THE RIGHTS OF GOD ON THE EARTH

^[p. 308] THE RIGHTS OF GOD ON THE EARTH

Genesis 11:9; Zechariah 6:4,5; Joshua 3:11; Zechariah 4:14

I propose to speak of God’s rights on the earth, and to show how they are asserted. In our first scripture these rights are only asserted in a limited way; it was simply in the dispersion or scattering of the human race over the face of the earth. The earth was God’s, and He could use it in this way to decentralise the whole race. Their centralisation in Shinar was against God; their thought was to be independent. They said: “Come on, let us build ourselves a city and a tower, the top of which may reach to the heavens; and let us make ourselves a name, lest we be scattered over the face of the whole earth”. They were thinking of their own name, and not of God’s, showing they were eliminating Him from their calculations. And what they sought to prevent, God caused; they said, “Lest we be scattered over the face of the whole earth”, and the passage says, “Jehovah scattered them thence over the face of the whole earth”.

Thus God operates in men against Satan. In scattering them over the face of the whole earth, Jehovah had no thought of destroying them; it was a governmental act of mercy with the object of saving man from the effects of his own folly, and according to Galatians the blessing of Abraham came upon them in this dispersion. We who are in the western part of the earth are now participating in the blessing of Abraham which has come upon the nations. The race became divided into nations, and God recognises this later, setting up a nation of His own in the midst of them. God had set the bounds of all the nations, and set up Israel in the midst of them with a view to all coming into blessing according to God’s own mind and arrangement. The ^[p. 309] nations were to be governed through Israel, but Israel failing in this position, God set up four empires. These empires — Babylonish, Medo-Persian, Greek and Roman — were set up in order to maintain order among the nations. God had His testimony in view in this. These empires became, as it were, His agents to maintain order; and we today, this very day, are benefiting from this provision of God.

“These are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth”. These four spirits of the heavens, spoken of in the second scripture, refer to the four empires that we have alluded to. They are not viewed as against God; on the contrary, they are said to be “the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth”. The apostle Paul recognises this in saying that “the powers that be are ordained of God” (Romans 13:1). They are to be so regarded by us and prayed for; they are a provision of God in view of His testimony. He did not set up these monarchies because He wished the gentiles to be glorified. They are purely provisional and will pass away. They existed one after another in view, as has been remarked, of God’s testimony. Apart from them there could only be chaos politically, and such chaos would naturally hinder the testimony going forth. Their office therefore was to maintain order on the earth.

The first monarch was evidently converted, Nebuchadnezzar; hence, these four spirits of the heavens had an excellent start from God, and, under the ordering of God, Nebuchadnezzar’s great minister, Daniel, was a prophet of God, and through him in a peculiar way we get light from God as to these monarchies and the service they were to have. They were to serve Him as the four spirits of the heavens, Jehovah being viewed as “the Lord of all the earth”.

^[p. 310] The book of Daniel therefore becomes of immense importance to us; it outlines the history of these monarchies, giving their character generally as beasts, some of them of peculiar ferocity. But however ferocious or cruel any of them might have been, they still retain the character of the spirits of the heavens. The Roman system was recognised by the Lord Himself, for He said to Pilate: “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above” (John 19:11). Pilate himself was a man of the meanest character, and he executed the authority of Rome in Jerusalem, that is the authority of the worst of the four monarchies. The Roman system is that under which we are now; it is broken up into kingdoms, but it is about to take its primary character as an empire.. But whatever its history and the character of its Caesars from time to time, it is still one of the spirits of the heavens, and, such as it is, it affords, in a general way, liberty for the gospel to go forth. Hence, we are, as christians, to be subject to these powers, viewing them not as against us, but as for us. God overrules in all they do, for the furtherance of the testimony. What has been remarked as to these four monarchies ought to be observed by all christians, for we are enjoined to pray for them “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty” (1 Timothy 2:2).

The scriptures in Joshua and Zechariah 4 will enable us to see by the Lord’s help how the testimony has been presented under these circumstances.

It will be observed that in each of these scriptures God is presented as Lord of all the earth. He used His rights over the earth to scatter the race, as we see in Genesis 11, having in mind to present the gospel to men as divided up into nations, as the Lord says: “Go ... and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them to the name of the Father,

^[p. 311] and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). Then, as remarked, He has these four spirits standing before Him so as to maintain order and liberty of action for the service of God. Hence the apostles, under the Roman empire, moved about from place to place and preached Christ. Paul says that “from Jerusalem, and in a circuit round to Illyricum” he had “fully preached the glad tidings of the Christ” (Romans 15:19).

In Joshua we have typically what was presented in testimony, that is, “the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth”. It is in this character that Paul presented the testimony of God. The ark of the covenant passing over Jordan is a type of Christ. As risen from among the dead, Christ was the great subject of the testimony of the gospel, as we see in the Acts. He was not only risen, but had ascended to heaven, and the Spirit having been sent down from heaven, the testimony as to Christ was carried on to the whole world. This was God’s way of testifying to His kindness and love to man. In scattering the race at Shinar, He had this in mind, to show His love to man according to what is stated in 1 Timothy 2:5,6: “God is one, and the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, the testimony to be rendered in its own times”.

All we have been saying as to these provisional things enters into that verse; God had provided them in view of the testimony being rendered in its own times. Daniel had been told, in answer to his own enquiry as to the time required to bring in the righteousness of the ages, and to anoint the holy of holies, that it would be seventy weeks (Daniel 9:24 - 27). But the time for the proclamation of the glad tidings comes in parenthetically, and these gentile empires were to subserve this service to mankind. So the gospel, according to Paul, was preached ^[p. 312] in the whole creation (Colossians 1:23), and what a gospel! The ark of the covenant here is “of the Lord of all the earth”, meaning that God is asserting His rights now in grace over all the earth, and this is to be our attitude. We are, therefore, to be free from national feeling, to be in accord with God who has shown His kindness and love to men. Hence our meetings for prayer are to be of that character. God’s house is “a house of prayer for all the nations” (Mark 11:17), and God expects us to be in the spirit of that in our prayers. He makes us joyful in His house of prayer; the kindness and love of God in our hearts will make us glad too.

The passage in Joshua shows the character of the testimony presented by the apostles. It was a question of Christ’s power over death, and what a testimony that is today in the atmosphere of war amongst the nations! How stimulating and liberating too to think of the Lord Jesus entering into the greatest possible conflict, not against any nation or any section of the human race, but on behalf of the whole race, to overthrow Satan, man’s greatest enemy, and to annul death which was Satan’s greatest weapon against man! God has risen up with majesty to proclaim, by the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, liberty to the whole race. That is surely something to attract our hearts, delivering us from the narrowness of mere national feeling which inevitably results in cruelty; national feeling goes that length, whereas God has risen up in majesty, in the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, to proclaim liberty to all the race. It is in this way that He is asserting His rights as Lord over all the earth at this time.

The passage in Zechariah adds the needed complement to the ark of the covenant, namely the Holy Spirit, who is seen typically in that passage in the two sons of oil. “These are the two sons of oil,

^[p. 313] that stand before the Lord of the whole earth”. The ark of the covenant is the Person of Christ presented in the gospel objectively. The Spirit refers to what is here on earth now in view of the proclamation of the gospel. He is typified here in the two sons of oil, two being suggestive of complete spiritual power for testimony on behalf of Him who is Lord of all the earth. The Spirit is here on behalf of man also; Peter says that the gospel was preached by the Spirit sent down from heaven (1 Peter 1:12). “Sons of oil” would allude to what is developed in man, for it is by men that the Spirit bears witness to men. The Spirit is the necessary adjunct to what the ark represents.

So these sons of oil refer to the Spirit of God come down from heaven, and as here, having firsthand knowledge of everything here below as well as in heaven. Thus, from this point of view the testimony is perfect. It is the testimony of grace, and refers to God’s rights on the earth. God’s rights will soon be asserted in a different way, for His grace has been turned “into lasciviousness” (Jude 4). The history of the race is developing into open apostasy. When that apostasy is completed, the whole of christianity will be discarded, for the Antichrist will take the position of head of everything, both religiously and politically; that is a terrible contemplation, and it is now imminent. Then God will assert His rights as Lord of all the earth in a different way from what He is doing now, for the Lord Jesus will come down and set His right foot on the sea, and the left upon the earth, and cry with a loud voice as a lion roars; He will lift up His right hand to the heaven and swear that there shall be no longer delay (Revelation 10). These verses indicate a divine attitude different from what we have been speaking of. The Angel is Christ, and He will take possession of the sea and land, that ^[p. 314] is, the whole earth. Revelation 19 shows Him coming out in a military way with the armies of heaven following Him, and the beast and false prophet are taken alive and cast into the lake of fire. Such is the exceptional way in which God will assert His rights against evil. The saints should have all this in their minds; but, in order that we should understand clearly that God has not yet altered His attitude towards mankind, Christ in His address to the Laodiceans says that He has sat down with the Father in His throne. The Father’s throne is the throne of grace, and God looks for us to be in sympathy with that, and thus to be entirely above mere national feeling and sentiment.