The King's HonourThe Kingdom and the Coming Revival
By Philip Mauro
The King's Honour¡§In the multitude of People is the
King's Honour¡¨
THERE exists at the present time a very general expectation among the people
of God that the last days of this gospel-dispensation (which are now upon us) will be
marked by a Revival of world-wide scope. This
expectation is "in the air." One meets with evidences of it on every side. Men
of proved conservatism and sobriety declare openly their confidence that an unprecedented
outpouring of the Holy Spirit is close at hand. The
Great Commission Prayer League of Chicago is distributing in all parts of the world
circular letters urging the Lord's people to join in prayer for a great revival, and
publishes a list of prominent teachers and preachers who are looking for it. As I write these lines there lies before me a
leaflet written by one of the most spiritual and enlightened of the servants of Christ I
have been privileged to know. It is entitled World-wide Revival, and the writer thereof reasons
out of the Scriptures, and without any strained or fanciful interpretations, that there is
to come,"in the last days, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes,"
a God-sent, world-embracing Revival, a season of unprecedented blessing, in which God
will, according to His promise, pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, and that the result
will be the ingathering of "the fullness of the Gentiles." Our brother points
out that it was in the darkest hour of Jewish apostasy, and that just before the
overwhelming judgments of God swept the land with the besom of destruction, the great
ingathering of the Jews, beginning with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost,
took place. Therefore we may expect that
final outpouring of the Spirit, which is to embrace "all nations and kindreds and
peoples and tongues," will occur in this dark hour of Gentile apostasy, on the eve of
the day of world-wide judgments.
I fully share the expectation referred to; but my belief is that, as in revivals of
the past, there will be not only a special manifestation of the Spirit of God, but also
the proclamation of some special and definite
message, whereby the people will be pricked in their heart, and constrained to ask,
" What shall we do?" And what will that message be?
About twenty years ago a book was published by one who had tens of thousands of
readers on the western side of the Atlantic. Its
title was The Next Great Awakening, and the
author's purpose was to show that the revival for which he was looking would come through
a world-wide preaching of the long-neglected subject of the Kingdom of God. He recalled that the theme of John's preaching,
whereby the whole nation of Israel was aroused, was the near advent of the Kingdom of
heaven, and that our Lord's "very first public utterance related to the
Kingdom," and we would add that His first private instruction (John iii.) related to
the same subject. The author also pointed out
that "Christ refers to the Kingdom no less than forty-five times in Matthew alone,
and in the Synoptic Gospels more than a hundred times"; that Christ called the
message which was to be sown in all the world with a view to the great harvest, "the
word of the Kingdom"; that "after His passion His theme was the same" (Ac.
i. 3); and in a word "from first to last the burden of His discourse was the
Kingdom."
These are weighty considerations. But
there are others which appeal to the present writer with even greater force. Thus, it is the opinion of many of our teachers
(as the one already quoted) that a firm foundation for expecting a great revival, and at
just such a time as this, is laid in Joel ii. 28-32, where we find the promise of God that
He will pour out His Spirit on ALL flesh. This
promise justifies the expectation of a repetition of the events of Pentecostal times in
Judea, not, of course, as to details, but as regards the mighty working of the Spirit of
God in connection with a general "prophesying" or preaching of the divinely
appointed message. In view of this we should carefully note that (1) Pentecost was
preceded by a period of forty days of preparation, during which the Lord was instructing
His disciples in "the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God"; that (2) Peter's
Pentecostal message reached its culmination in the great announcement that God had made
that same Jesus Whom they had crucified both Lord and Christ (Supreme Ruler and King); and
that (3) thenceforth the message which (in the view of some who witnessed its stupendous
effects) "turned the world upside down," was the preaching of the Kingdom of
God, the proclamation "that there is another King, one Jesus" (Ac. viii. 12; xvii. 6, 7; xix. 8; xx. 24, 25; xxviii: 23,
31).
This is "as it was in the beginning"; and hence we feel confident that so it will be also in the end of our era. For we believe there is a special significance in our Lord's reply to His disciples' question concerning "the end of the age." That reply is of far greater moment to us, who are on earth in the time of the end, than it was to them. He said:
"And this GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM
shall be preached in ALL THE WORLD, for a witness to ALL NATIONS, and THEN shall the end
come" (Matt. xxiv. 14). The words
"all the world" and "all nations," are commensurate in scope with the
"all flesh" of Joel's prophecy concerning the outpouring of the Spirit. Thus the preaching of the Word of the Kingdom and
the outpouring of the Spirit were to be co-extensive, and embrace all creation. And the reply of Christ is the more important
because it is the only thing in the way of an indication or sign of the end. All the signs given in our Lord's discourse on
Mount Olivet (though this is not always perceived by those who expound it) relate, not to
the far-off event of His second advent, but to the nearby event of the invasion of Judea
and the destruction of the city and sanctuary by the armies of Rome.
And further we
should not fail to note that the parallel passage in Mark's Gospel reads thus: "And
THE GOSPEL must first be published among all nations," which shows that "the
gospel of the kingdom" is a specific name for the "gospel," and not
"another gospel," as some teach.
Having in mind such passages as "Where the word of a King is
there is power" (Eccl. viii. 4), and "The Kingdom of God is not in word but in
power" (I. Cor. iv. 20), and "The Kingdom of God is righteousness, and peace,
and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. xiv. 17), we are deeply convinced that the lack of
POWER in the preaching of the gospel in our day, and the paucity of the results attending
it, are due primarily to misplaced emphasis. The
apostles in their
Furthermore, we urge consideration of the important fact that God's
salvation is not primarily for the benefit of sinners, but for His own glory and the
honour of His beloved Son. The Shepherd seeks
the lost sheep for His own sake, rather than theirs, and their recovery is His joy and wealth.
The Scripture at the head of this paper declares a great truth:
"In the multitude of people is the King's honour." The saved are to be a
"multitude of people"--yea, "a great multitude, which no man can
number," and they are to be gathered out of every nation under heaven--not so much
that the sum total of the blessedness of God's creatures may be increased, as that the
King may have the greater honour.
The usual appeal for sending the gospel into the unevangelized parts of the
earth is based upon the sorrowful fat of those who die without Christ. But the true appeal should be that the eternal
purpose of God and the honour of His Anointed demand the salvation of a vast multitude of
people. This appeal is rarely heard.
Now it is chiefly because the salvation of a great "multitude of people" is for the King's honour "that we confidently look to Him, for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things," to augment greatly the Kingdom of His dear Son through the mighty working of the Spirit of God, and the preaching the of the Word of the Kingdom. For that great multitude, out of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues, was seen by John "before the throne of God, and before the Lamb" (Rev. vii. 9, 10). Many of these have yet to be gathered, for these are peoples and tongues not yet reached by the gospel. But they will be reached, for the King's honour demands it.
Salvation is the special responsibility of THE KING. For God's promise was,
"I will be thy KING; where is any other that may SAVE thee?" (Hos. xiii. 10). Moreover, He plainly foretold just what this
promised salvation was to be, saying, "I will ransom them from the power of the
grave, I will redeem them from death" (v.14). Accordingly,
when the fullness of the time (as predicted in Daniel ix.25) was come, their King
appeared. Moreover, He came to them precisely
as foretold, "just, and having salvation"
(Zech. ix. 9). But they "received Him
not," because they had been misled by their teachers, those blind leaders of the
blind, into the vain expectation of a kingdom and a salvation of earthly character. For they "knew Him not, neither the voices of
the prophets" (Ac. xiii. 27). But
God exalted Him with His right hand to be "a Prince and a Saviour," and let it
be noted that it is as a PRINCE that He gives to Israel (Ac. v. 31) and to the Gentiles
also (Ac. xi. 18) repentance unto life, and the forgiveness of sins.
More to the same effect might be added, but we must close, and in doing so will but
briefly call attention to a few additional points in connection with the preaching of the
Kingdom of God. In the first place it
gives prominence to the lordship and authority of Christ, which should ever have the
precedence in our preaching over God's mercy to sinners, which is secondary. Furthermore, it testifies to men their state of
rebellion and enmity against God, and calls upon them to be reconciled to God through the
death of His Son, and to place themselves under the royal authority, as well as under the royal protection, of Him Whom God has raised from the
dead and glorified. It puts God's salvation
in its true light, by proclaiming deliverance for the captives of sin out of the kingdom
of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son. Thus,
in that great gospel address of Acts xiii. (given no doubt as a model) Paul's subject
throughout is Christ, and only at the very end (vv.38, 39) are the benefits to believing
sinners declared.
Futhermore, the apostle in speaking of the
glorious gospel of the blessed God, which had
been committed to his trust, closes with a glowing ascription of homage "unto the
King" (I. Tim. i. 9-17). Likewise, in expounding "the gospel of
God concerning His Son," he
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