“LET THE WHOLE EARTH BE FILLED WITH HIS GLORY.”
By William P. Pearce
ELABORATE is the picture for mortal eyes to see: a world beautifully arrayed; flowers of every hue and size emitting their fragrance; orchards of luscious fruit and fields of golden grain; mountains crowned with snow or diademed with icicles; rivers chanting their “Te Deums” as they flow through lands of fertility! — Yet all blighted with the curse pronounced six thousand years ago. It was Luther who said: “Though creation hath not such speech as we have, it hath a tongue which God the Holy Spirit heareth, and understandeth how it groaneth for the wrong it must endure from the ungodly while they use it so.” Ungodly! did he say? That’s the secret why the glory of God is now eclipsed. It was not inanimate matter that Solomon prayed for. No, no! Heaven and earth might look glorious, and yet lack that glory of which the writer speaks. If every reptile and every beast of prey could be exterminated; if the arctic and equatorial regions could give place to the temperate zone, all of this would not make the earth glorious, no more than setting the hands of a clock would give correct time. The creature made in God’s image must first be revolutionized, as he is the cause of the absence of the glory of God. It was man that first caused the earth to be cursed, and it is man who is the cause of the unrest of to-day,—of upheavals in political centers; of commercial distresses; of war; of the muttering thunders of anarchic revolutions; of the mighty tide of vice, infidelity, and abominable wickedness; and man is to be the instrument to renovate darkened lands, and to diffuse this glory in benighted regions, just as soon as he experiences in his own soul the glory of God. My text is called “the prophetic prayer,” for it runs parallel with the Master’s: “Thy kingdom come.” The former was to have its culmination in Christ and his gospel, the latter in his eternal reign. But does not the Word say, “The earth is the Lord’s”? — Yes. But its inhabitants have wandered far; the earth has been subjugated by the “prince of the power of the air,” as Richard the Third usurped the British kingdom. But, as the Duke of Richmond wrung the scepter out of Richard’s hand, and gave peace to the empire, so the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” will end the long and tyrannical reign of Satan, and give peace to all the earth. May that time soon come. “The storm has surely well-nigh reached its height;
Oh! come, thou Prince of Peace, and still the waves.
Amid the fearful fight for earthly thrones, oh! come,
Thou King of kings, and reign supreme.
Amid the desolating darkness here, we look, O Sun of Righteousness,
For thee; we wait, and long to hear thy
Chariot-wheels: their lightning-flash of glory
Shall proclaim to all, from North to South,
The day of joy, the day of vengeance, come.” Such a prayer should we offer. I verily believe if there was a true intimacy existing between us and the dear Lord, we could not help making this prayer spontaneous and continual. But note the boundary of this prayer: “The whole earth.” The earth is the subject of the prayer. Not a little country; not God’s glory in Indiana or in the United States; but God’s glory in Europe, where every man stands with his hand on his sword’s hilt; in Asia, where militarism grinds down the poor; in Africa, India, and China, with their millions in ignorance; on every continent and every isle and every peninsula, yea, let the whole earth be filled with the glory of God. The object of this prayer is worthy of note. There was a time in the earth’s history when this petition was unknown, when it would have been a sacrilege to have uttered it, when earth was the loveliest orb in the universe, when the glory of God was visible everywhere, when it shone in every flower, and every bush burned like Horeb’s bush, and every mountain was crowned like that of Tabor when the glory of God rested upon it. But such glory has faded, so that whenever you see a line of beauty, you can also see, running parallel with it, a line of barrenness or a shadow of suffering. Is it any wonder, then, that we cry,— “O long-expected day begin,
Dawn on this world of woe and sin”? Such a day began when God uttered the solemn gospel truth: The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head. It dawned brighter when Moses prayed, “I beseech thee, show me thy glory;” and the Lord descended in a cloud at Sinai, and passing by before the enraptured Moses, proclaimed: “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.” But a richer glory was made manifest when Christ came. But the future is to see a general restitution of things, when the glory shall overflow the earth like an illuminated ocean, making the desert to blossom, and all the world to know that “the Lord he is God.” But in order for the earth to be filled with such glory, two things are necessary: — First, messengers: for “how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” The salvation of the lost can not be effected without ministers and laymen to carry this gospel. Spread out the map before you, and you will find that almost every shore has been touched by God’s ministering servants, and the blessed truth preached. But what is one missionary here and one there, and only one to a million persons? A host of God’s servants are needed if temple spires are to be raised amid Kaffirs’ huts, and the Ganges River converted into a baptismal font. The cry from benighted Africa is “messenger.” The cry from deluded China is “messenger.” The cry from the weeping millions of India and Cuba and Porto Rico is “messenger.” From north and south, east and west, the Macedonian cry is heard as never before: Come, ye Peters of eloquence, ye Dorcases with your needle and thread, ye Tertiuses with your pen and ink, ye Barnabases with your wealth, ye Nicodemuses with your knowledge of law, ye Lukes with your medicine chests, come over and help us. Second, money: the day of great things has not passed by. In many respects it is just beginning. The fields were never riper for the harvest, and offerings were never more indicative of interest. Well may we strike the celestial lyre with a bolder hand, and blend our voices in unison,— “From Greenland’s icy mountains,
From India’s coral strand.” But consideration of a few facts will aid us in contemplating the needs in a more practical manner. Think of six hundred newspapers in India antagonizing Christianity. This must be counteracted by sending more Bibles. Think of that land having twenty-one million wailing widows, and forty million zenana prisoners, and only one woman missionary to every million! Think of four hundred thousand persons in China to one missionary; and fourteen million persons in Brazil, with twelve million unevangelized, and only one missionary to every one hundred and seventy-five thousand souls! Think of Venezuela, nine times as large as England and Wales, and two and a half times larger than Germany, with a population of two million one hundred thousand, and fewer Protestant missionaries than there are fingers on your hands. Think that for every missionary that goes to Africa, seventy thousand gallons of liquor go also! Think of Christendom spending twelve million dollars for the world’s evangelization, and three billion dollars for drink! Think of our favored country spending four hundred million dollars on popular amusements, twenty-five million dollars to provide kid gloves for ladies and “gents,” twenty million dollars to adorn the headdresses of our women, and only five million five hundred thousand to save a lost world! How in God’s name do we expect to evangelize these unless we have more liberal givers — systematic givers — givers of the tithing order? “If you want to save the millions
Who are dying in their sin,
Freely give, as God demandeth;
Then you will the nations win.” I am convinced if Christian people would do their duty, the seal of Christ would be laid on their labors, and the world would soon be “lightened with his glory.” I pray that that day may hasten. Then will his — “Glory fill the heaven,
Earth with its fullness will be stored;
Unto him be glory given,
Holy, holy, holy Lord!”