Luke 11:2 And he said to them, When you pray, say, Our Father which are in heaven, Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done… A man must be untrue to his own moral convictions who can say to a God that violates his ideas of sanctity and Divine excellence, "Reign, rule." There must be presented to the human soul a deity that is better than man, in each and in every respect — so much better that it shall seem an infinite and unspeakable blessing that such a God should control all things, and should constrain men to become like Himself. Men have taught that God had a right to rule, simply because He was the strongest. It is true that the wisest, the best, and the strongest must take precedence. It is true, therefore, that God has a right to reign in heaven and on earth — everywhere — but not because He has power to reign. It is true that when you see the use that God makes of His power, you cannot help following with those that in the apocalyptic vision worshipped His power, and acclaimed praise to it; but when you look at the question narrowly and reduce it to its basis, no being in heaven or on earth has a right to reign, simply because he has power. Right goes with moral quality. If God's conscience is pure, and supreme over all consciences; if God's moral sentiments are themselves the very fountains from which our moral sentiments flow; if His wisdom is supreme and unerring; if His love is broader, deeper, higher, wider, and more full of bounty than any other love, these qualities raise him to supremacy. But the mere fact that God made men, is no more an argument that He owns them, than is the fact that I have children an argument that I own them. I have obligations to rear them; but when they come to man's estate, is the mere fact of paternity a reason why I may wring their necks off, or why I may make a slave of one, and put one in hateful preference cycle another? Paternity gives no one a right to set at naught the great moral distinctions which love and conscience have established in the world. It does not among men, and still less does it in God. Those dec. trines, therefore, are inconsistent with a cheerful reliance upon the will of God, which have taught that God had a right to reign simply because He had power to do it; that we had no business to question that Divine power; and that, when men set up their images of ideas, their idols of teaching, saying "This is God," if men questioned them, they questioned the real God because they questioned these theoretic gods. And this idea that God had a right to reign simply because He was able to do it, would be despotism in heaven, as much more hateful than despotism is upon earth, as the sphere is broader, and the Being wiser and more comprehensive. God's wisdom, God's justice, God's truth, God's love, God's fidelity — these give Him — shall I say right? — necessity, to reign. These exalt Him, and on these stand the throne of the universe. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. |
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