Psalms 66:7

He ruleth by His power for ever: His eyes behold the nations.

The nature and design of moral government

Everything around points us to a law or rule, by which creation is governed, and this implies a mind that cannot work in vain. But against this, “the rebellious exalt themselves.” And they do this because they are rebellious; atheism is of the heart more than of the reason.

I. Of the nature and design of moral government. And this government is--

1. Sovereign. This essential to the prevention of confusion.

2. Of irresistible power.

3. Universal in its extent.

4. Is, and must be, essentially benevolent.

Many object to this, and deny it. But let them remember the vast scale of God’s works, and how little we know. The next thing to be borne in mind is the tendency and purpose to bring all to a happy issue. This is an essential point in considering the moral government of God. All will end in the rectification of present disorders and in the bliss of creation.

II. Inferences from the foregoing.

1. Sin is the source of all misery.

2. The greatest benevolence consists in making God known.

3. We are unspeakably indebted to God for the revelation of His will, that in Christ all can have life eternal. (F. A. Cox, D. D., LL. D.)

The government of God

I. The government of God is sustained by omnipotence. When revolutions rise, and changes take place in the empires of the world which affect the condition of millions now living, and which shape the destiny of coming generations, it is sheer folly to ascribe them solely or chiefly to the restlessness of the peoples, to the despotism of monarchs, or to the policy of statesmen. They are signs that the Divine power rules over, and that the Divine hand works out the destinies of men. He can curb the impetuous passions of men, or turn them into a channel in which they shall work out His great designs in complete, though unconscious, subservience to His will; He can put a hook in leviathan’s jaw, and cast down Antichrist from his seat; He can control the whirlwind in its stormy path, and check the mad fury of a long-oppressed people; He can arrest the lightning in its rapid flight and hush to silence the deep-voiced thunder; and He can stop the deadlier bolts of war and bid the angry nations be at peace.

II. The government of God is one of universal oversight. There is nothing, however great or trivial, which can transpire in His wide domain unobserved by Him. All events pass under His eye. All objects, the vast and the minute alike, are present to His view. “He telleth the number of the stars.” “The very hairs of our head are all numbered.” God is everywhere, omnipresence as well as omnipotence “belongs” to Him.

III. There are rebels against the divine government,

1. The exaltation of the creature may be through pride, through ambition, through vain desire, through unholy presumption, but whatever may be the secret feeling that prompts it, or whatever the form which it takes, the eye of God sees it, and His power can crush it when He will. It is vain for any of us, even in our most secret soul, to set ourselves against Him, for He track- the rebellious thought to its remotest hiding-place within us, nay, He knows it in its first formation in the chambers of the heart.

2. Man’s opposition to His Maker is as unreasonable as it is futile and hopeless. Why should we set ourselves against His law? Is He not our best Friend, our constant Benefactor, our loving Father? Is not His rule the rule of righteous love? Is not His throne the throne of grace? Is not His law a law of liberty, and in keeping of it is there not great reward? (F. Stephens.)

God and the nations

The God of individuals is the God also of nations; the law of righteousness which applies to individuals applies also to nations; and nations are accountable to God, and must be judged by Him just as surely as individuals. Men are slow to believe this truth. They seem to think that there is one law for the individual and another law for the nation, and that it is vain to expect that a nation should be ruled by the teaching of the New Testament and the Sermon on the Mount. Great statesmen are not ashamed, even in Christian England, to go in direct opposition to that teaching, to appeal to the lowest, the most brutal, the fighting instincts of the people; to urge them to cherish and practise the spirit of retaliation, and to encourage them to hurl defiance against all the nations of the world. But surely the teaching of our Lord should rule nations as well as individual men; and nations should seek to be guided not by the old law, which says, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” but by the new and diviner law, which says that men should do unto others whatsoever they would that others should do to them. God sits on the throne of the universe. The sceptre of universal dominion is in the hands of righteousness. The eyes of the Lord keep watch on the nations, and nations must be judged by the righteous judgment of God. (G. Hunsworth, M. A.)