Daniel 7:18

But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom.

The Political Character of the Good Time Coming

“There is a good time coming,” so says the poet, so saith the Scriptures. The golden age of the world is not in the past, it is in the future, the age of immortal light, liberty, peace, virtue, religion, and blessedness are all ahead. The text indicates the political character of that golden age.

I. IT WILL HAVE A GOOD GOVERNMENT. “The saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom.” The word “saints” has become a by-word. They say, “Look at your mitred saints, using evermore their political power against freedom, justice, and the public good. Heaven deliver us from the government of saints!” Be calm! You mistake the counterfeit for the genuine coin. The man whom God calls a saint is a man whom you are made to love, in whose wisdom and goodness you would place your utmost confidence. True saintliness means honesty, brotherliness, disinterested philanthropy, and elevated piety. Sainthood means goodness. A kingdom under such rulers would:

1. Be an educated kingdom. The works of nature, the events of, history, the facts and doctrines of revelation would be universally studied. “All would know the Lord,” etc. It would:

2. Be a virtuous kingdom. Christ is the model and the master of the saints. By His principles they would shape all their laws, by His Spirit they would be inspired in every legislative act. They would not mould their code after Greece or Rome, but after Calvary.

3. It would be a free kingdom. Saints are lovers of freedom.

4. Be a peaceable kingdom. Every subject would do unto his fellow what his fellow would do unto him.

II. IT WILL HAVE A PERMANENT GOVERNMENT. “And possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.” Now the expression may not express eternity, but it undoubtedly represents an indefinitely vast period of time. Three considerations support a belief in its permanence.

1. The length of time in gaining it. The instinct of true sainthood is aggressive and imperial. The saints from Abel down have been endeavouring to sway the minds of men by their Heavenly thoughts and aims. After all this, is it not probable that when universal power comes to them, it will be a permanent possession?

2. The firm hold which the morally true takes upon human nature. The false, the unrighteous, the immoral, though recommended by imperial pageantry and enforced by the invincibility of arms, can never take a firm hold upon human nature. Hence the mutation and fleetnees of all human governments. But the government of the saints being that of truth, equity, honour, love, humanity, religion, will take an unrelaxable grasp upon the intellect, heart, conscience, and soul of the people, and will endure from generation, even unto generation.

3. The mediatorial life of Jesus Christ. Why did Christ come into the world, teach, suffer, labour, pray, and die? Why did He rise from the dead, ascend to Heaven, and send down His Spirit? Why? To destroy the works of the devil, to establish rectitude on the earth, and to set up “a kingdom that shall never be moved.” (Homilist.)

The Kingdom of the Saints

The first word spoken by the messenger of the Christ was this: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” This, too, was the first word of Christ himself. The word “kingdom” is the keynote of the gospel story. In it is the idea of dominion, sway. It expresses an area within which are the greater or the fewer multitudes subject to that sway. It expresses a constitution, out of which comes the origin, the administration, and the enforcement of law; and it expresses further the supremacy of a single person. A kingdom supposes a king. Speak of the miracles of Jesus! He was himself the greatest of all miracles. He opened His mouth, and proclaimed a kingdom. But where is His kingdom? The King that was dead liveth, and is alive for evermore. The saints of the Most High have been taking the kingdom all down the ages, and possessing the kingdom, and they shall possess it for ever, even for ever and ever. There is no time when the saints are not possessing the kingdom. Power is in our minds chiefly when we think of a kingdom, and where power is greatest there is the ruling kingdom among men. We search for this power, and where do we find it? Knowledge, men say, is power. The knowledge which men seek to gain, and do gain, they call power, and it is so. But their knowledge, and all knowledge, is limited--limited as to the faculty by which it works; limited as to the point which it reaches, limited as to the interests which it affects. We are not come yet to the secret of the greatest power. That is the greatest power which, when it goes forth, governs the man, his body, his mind, his spirit. Where is this? Truly in God, but not in God only. There are those of this world who are “of God.” The power is theirs--in form at least, and measure, and degree--which dwells in theFather, and in His Son, Jesus Christ. There is no power besides like theirs, so strong, so far-reaching, so penetrating. How is it that the members of this great body do possess the kingdom? And why is it that they shall possess it for ever? They who are spiritually destitute, who have in themselves nothing, and know it and feel it, and are ever crying to the God of their spirit for the supply of their emptiness out of His fulness--these have the kingdom. All that they are furnished with is from God,sought from Him, given by Him, known to be His gift, and used as His. These are the God-marked of the earth. These are “the children of the kingdom”; they in whose heart and purpose it is to do the will of the Father in Heaven, Why shall they possess the kingdom for ever? Because they have “overcome.” By the power given to them they have overcome evil, and only good remains; and good is the final, the everlasting, the all-absorbing power of this universe. (D. Wright, M.A.)