GOD’S WILL IN WORSHIP AND WORK
‘Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.’
Is not this impossible? Is it not impossible that God’s will should ever be done here on earth as it is in heaven? And yet we dare not have a lower ideal, or nothing can be accomplished, either individually or as a Church.
I. Grounds of hope.—No words can exaggerate the awful evil of the world. Shall it make us Christian people despair? Can we still pray, in the face of all this hideous wrong, ‘Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven?’ Thank God we can say yes, we can still do it, for there is amid all our sorrow and sadness hope, hope that comes from the Church above, hope as long as there is above the great God and Father who loves without any distinction every single man and woman, boy and girl that He has made; hope as long as there is the blessed Son of Man, the Lamb, still presenting Himself in the endless Power of His Passion; hope as long as the Divine Spirit takes of the things of Jesus and shows them to His people; hope as long as the angels and glorified saints fulfil in absolute perfection God’s will in worship and in work around and from the throne; hope, because through the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus, we are in union with the Father and the Holy Spirit; hope, because in the strength of that union we can still pray the prayer ‘Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven’; we can still in the strength of that union, go forth and do our best to fulfil that will on earth.
II. The will of God in worship.—Let the Church of Christ awake throughout the length and breadth of the land, and fulfil the will of God in worship; let prayer and praise sound within the walls of her sacred buildings day by day; let there be no keeping back of God’s worship from the great God; let the Eucharist of worship and thanksgiving never cease; and let the Church realise that her worship on earth is one with the worship above.
III. The will of God in work.—Let the Church of Jesus Christ awake throughout the length and breadth of the land and fulfil God’s will in work. Let her faithfully in every parish gather in and keep the children for God in baptism and confirmation, that there they may be united to Jesus, who alone can make them what we want everybody to become, true children of God; it will be the only way out of our difficulties. Let her go forth and extend, both at home and abroad, her great mission-field. Let her lift up a great and true Salvation in Jesus, without money and without price. And let her awake throughout the length and breadth of the land, and be distinctly on the side of all that makes for righteousness and purity and truth, earnestly desiring that the Kingdom of Jesus Christ may come more and more on earth. Thus worshipping and thus working we shall feel our union with God. Men and women fail so terribly to realise their union with God because they are not doing His will.
The Rev. the Hon. R. E. Adderley.
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‘So meanwhile, dear Lord, pray on,
Reign in righteousness, Redeemer,
Till all heaven and earth are one,
One in truth and high endeavour,
Earth’s huge wrongs for ever gone;
Human tears wiped off from sorrow,
Causing human hearts to break;
And the voice cries from God’s presence,
“All things new, behold, I make.” ’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE OBEDIENCE OF ANGELS
We have the highest authority for studying “The Obedience of Angels,” seeing that our Lord has made it the very model we are to copy, and has placed a petition for the attainment of its likeness in our daily supplications.
The most speaking picture of obedience in the whole world is that description of the seraphim, in the sixth chapter of Isaiah, to which we have so often referred. ‘Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.’ Observe: two-thirds are given to veneration and to modesty; to self-hiding and piety; one-third to grand, rapid, busy, lofty work. That is obedience. First, devotion, a devout feeling; then self-sacrifice; then quick, rapid, soaring service. ‘With twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.’ Let all our hearts gaze reverently, and say, ‘Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.’
I. Doing God’s behest.—An angel, by his very nature, is a servant doing God’s behest. It is laid upon him; it is a necessity and a law of his being. With us, service is too much an occasional thing—put on at times; done and left. It must not be so if you are to be like an angel. It must be an essential part of every moment of life—reality: the sum and substance, the whole of your existence, continuous, obedient service. All the day long; every little thing a service. Therefore holy; therefore pleasant—because it is service.
II. An angel’s work.—‘Their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.’ We do not give to angels ubiquity. Therefore, Christ must mean, either while angels are exercising their offices to the little ones, they still have their eye on the person and countenance of God; or, which seems more likely, that the same angels who one day serve the little ones, do at another time stand around the throne and look on God. And hence their power and their joy. They go wherever they go—straight from the immediate presence of God. So they carry their sunshine; so they carry their might: just so must you.
III. An angel’s obedience is the obedience of a happy being. You will not do much—you will not even obey well—till you are happy. You must be as sure that God is your God, as an archangel is sure of it, and more—for He is more your God than He is any angel’s God. Obedience is the fruit of happiness. It matters nothing to an angel what the work is which is given him to do. It is Who has given him to do it. It is simple obedience. ‘God has said it’; and all equally great and equally good because it all comes from infinity, and that infinity is Love.
The Rev. James Vaughan.
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1 ‘Mr. Fisk, in his narrative of a journey to Jerusalem, relates that a Grand Vizier, in high favour with the Sultan, was suddenly disgraced and deprived of all his property. He at once conformed to his new circumstances, and was seen selling lemons at a street corner, where he was sympathetically accosted by an English nobleman who had known him in his glory. He replied, “I am not at all unhappy. Allah gave me what I had: He had a perfect right to take it away: Allah is great, Allah is good!” How much more should we who know God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ pray with unquestioning submission, “Thy will be done”!’