Bringing Heaven to Earth
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
MATTHEW vi. 10.
I suppose that to the majority of people these familiar words suggest a funeral rather than a wedding. They recall experiences to which we were compelled to submit but in which we found no delight. They awaken memories of gathering clouds, and gloomy days, and blocked roads, and failing strength, and open graves. “Thy will be done!” They remind us of afflictions in the presence of which we were numb and dumb. And so we have a sort of negative and passive attitude toward the words. We have a feeling toward them as to some visitor we have to “put up with,” rather than to a welcome friend whose coming fills the house with life and happy movement. They suggest the Cyprus and the yew tree, things sullen and gloomy, rather than the coronal attributes of the cedar and the palm.
And so it is that the graces and virtues which are most frequently associated with these words are of the dull and passive order. The grace of resignation is the plant which is most prolific in this bitter soil. Even many of the hymns which sing about the will of God are in the minor tone, and they dwell upon the gloomier aspects of Providence which call for the grace of resignation. I am not unmindful of the fields of sadness which often stretch around our homes like marshy fens. Our circumstances gather about us in stormy cloud and tempest, and the rains fall, and the floods cover our lot in dreary desolation. And we may reverently recall one black night in the days of the Son of Man when in Gethsemane the rains descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and the afflicted heart of the Saviour submitted itself in strong resignation, crying, “Nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done.”
And yet if resignation be our only attitude to the will of God our life will be sorely wanting in delightful strength and beauty. A Cyprus here and there is all very well, but not a woodland of them! A yew tree here and there is all very well, but not a whole forest of them! In one of his letters Robert Louis Stevenson has a paragraph which I will read to you. It is an imaginaryconversation with his gardener about the black winter green known as Resignation:
“John, do you see that bed of resignation? “” It’s doing bravely, sir.” “John, I will not have it in my garden; it flatters not the eye, and it is no comfort; root it out.” ‘’ Sir, I ha’e seen o’ them that rose as high as nettles; gran’ plants.” “What then? Were they as tall as Alps, if still unsavoury and bleak, what matters it? Out with it, then; and in its place put a bush of Flowering Piety — but see it be the flowering sort — the other species is no ornament to any gentleman’s back garden.”
But then how are we going to get more of the flowering piety into our gardens? I think this is the answer. We shall get it by cultivating a more active and positive attitude toward the will of God. The will of God is not always something burdensome which we have to bear; it is something glorious which we have to do. And therefore we are not to stand before it as mourners only, humbly making our submission, but as keen and eager knights gladly receiving our commissions. The will of God is not always associated with deprivation; it is more commonly associated with a trust. It is not something withheld, it is something given. There is an active savour about it. There is a ringing challenge in it. It is a call to chivalry and crusade. And therefore the symbol of our relation to the will of God is not that of the bowed head, but that of the lit lamp and the girt loin, as of happy servants delighted with their tasks. It is in this positive relationship to the will of God that the will becomes our song, the song of ardent knights upon the road, riding abroad to express the will of their King in all the common intercourse and relationships of men. “Thy will be done on earth!” That is not merely the poignant cry of mourners surrendering their treasures; it is the cry of a jubilant host, with a King in their midst, consecrating the strength of their arms to the cause of His Kingdom. The will of God is here not something to be endured, but something to be done.
Well, now, how are we to take our share in this commission? How are we to do the will of God on earth as it is done in heaven? First of all, by finding out what life is like in heaven. “As it is done in heaven!” If our privileged commission is to make earth more like heaven it must surely be our first enquiry to find out what heaven is like. Well, what is heaven like? I will very frankly confess to you that I am in no wise helped to answer our question by the so-called spiritualistic revelations of these latter days. These strange seances with the lights out, and a trumpet on the table, and the rowdy singing, they bring me no authoritative word or vision. The character of the heavenly life that is revealed is so unsatisfying — the glare of it, the garishness of it, its furnishings as of a cheap and tawdry theatre, the utter weakness and insipidity of its utterance — they tell me nothing that I want to know. Its leaders assure me that their revelations are chasing away uncertainties, that they are transforming lean hypotheses into firm experiences, that they are proving the reality of the life beyond, that they are making immortality sure. I am waiting for a revelation of something which deserves to be immortal. I am reverently listening for some word which is both spirit and life. I am listening for something worthy of kinship with the word of the Apostle Paul; nay, worthy of the risen Lord; and what is offered to me is like cheap jewellery in contrast with precious stones and fine gold. Eternal life is to me not merely endless length of line; it is quality of line; it is height, and depth, and breadth; “This is life eternal, to know Thee and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”
I therefore turn away from the so-called modern revelations if I wish to know what life is like in heaven. What is life like as it is lived in the immediate presence and fellowship of God? What are the habits of the heavenly community? What is the manner of their affections? What is the nature of their discernments? What are their standards of values? What are their ways of looking at things? What are their quests, and their labours, and their delights? What are their relationships one to another? Is there any answer to these questions? If I wish to learn what life is like in heaven, I turn to Him who came from heaven. He made certain tremendous claims, and the very greatness of them arrests my soul and fills me with receptive awe. Let us listen to Him: “No man hath ascended into heaven but He that came down from heaven.”..” He that cometh from
above is above all; what He hath seen and heard, of that He beareth witness.” ...” The bread of God is He which cometh down out of heaven and giveth life unto the world.”... “I am come down from heaven to do the will of Him that sent Me.”... What is that last most wonderful word? It seems to come very near to the way of my quest. I am eagerly enquiring how God’s will is done in heaven, and here is One who claims that He comes down from heaven to do the will of Him that sent Him. He brings heaven with Him. His speech is full of it. He talks about “your Father in heaven,” He talks about, “the treasures in heaven,” and about “the Kingdom of Heaven,” and He uses simile after simile, and parable after parable, to tell us what it is like. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto ... is like unto ... is like unto...” The familiar words run like some lovely and inspiring refrain. ... If I would know what heaven is like I must listen to His word.
But the revelation in Christ Jesus is more than a revelation in words. The Word became flesh and it was not only something we can hear, it was something we can see. He not only startled men’s ears, as with a music which had never before been heard in their grey, unlovely streets, He startled men’s eyes as with a light which had never before fallen on sea or land. He not only talked about the heavenly life, He lived it. His life on earth was just a transcript of the life in heaven. As we reverently gaze upon Him we can
33 watch the process of the incarnation. The heavenly is being imaged forth in the earthly, and it is taking form in human life and story. Every movement of Jesus spells a word of the heavenly literature. Every feature in Jesus is a lineament of the invisible life. Every gesture tells a story. Every one of His earthly relationships unfolds the nature of the heavenly communion. His habits unveil their habits, His quests reveal their quests. The Eternal breaks through every moment, and the light is tempered to our mortal gaze. The revelation never ceases. It begins in Nazareth and it continues to Calvary, and beyond Calvary to Olivet. You can never catch our Lord in some moment when the divine afflatus has been withdrawn, when the inspiration ends, and when His life drops down to dull and unsuggestive commonplace. Everything in Jesus is a ministry of revelation. He is revelation: “I am the Truth.” His earthly life reveals the landscape of the heavenly fields. If, therefore, I would know what heaven is like I must listen to the word of Jesus, and with eager, reverent eyes I must follow the Word made flesh.
But let me give this counsel about the quest. When we set about studying the words of Jesus do not let us become entangled in the letter. It is possible to be imprisoned in the words and so to miss the hidden treasure. What we are in search of is the spirit of the Kingdom of Heaven; we want to know its attitudes, its royal moods, its splendid manners, its principles, its life. We must not, therefore, be deterred and interred in the literalism of the letter. We must seek the hidden treasure in the earthen vessel.- We must seek the heavenly wine in the earthly wine-skins. We must seek the beating heart of a simile, the secret vitality of a parable, the holy fire which burns on the innermost altar of the word. We are in search of heavenly principles, principles which we can apply to the humdrum life of earth and so transform it into heaven.
Go, then, in search of the principles of the heavenly life. And whenever you find a heavenly principle, something which controls and orders the life of heaven, write it down in your own words, and regard it as one of the controlling guides of humdrum life. Do the same with the Master’s life. What a brief little record it is! I turn away my eyes to my study shelves and I see the life of Lincoln in five large volumes. I then turn to the biography of Jesus, and in the Bible which I am using it covers 107 pages, and in those 107 pages the story is told four times over! How marvellously brief it is, and yet how marvellously pregnant! Go over it with the utmost slowness. You are in search of something more precious than gold, yea, than much fine gold. If our Saviour moves, if He turns His face toward anybody, if He looks at a little child, or at someone who is near the Kingdom of Heaven, follow the movement, and watch Him, and challenge your judgment as to its significance. Is the movement a revelation? Is it an earthly segment suggesting a heavenly circle, and can you venture to reverently complete the circle? Thus must we go in search of the heavenly principles, and when we have found one let us express it in our own words, and write it down as one of the fundamental controls of human life..
And when you have got your heavenly principles, when you have analysed them, and have arranged them in some order, will you have many of them? I think not. Will your note-book be overflowing with entries? I think not. You will probably have just a little handful, perhaps not more than a dozen of them, perhaps only half-a-dozen; but they will be something you can handle, for not only are they the principles of heaven, they are the laws of heaven for our life on earth, they are the fundamental things in the ministry of transformation, and they are to make earth and heaven one. If, therefore, you would know what life in heaven is like, study Him who came from heaven, even the Son of Man who is in heaven.
Well, now, having found out what life is like in heaven, we must now find out what life is like on earth. What are the facts about things on this planet of ours in which we pitch our moving tents for three-score years and ten? If we are to bring the principles of the heavenly life to mould and fashion our life upon earth we must know what we are about. Is our life on earth in any way like the life in heaven which is revealed in Jesus Christ, or is it very unlike it? We must go in search of the facts. What are the facts? And there you face the difficulty which only an unwearying perseverance can conquer. For, strangely enough, it is far more easy to discover the facts about the life in heaven than to discover the facts about the life on earth. Heaven yearns to reveal itself, to make itself known, to share its secrets, and it has done these things in Jesus
Christ; but earth seeks to hide its facts, to obscure them, to skilfully camouflage them, until it is almost impossible to discover the simplicity of truth in all this elaborate paraphernalia of falsehood and disguise.
How intensely difficult it is to see a thing just as it is, in all the clear, vivid, untampered outlines of sheer veracity! Our newspapers do not really help us in the quest. Their vision is perverted in many ways — it is perverted by political partisanship, by the spirit of class, by the narrowing mood of sect, by the proud domination of wealth, by the desire to please more than to inform. How hard it is to find the facts through the daily Press! I take two morning papers, and I have chosen them on the ground of their being as absolutely unlike each other as can be well conceived. I look out upon the world through their two lenses in the fond hope that one may regulate the other, and that in their mutual correction I may arrive at something like the truth. But through what a riot of confusion one has to fight his way if he is to find the fact of things in their simple and transparent order! For instance, the facts about the miners and the owners of the mines! The facts about Prohibition in the United States!
The facts about the drinking customs of our people! Where are our working people assembling in vast multitudes to demonstrate their determination to have more drink? Where are the masses of people who are assembling to demand a brighter London, and who are going to secure it by extending the drinking facilities for an hour or two longer at night? What are the facts about things! The facts about the starving populations of Russia! The facts about India, about the inner currents of its thought and feeling, the secret aspirations of its countless multitudes, the sleepless activities of Islam! What a hunt it is, this hunting for facts! And yet, if the heavenly principles are to be brought to earth, to govern and regulate her life, if the crooked is to be made straight and the rough places plain, we must know where the dangerous crookedness is to be found on the road, and where the road is so rough that it breaks the feet of pilgrims and lames them for their honest and necessary journey.
I can well imagine that if the Church of Christ — the whole Church of Christ — were united in life and purpose, if she were really what we sometimes sing she is — a mighty army, not shuffling along any and every road in loose and bedraggled array, but marching under one plan of campaign and moving in invincible strength — I can imagine she would have her own Intelligence Department, her own secret service, her own exploring eyes and ears, peering everywhere, listening everywhere, knowing the most hidden facts of the nation’s life, and proclaiming them from ten thousand pulpits in every part of the land. But while we wait for the united Church of Christ we must not go to sleep. We must strenuously and untiringly seek to get at the facts. How is it with old mother-earth? Is she full of the glory of God? Or is she full of shameful things, crooked things, wasteful things, wicked things? Is her life really vital, or is it superficial, artificial, a poor withered, wrinkled thing hidden in powders and cosmetics? What are the facts? Knowing what life is like in heaven, find out what life is like on earth. Get at the facts.
And now for a last thing. Having a firm grip of divine principles — “as it is in heaven,” and with a clear knowledge of earthly facts — “as it is done on earth,” then with fearless application bring your principles close to your facts, and make your facts bow to your principles, reshaping them by the heavenly standards so that the crooked becomes straight and the rough places plain. Bring the heavenly close to the earthly, and change every earthly thing into heavenly currency, stamping it with the divine image and superscription. “Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven!” That is gloriously positive work. It is challenging work. It is exhilarating work. It is work which is worthy of the knights of God. It is to bring heaven and earth together until the two become one. It is to bring the heavenly to the earthly, to bring divine principles into the region of economics, into the realm of business, it is to bring them into the thicket of politics, to the simplification of society and to the reconstruction of international relationships. “Thy will be done on earth.”
“It can’t be done!” What is that? “It can’t be done!” What can’t be done? “You cannot mix the heavenly and the earthly; you cannot wed them into vital union. Religion is religion, and business is business, and never the twain shall meet. Religion is religion, and politics is politics, and to try to marry the two is to seek a covenant between oil and water. You cannot bring religion into commerce, and let the heavenly visitor settle the height of the tariff wall, or remove it altogether. No, religion is religion, and trade is trade! There was no chair for Religion in the Council Chamber at Versailles; she was not expected, she was not really invited. And if, by any chance, she had appeared and spoken she would have been pathetically out of place.” But why would she have been out of place? “Oh, well, everything in its place; and Versailles was the place for the stern soldier, the astute and wily diplomatist, the subtle politician; it was no place for the saint! You cannot have a coalition between Christ and Caesar. It can’t be done!” “Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven”: Jesus Christ said it could be done, and that is the end of it. Nothing is excepted from the heavenly claim. God claims everything. There is no confusion at the heart of things. There is one Intelligence in the universe, one central Will, one great White Throne. God’s decree runs through all things, and His holy will is best in everything. What is good religion can never be bad business. What is rotten religion can never be sound economics. What is morally right can never be politically wrong. “Thy will be done on earth!” That is the right road in everything. On that road alone can true life be found, the abiding secret of vital progress and happiness. Then let us firmly grasp the divine principles revealed to us in Christ, let us fearlessly apply them to every sort of earthly fact, let us mould the facts according to the pattern which we have found in the Mount.
But let us remember this. These words of our Master are first of all a prayer before they become a commandment. Our hands are to be uplifted in supplication before our feet begin their journey. We are to fall to our knees before we take to the road. It is first a prayer, then a crusade, and then a victory. “Thy will is done on earth as it is done in heaven.”