:17, 25, 32; also 2:21; 5:21. God has used the veriest heathen in the process of carrying out His purpose in the earth. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, was given dominion over the whole earth, including God’s own people Israel. (See Jeremiah 27.) In turn He used the heathen Medes and Persians, under Cyrus (His “shepherd,” His “anointed,” Isa. 44:28; 45:1), to overthrow Babylon. Again, He used the heathen Grecians under Alexander, who was a most reckless, dissipated heathen, to overturn Persia; and afterward the heathen Romans, the most cruel of all, were given universal sway for more than six hundred years. And under dominion of all these universal heathen nations God kept His promise to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David, and preserved the genealogical line through which Christ was to come according to the flesh. Can He not so manipulate the nations as to preserve His chosen seed until the triumphant Saviour shall come the second time, to take them to Himself? If God can not do this, who can? And it is stated (2 Kings 5:1) that by Naaman the leper “the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria.” This deliverance was from the Assyrians, another heathen people. So we see that God can limit the powers and operations of all nations, and do it by means of themselves. If violent measures are necessary in the restriction of the wicked world, God will assign the violent ones to the work; and there is no lack of those who love such work. But the disciples of Christ are assigned to a different work. He came to preach the Gospel of salvation; He came not “to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Luke 9:56); and “he that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked” (1 John 2:6). “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22); let Him take care of the nations, and let Christians do the work assigned to them. Let the world do the world’s work; there are plenty of them to do it. There is no lack of laborers in that field, but in the vineyard of the Lord “the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.” Matt. 9:37. “Let the dead bury their dead; but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:60.