"For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God " (Rom. 8 :19-21).
The viewing of a great ruin generally calls forth admiration, and it also calls for meditation, though some are ready to condemn the heart and eye that can linger with wonder and admiration over what is the witness of decay and of death. But I venture to tell such that we may admire and meditate over a ruin without fear or self-judgment. The redeemed creation will bespeak the power of sin and death over the old creation, while the redeemed shall display the boundless, glorious victory of death's Destroyer. And the thoughts of the Spirit of God, the mind of Christ, as well as heaven and all its hosts, will linger over that ruin and its redemption for a happy eternity. "Sing, O ye heavens; for the Lord hath done it! Shout, ye 'lower parts of the earth; break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein; for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob! " And, also, " Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety-and-nine just persons which need no repentance."
This is heaven's admiration of the ruin and its redemption; and these are the ways of God. The operations of His hands were of old His delight, and the counsels of His grace are now His delight,
and the attending angels have their music and their dancing in the Father's house.
"The land shall not be sold forever," says the Lord; "for the land is mine" (Lev. 25:23). Man has a term of years, in which it is left in his power to disturb the divine order. For forty-nine years in Israel the disturbing traffic might go on, but in the 50th year the Lord re-asserted His right, and restored all things according to His own mind-it was a time of "refreshing" and of "restitution" as from His own presence.
Oh bright and happy expectation! "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof," is the proclamation of psalm 24 :1:Then the challenge goes forth, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord ? " -that is, Who shall take the government of this earth and its fulness ? and answer is made by another challenge to the city gates:"Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in;" and this King is " the Lord of hosts; He is the King of glory! " It is a fervent form of words whereby to convey the truth that the Lord, in strength and victory, the Lord as Redeemer and Avenger, should take the government.
In Rev. 5 a like proclamation is heard:"Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof ? " And the answer from every region is this, It is " the Lamb that was slain, the Lion of the tribe of Juda." He who sat on the throne gives the answer by letting the book pass from His hand into the hand of the Lamb. The living creatures and crowned elders join in that answer by singing their song over the triumph of the Lamb and the prospect of their reigning with Him over the earth. The hosts of angels add to it, by ascribing all wisdom and strength and honor and right of dominion unto the Lamb; and every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and in the seas, in their order and measure, join in uttering the same answer. The title of the Lamb to take dominion in the earth is thus owned and verified in the very place where alone all lordship or office could be rightly attested-in the presence of the Throne in heaven.
Tho nobleman has now gone into the distant country to get for himself a kingdom. Jesus, who refused all power from the god of this world (Matt. 4), or from the selfish desire of the multitude (John 6), takes it from God; in due season He will return, and those who have owned Him in the day of His rejection, shall reign with Him in the day of His glory ; those who have served Him now, shall reign with Him then.
In the prospect of such a day, Paul says to Timothy, "Keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ:which in His time He shall show, who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords." And in the like prospect the same dear apostle could say of himself, " I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing."
May the Lord give to us-for we need it much- more of the like spirit of faith and power of hope! Amen. J. G. Bellett