Ezekiel 21:27

I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him.

War, a means of advancing the kingdom of Christ

I. War.

1. War has its own work to accomplish. It is not a chance. It is of God (1 Chronicles 5:22). War, like pestilence or famine, is under His command, and warriors are the executioners of His will, though they know Him not. Jehovah hath a work to do, which war is the fittest instrument to accomplish. He saves by the Gospel; He “overturns” by the sword.

2. The foundation of all true religion lies in obedience to the first commandment of the law (Exodus 20:2). But the heathen nations “have gods many, and lords many” (1 Corinthians 8:5). Idolatry has been more prevalent than the worship of the true God in all ages and nations, since the time of the patriarchs. And idolaters outnumber the worshippers of the living God in the present day. This wide defection from truth is not to be attributed to ignorance, but to depravity (Romans 1:21; Romans 1:28). Ignorance is not the chief evil in our race, but sin,--“all have sinned” (Romans 3:23,--so that “every mouth must be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19).

3. Now it is necessary that this matter be thoroughly understood, in order that we may vindicate the righteousness of God in permitting the nations of the earth to remain so long unsaved while He has visited them so often with His sore judgments, of which the sword has not been the least. Heart depravity gave birth to idolatry, and idolatry ministers to that depravity. When “the light becomes darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). When God is rejected, the devil reigns. Crime is everywhere the religion of Paganism, and its universal fruits are envy, lust, rapine, misery, murder, death, hell. It is nothing that the Gospel of Jesus has; it hath everything the Gospel has not. It is directly antagonistic to Christ. And if the power of heathenism were not brought down by the sword, the whole of its institutions, laws, priesthood, and systems of government, combined with the sinfulness of the human heart, would present an impenetrable barrier to the admission of the truth. War must throw that barrier down. Christian churches are not to furnish the warriors; Christian missionaries are not to lead on a band of holy crusaders; but God will find the instruments, and by them He will do the work. “I will overturn, overturn, overturn.”

4. Here let us pause, and survey the events of the present and preceding century in heathen lands, that “we may declare the work of God, and wisely consider of His doing” (Psalms 64:9).

II. Its issue.

1. We know not what events may lie before us, nor how God may work by divers instrumentalities, both good and evil; but the ultimate result of the unsheathed sword, and of His overturning, He hath plainly declared. “I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, ‘until He come whose right it is.’”

2. This design of God cannot be frustrated; His purposes shall assuredly stand. Every war has been hitherto made subservient to the kingdom of His Son.

3. But in what way, some might inquire, can the war in which we are now unhappily engaged conduce to the coming of His kingdom, whose right it is to reign? It may not be easy to answer that question. How God will work we know not, nor do we wish to know; it is sufficient that our faith at present should rest upon His Word. Still, however, without venturing beyond our line in the way of predictions, we may argue on probabilities that present themselves to a reflecting mind.

4. It only remains that we notice, with commendation, those peculiar features of this war which demand our grateful acknowledgments to Almighty God. The first is, the extreme reluctance with which we entered upon it. Every method diplomacy could prevent to avoid conflict was exhausted. It was not always thus with nations. It was not always thus with England. We hail the change, even while we hear a proclamation of war, as indicating the approach of that blessed period when war shall be no more. Secondly, the humane manner of conducting the war is worthy of the highest praise. (W. J. Shrewsbury.)

Social changes subservient to the kingdom of Christ

There is a well-known phrase which has been applied by one and another to various things in the world, just as anything happened to be a favourite of prejudice or fancy, “Esto perpetua.” But methinks a sober and enlightened looker on the world will not find very many things on which he can deliberately pronounce it. He certainly cannot begin with the state of his own mind, taken entire and as it is. And if he cast a rapid glance of survey over the world, his attention will soon be arrested by many things which he would not wish exempted from such a denunciation as that of the text. Perhaps we should not proceed without first protesting against the passion for mere change and commotion; a restless discontent that everything should continue as it is. Yet Providence may occasionally make use even of this for its great purposes; may let loose the wild violence, and direct its operation, on what is decreed to be demolished. However, a good man wants not to excite to activity any such spirit while he beholds the things he wishes overturned. What things? At different times you have been moved with regret and indignation and almost horror as the several grand evils that are oppressing and blasting the world have unfolded their deformity and malignant effects to your view.

I. Perhaps the first that will occur to the mind is--false, pernicious religion. Religion! the light of the world! turned into error, delusion, and darkness! Religion! the sacred bond of the creature to the glorious Creator! rent and reformed into a bondage to all that is in opposition to Him! Religion! designed as the purifier and elevator of man,--transformed into the promoter, even the creator and the sanction, of his corruption and degradation! Religion, in short, the happiness of man on earth, and the preparation for eternal happiness, converted into a cause of misery here and hereafter! Then, “overturn! overturn!” Imagine, in any country, a mighty fortress of a cruel tyrant, constituting the main strength of his occupancy,--even the most dreadful earthquake would be almost welcome to the people, if they saw that it was prostrating the massive walls, the impregnable towers of this fortress; their own humble abodes might be seen falling, but “look yonder! something else is also falling!”

II. Again, what ruinations there must be on earth before Christianity is set quite clear and pure from all the corruptions of worldly policy. “Overturn!” will still be his prayer with respect to all systems and institutions, which, by their principle, put religion on any ground where it must be necessarily and primarily a secular affair; where the spiritual interests shall be made formally subsidiary and servile to the secular; where secular regards will necessarily have the ascendancy; where the leading considerations will naturally be those of emolument and ambition.

III. The history of the world presents, almost over its whole vast breadth, one melancholy spectacle of mankind subjected to the uncontrolled will of a few individuals, assuming the station of deities, and very many of them the worst of their race, “the basest of men!” Such a system resolutely maintained must come to a tremendous result. It will ultimately compel two vast orders of will and force into awful conflict; like that of the fire and water of the last day. For it cannot be that God has appointed the general human mind to subside in a quiet enslavement and stagnation. There will be mighty commotions; a “shaking of the nations,” in all probability. But the omens are very dark as to any speedy results from them of a hind to satisfy a Christian and philanthropic spirit. The gloomy omens arise from this,--that God has His own controversy with all the nations. (John Foster.)

Revolution and reformation

I. What things do now stand in the way of Christ’s glorious reign.

1. Every species of tyranny.

2. Idolatry, or the worship of false gods.

3. Infidelity.

4. Heresy, or the disbelief of the great and fundamental doctrines of the Gospel.

II. By what means we may suppose God will overturn or remove all these things which stand in the way of the glorious reign of Christ.

1. By public calamities or desolating judgments.

2. We may suppose that God will employ human learning to enlighten the minds of ignorant, barbarous, tyrannical, and erroneous nations in respect to their civil and religious tyranny, and their absurd and vicious customs and manners.

3. We may be confident that God will employ the Gospel as the principal external instrument to overthrow and remove all obstacles in the way of Christ’s final and most glorious reign upon earth. This is suited at once to enlighten the understandings, awaken the consciences, and subdue the hearts of all who are opposed to the kingdom of Christ.

4. God will pour out His Spirit as the efficient cause of making all the other means that have been mentioned effectual, “to the pulling down of strongholds,” etc.

III. Why may we confidently expect that God will accomplish His gracious design of giving the kingdom to His Son by the means that have been mentioned.

1. Because these are the means which He has hitherto usually employed for accomplishing this purpose.

2. Because He can make the means which have been mentioned effectually answer his great purpose in view.

3. He has expressly promised to do it.

Improvement--

1. If the things which now stand in the way of the glorious reign of Christ must be removed in the manner that has been mentioned before His reign commences, we have no reason to think that His kingdom will soon come.

2. If God has done so much already, and will do a great deal more to prepare the way for the coming of Christ in His millennial glory, then we may justly expect that the world will be very happy under the reign of the Prince of Peace.

3. If God will remove the obstacles which still tie in the way of the latter-day glory of Christ in the manner that has been mentioned, then good men have a great deal to do to promote this great and good design.

4. It appears from what has been said, that Christians have great encouragement to exert themselves vigorously and wisely in preparing the way for the glorious reign of Christ.

5. This subject calls upon all to rejoice in what God has done and is doing, by the instrumentality of man, to fill the earth with His glory, under the reign of the Prince of Peace. (N. Emmons, D. D.)

Human revolutions

I. They have a sad successiveness. They do not run out and expend themselves; but one makes place for another. All mutations in schools, markets, churches, kingdoms, only pass away as waves on the shore, to be succeeded by other advancing billows. There is nothing settled.

II. They transpire by Divine arrangement. There must be perpetual fermentation where evil is. How does God effect these changes?--

1. By the revelation of right and truth to human consciousness.

2. By the procedure of His providence.

III. They will only be terminated by the advent of the rightful King. The world is Christ’s. He has a right to rule. So truthful, benevolent, and just will be His sway that all opposition will be subdued. (Homilist.)

The three-fold overthrow of sell

I. The Lord repeats three times the expression, “I will overturn it.” It may indeed be said with respect to this repetition of the words three times, that it may signify the positiveness and certainty of God’s determination. But still I believe, if we come to look at it in a closer point of view, we shall find that it is literally true,--that the repetition of it three times does not merely intend to express the certainty of God’s overthrow of self in the soul, but that there are three distinct occasions--three clear, positive, and direct overturnings of self, and bringing it into utter ruin, in order to the setting up of Christ in His glory and beauty upon the wreck and ruins of the creature.

1. The first prominent feature of self is in some cases profane self; that is, many of God’s elect, before they are called by the blessed Spirit, are living in open profanity, in drunkenness, swearing, and the barefaced practice of notorious sins. But whenever the Spirit of God begins to work in the heart, He overturns profane self, that is, He brings such solemn convictions into the conscience--He shoots such arrows from the bow of God into the soul, that self in its profane shape is overcome and overthrown thereby.

2. Here, then, is a soul which stands overturned before God; a wreck and ruin before “the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” But what will a man do when he is reduced to these circumstances? Why, he will begin to build, and will endeavour to set up a temple in which he believes God will take pleasure, of which He may approve, and which shall, in some measure, recommend him to Jehovah’s favour. A second overturning, then, is necessary, an overthrow of righteous or holy self. And what is the Lord’s lever to overturn this second temple, built out of the ruins of the first, but not “the place of His rest,” as being still the work of men’s hands? A spiritual discovery of the deep pollution of our hearts and natures before Him. Profanity is overturned by the application of the law with power to the conscience; but this false holiness, this mock spirituality, is overturned by the discovery to our consciences of the deep pollution that lurks in our carnal minds; this is more or less the breaking up of “the fountains of the great deep,” and discovering with power to the conscience the truth of those words: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” As we try, then, to be holy, sin rises up from the depths of our carnal mind, and overturns that fabric which we are seeking to erect.

3. Now let us trace a little what course self will steer. Why, this restless wretch now runs in another channel, which is to slight the solemn inward teachings of God, and to take hold of the doctrines of grace by the hand of nature, without waiting to have these heavenly truths applied, from time to time, by the mouth of God to our hearts. And as some sweetness has been felt in them there seems to be some warrant for so doing. But presumption creeps upon us in such imperceptible and subtle ways, that we scarcely know we are in thus delusive path before we find a precipice at the end of the road. And what has led us there? Our pride and ambition, which are not satisfied with being nothing, with occupying the place where God puts us, and being in that posture where He Himself sets us down. We must needs grasp at something beyond God’s special teachings in the soul; we must needs exalt our stature beyond the height which God Himself has given us, adding a cubit to our dwarfish proportions. Here, then, is the third form of self which is to be overturned, as much as the two preceding forms, and that is presumptuous self.

II. The setting up of the kingdom of God on the ruins of self. “I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him.” There is one then to come “whose right it is,” there is a King who has a right to the throne, and to the allegiance of His subjects; a right to all that they are and to all that they have. But whence has He gained this right? “Until He come whose right it is.” It is His right, then, first, by original donation and gift, the Father having given to the Son all the elect. “Here am I,” says Jesus, and the children that Thou hast given Me.” “All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me.” Then, so far as we are His, Jesus has a right to our persons; and in having a right to our persons, He has, by the same original donation of God the Father, a right to our hearts and affections. But He has another right, and that is by purchase and redemption, He having redeemed His people by His own blood--having laid down His life for them, and thus bought and purchased them, and so established a right to them by the full and complete price which He Himself paid down upon the cross for them. This two-fold right He exercises every time that He lays a solemn claim to any one of the people whom He has purchased. “Until He come whose right it is.” Then there is a coming of Jesus into the souls of His people; not a coming into their judgments to inform their heads; not a coming into their minds merely to enable them to speak with their tongues concerning them, but there is a solemn coming of Christ, with power and glory and grace and majesty into the souls and consciences of His elect family, whereby He sets up His kingdom upon its basis, erects a temple for Himself, and builds up His own throne of mercy and truth upon the ruins of self. But this is not a work which is once done, and needs no more repetition. For we must bear in mind that this wreck and ruin of self is not a heap of dead stones. Self is a living principle; not a slaughtered and buried rebel, but a breathing antagonist to the Lord of life and glory. Self will ever work, then, against His supreme authority, and will ever rebel against His sovereign dominion. And therefore if we look into our hearts we shall find that day by day we need this overturning work to be done afresh, and again and again repeated in us. (J. C. Philpot.)

Messiah’s final triumph

I. Jehovah has given universal empire to Jesus (Psalms 72:1; Psalms 2:8; Psalms 89:27; Daniel 7:14; Zechariah 9:10; Philippians 2:10; Acts 2:32, etc.) Christ’s dominion is to embrace the whole world,--every empire, kingdom, continent, and island.

II. It is Christ’s right thus to reign. “Whose right it is.”

1. On His creative property in all things (Colossians 1:16). Satan is an usurper,--the world is alienated from its rightful Lord. But the right of Christ remains unaffected, and that right He will demand and obtain.

2. On His supreme authority as universal Lord. He is Lord of all, King of kings, etc. This authority is seen in controlling all events, in upholding all things, etc. In His infinite outgoings of benevolence and love.

3. He has a redeeming right. He became incarnate, He descended into the world, He brought the light of heaven into it, He gave His own life for it, He is the proprietor, etc. Here then is a right, ratified with His precious blood. He was willingly lifted up that He “might draw all men unto Him.”

III. God will overturn every obstacle until this be effected. “I will overturn,” etc. Ignorance must give place to light, error to truth, sin to holiness. Satan must be driven from his strongholds, and thus Jesus will enlarge His empire and extend His domains. There are, however, four mighty impediments which must be overthrown, entirely overturned.

1. Paganism, and all its multifarious rites.

2. Mohammedanism in all its earthly gratifications.

3. Judaism, with its obsolete rites.

4. Antichristian Rome.

Every thing that exalteth itself against God, or attempts the division of Christ’s merits, must be consumed before the brightness of Messiah’s countenance and the power of His truth. But you ask, How will God overturn, etc.? Doubtless His providence will subserve the purposes of His grace. He may cause science and commerce to open a passage for the message of truth. He may even overrule war, and may allow the military hero to pioneer the ambassador of peace. But he will do it by the power of the Gospel of truth. The doctrines of the cross are to effect it. “We preach Christ crucified,” etc. “Not by might, nor by power,” etc. (J. Burns, D. D.).