MESSIAH'S SHARP ARROWS
"Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies;
whereby the people fall under thee."--Psa. 45:5.
With a strange and unaccountable perversity we often find that the
very people most given to figurative and symbolical language are the very ones who when
they come to the Bible are disposed to take it literally, to ignore the beautiful figures
of speech with which it abounds! So persistent is this habit that even when considering
that book of symbols, the Apocalypse, they are disposed to take its statements
literally--although in its very introduction the declaration is made that our Lord sent
and signified--made signs or symbols to illustrate the things which would shortly come to
pass. We are not urging such an interpretation of the Scriptures as would ignore their
true significance and make them say the reverse of what they mean, as some are disposed to
do; we merely urge that symbolical, metaphorical and hyperbolical language be given true
and proper recognition, as we would be disposed to do were the same figures and symbols
used in connection with the affairs of our daily life. Surely none can claim that this is
an unreasonable position.
When friends tell us that certain words cut them to the heart or
that certain experiences broke their hearts they are merely using metaphors in the same
manner in which the Scriptures use them. (Acts 2:37; Isa. 61:1; Luke 4:18.) And similarly,
when considering our text, we are not to think of literal arrows being shot forth by
Messiah and that these will cause the world of mankind to fall wounded literally before
Him with these arrows in their hearts. In another Scripture we read, "The wicked
shoot out arrows, even bitter words," that they may injure the righteous. (Psa.
64:3,4.) So here also the arrows of Messiah would represent the words of His mouth; but as
a bitter fountain sends forth bitter water and a pure fountain sends forth sweet water, so
the arrows of Messiah, instead of being bitter words such as the wicked shoot forth, will
be forceful words of truth and grace. The symbolism is analogous to that of Revelation,
where Messiah, in His coming glory of the Millennial Age, is pictured as having a sword
going forth from His mouth with which He smites the nations.--Rev. 19:15.
The Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. (Eph. 6:17.) The Sword
of Messiah's mouth will be the message which He will send: "My Word that goeth forth
out of My mouth shall not return unto Me void, but shall accomplish that which I please,
and shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." (Isa. 55:11.) Our Lord Jesus, as
the Mouthpiece of Jehovah, was commissioned not only to redeem the world but to uplift it
out of sin, degradation and death conditions and to restore the willing and the obedient
to all that was lost in Adam and redeemed by Christ, by His obedience and sacrifice at
Calvary. As the "Lamb of God" our Redeemer has already "tasted death for
every man," dying "the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God."
(John 1:29; Heb. 2:9; 1 Pet. 3:18.) But it is not enough that He thus prepares the way by
bringing mankind back to God; it is not enough that God's Justice has been appeased now on
our behalf. It is necessary further that the Redeemer should grant the required assistance
to the redeemed for their deliverance from the chains of ignorance, superstition, sin and
death into the liberty of the sons of God.
"NOW ARE WE THE SONS OF GOD"
This deliverance of humanity according to the Divine purpose is divided into two
parts: First, a special class who hunger and thirst after righteousness and are out of
harmony with sin, are being blessed during this Gospel Age through the appreciation of the
good tidings of [SM52] God's love and favor in Christ. These are dealt with by faith, and
include only such members of the race as have the hearing ear of faith--"He that hath
an ear, let him hear"; for "without faith it is impossible to please God."
This small company of the race, willing and able by the Redeemer's assistance to walk by
faith and not by sight, now receive special truth in the School of Christ and a special
testing as respects their loyalty to righteousness, in advance of the world's blessing and
trial. The faithful of these, at the close of this Gospel Age, by a share in the First
Resurrection will be "changed" from human nature to Divine nature and be made
sharers with the Redeemer as His "Bride," His "Body," in the great
Millennial Age work of blessing, uplifting the world from sin to righteousness, of
bringing them out of degradation and wrath up, up, up to human perfection and eternal life
in an earthly paradise restored.
Our text does not refer to our Lord's dealings with the Church;
for we are not His enemies. The enemy class will be dealt with after the Second Coming of
our Lord. This He showed in one of His parables, saying, A young nobleman went into a far
country to receive for Himself a Kingdom and returned and took possession of it. Before
starting He called His own servants and delivered to them pounds and talents, saying,
Occupy until I return. On His return, invested with the majesty, authority and power of a
Kingdom, He first called His own servants (the Church class) and reckoned with them,
rewarding the faithful saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been
faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the
joy of thy Lord"--have dominion over five cities. Then the King will say, "As
for those Mine enemies, who would not have Me to reign over them, bring them hither and
slay them before Me." (Luke 19:12-27.) The slaying of the enemies in the parable
corresponds perfectly with the Revelation picture of the Sword of Messiah's mouth, which
will smite the nations; and it corresponds also with the expression in our text respecting
the sharp arrows of Messiah which shall be in the hearts of His enemies and cause the
people to fall before Him. Not literal arrows, not a literal sword, not literal carnage
are here represented, but a great triumph of the Word of the Lord over all during the
reign of the Millennial Kingdom, following our Lord's Second Coming.
Those who are now invited to become of the Lord's "Little
Flock," the "Very Elect," the "Bride, the Lamb's Wife," the
"Royal Priesthood," the "Body of Christ," are not smitten down with
the Sword of His mouth. Instead, they are those who through various experiences in life
are already become heart weary, heavy laden, looking to the Lord in faith and desiring His
assistance. The message of the Lord's lips at the present time is not arrows; not the
sword to those who are invited to be His followers. On the contrary, inviting them, He
says, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden; and I will give you
rest!" Again He tells us that His Message is intended to bind up the broken-hearted,
to give the oil of joy in exchange for the spirit of heaviness. --Isa. 61:3; Matt.
11:28-30.
The Apostle, speaking of the matter, declares that it has pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save those who now believe. (1 Cor. 1:21.) Not that
the Message is a foolish one; for on the contrary the Message of God's grace is the
noblest, the grandest, the most wonderful one that could come to the ears of mankind. But
from the worldly standpoint it seems foolish on God's part to address the world when He
Himself declares that the vast majority are deaf, and that only here and there can any be
found who have the hearing ear. Again, the Gospel Message of reward to the obedient seems
foolish to the world; for it would say, "If God had all power why does He not enforce
His commands and send forth judgments to compel obedience rather than send forth a message
of love and an invitation to obedience?" Our answer is that God is now seeking
a peculiar people; and that after He shall have gathered this specially called, specially
chosen, specially blessed, specially tried class, after He shall have glorified these,
blessing them with the great reward of glory, honor and immortality, then will be His time
for using force, compulsion.
MESSIAH SHALL BE CONQUEROR
The Apostle Paul, discussing the work of Christ during His Millennial reign following His
Second Advent, declares, "He must reign until He hath put all enemies under His feet.
The last enemy to be destroyed is death." Again,..."Then cometh the end, when He
shall deliver up the Kingdom to God, even the Father, when He shall have put down all
[antagonistic] rule and all authority and all power....And when all things shall be
subject unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject to Him that put all things
under Him that God may be all in all." (1 Cor. 15:24-28.) The Apostle introduces this
statement in his argument on the resurrection of the dead. He is proving that the
resurrection is for all mankind, that as "all in Adam die, even all in Christ shall
be made alive"--every man in his own order, "The Christ [Head and Body, Jesus
and the Church] the first-fruits; afterward [during His presence at His Second Advent in
the Millennium] they that are Christ's at His coming."
It will be during that Millennial period of Messiah's Reign that
force will be used instead of preaching; that His rebuke will smite into the hearts of His
enemies, and that all shall fall under Him. Every knee must bow, every tongue must
confess. Happy will it be for the world when Messiah shall take unto Himself His great
power and reigns. Blessed will it be for the people when His sharp arrows shall smite them
and when His judgment as a hammer shall break the hard, stony hearts; for, as the
Scriptures declare, He wounds to heal. (Hos. 6:1.) The healing process will be
coincidental to the wounding and breaking; for the great Messiah, Christ and the Church,
will be not only the King, the Ruler, but also the Priest of that Millennial time to heal,
to console, to forgive, and the great Prophet to instruct the thousands of millions of
Adam's race who have gone into death during the reign of Sin and Death and under the
blinding influences of the Adversary. No wonder the Scriptures speak in glowing terms of
that glorious Millennial Day, when the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the whole earth!
No wonder they picture this symbolically as the rising of the Sun of Righteousness with
healing in its beams.--Mal. 4:2.
"IN THY MAJESTY RIDE ON"
Note our context: The first verse declares that the Message relates to the King, not to
the Lord, not to Messiah waiting to be invested with the authority of the Kingdom, but to
Him after He shall have been thus invested, after He shall have taken to Himself His great
power and begun His Reign of Righteousness. Hearken to the prophetic description of the
King in His beauty, "Thou are fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into
Thy lips." This well pictures our dear Master's condition of humiliation when the Man
Christ Jesus was demonstrated to be pure in heart, absolutely loyal to the Father and in
this respect fairer than all the children of men, all of whom were sinners and out of the
way. The grace of our Lord's lips is manifest to us in the message which He left.
"Never man spake like this man." "They all bare Him witness and wondered at
the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth."-- John 7:46; Luke 4:22.
It is because of the faithfulness, the loyalty, the grace which
our Lord demonstrated as the Man Christ Jesus that the Father glorified Him, raising Him
from the dead to far more than the human nature and glory--to the highest [SM56] plane,
the Divine nature and its glory, honor and immortality. As the Prophet declares, God
blessed Him forever. (Psa. 45:2.) His exaltation is perpetual; far above angels,
principalities and powers and every name that is named. Our Lord's trial and exaltation
have been followed by the call and testing of the "Little Flock," invited to be
His joint-heirs in the Kingdom; and soon these will be changed in the First Resurrection,
that they may participate in His glorious work of the Millennial Kingdom.
Then the time having come for the establishment of the Kingdom,
Messiah, Head and Body, will take to Himself His great power and His Millennial Reign will
begin. This is represented in Verses 3 and 4, "Gird thy sword upon Thy thigh, O
Mighty One, with Thy glory and Thy majesty. And in Thy majesty ride prosperously, because
of truth and meekness and righteousness." What a noble, inspiring picture of Divine
knowledge as it shall go forth in due time for the binding of Satan and the liberating of
all the slaves of sin and death--not only those who have not gone down into the tomb, but
the liberation of those who are in the great prison-house of death, the grave! Messiah
shall not reign for the oppression of the world nor for the enslavement of the people. On
the contrary the power of the Kingdom will be exercised on behalf of truth, meekness and
righteousness. This however, will necessarily mean a reign of force, a reign very
different from the present dispensation and its Gospel invitation to righteousness.
We read elsewhere that the "judgments of the Lord will be
abroad in the earth"--His righteous dealings. In other words, His power exercised on
behalf of the cause of truth, meekness and righteousness, will mean His forceful
opposition to error, to pride and all inequity, all unrighteousness. No longer will men be
invited to abandon sin. The judgments, the punishments for wrong doing will be promptly
and vigorously applied. The world, deaf to the Lord's Message, blind to His goodness, out
of the way, degraded through sin, will learn righteousness in another way--by being made
to feel a judgment, a punishment for every wrong deed and wrong word. And by the end of
the Millennial Age the testing will have become so crucial that even the favorable
entertainment of a disloyal thought as respects the Almighty and His rule of righteousness
will lead to the Second Death.
We have no thought of suggesting that the Millennium will be
entirely a time of peace, joy and blessing. It will be all of this all the time to all
those who love righteousness and hate iniquity and are in accord with the Lord; but the
Lord's indignation, even His fierce anger, will from the very beginning of the Millennial
Age burn hotly against all unrighteousness, against all iniquity, all falsehood, to the
intent that these may be thoroughly removed, completely eradicated, and that thus mankind
may be most truly and most absolutely blessed. It is in harmony with this that the fourth
verse of our context declares, "Thy right hand [Thy Power] shall teach terrible
lessons," lessons for eternity to many, lessons which will be most salutary to the
race as a whole, lessons which would be awful to humanity in some respects at the
beginning of the reign. For be it remembered that the Scriptures everywhere declare that
the Millennial Kingdom, although a reign of peace, righteousness and love, will be
introduced by a Time of Trouble such as was not since there was a nation, by which trouble
present institutions will be overthrown because they are all unrighteous, imperfect and
built upon lines of selfishness contrary to the law of love, which shall be made to
prevail in the interest of all. This is the same thought that is brought to our attention
in connection with the symbolical picture of Revelation. The Sword of Messiah's mouth is
there declared to smite the nations; and we are told that He will rule the nations with a
rod of iron, and that as potters' vessels they shall be broken to shivers.--Rev. 2:26-28.
We are to differentiate, however, between the nations which are to be broken--the great
systems of selfishness which are to fall and rise no more--and the people, into whose
hearts the words of the Lord will enter and who will be smitten down before Him. They will
acknowledge that they are sinners, and that His reproofs are just and His judgments upon
systems of error and iniquity are true and righteous altogether. They will fall before
Him; they will acknowledge the Divine power and its rightful control of human affairs;
every knee must bow and every tongue must confess. As the Apostle Peter, referring to this
time, declares, "It shall come to pass that the soul that will not hear [obey] that
Prophet, shall be destroyed from amongst the people."--Acts 3:23.
The picture of the coming Time of Trouble and of the glorious
epoch of blessing which will follow it is graphically depicted by the Prophet (Zephaniah
3:8), through whom the Lord says, "Wait ye upon Me, saith the Lord, until that day
when I rise up to the prey: for My determination is to gather the nations, that I may
assemble the kingdoms, that I may pour upon them Mine indignation, even all My fierce
anger: for the whole earth [social structure] shall be devoured with the fire of My
jealousy." So terrible will be the Time of Trouble, so sweeping the overthrow of
present institutions, that the Lord here symbolically pictures it as a fire consuming
everything of the present social order.
But that it is not a literal fire, and that it will not consume or
destroy mankind but prepare for their greater blessing, is shown by the next statement of
the Prophet: "Then will I turn unto the people a pure Message [in contrast with the
confused message that is now being promulgated by all the various sects of Christendom--
Babylon] that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve Him with one
consent." They will no longer call upon themselves the names of sects and parties,
heathen or Christian. All will call upon the Lord, all will [SM59] recognize Him as the
great Teacher; for the Lord shall be King over all the earth in that day. (Zech. 14:9.)
And the Kingdom under the whole heavens shall be given to the people of the saints of the
Most High.--Dan. 7:27.
"HIS MOUTH IS MOST SWEET"
In contrast with the sharp words of rebuke which will be administered to the world and
which they will need and which will be most favorable to them, we have the gracious words
of the Master in the present time speaking to all who have ears to hear. His Message is
represented as one that binds up the broken hearts and administers the oil and wine of
refreshment and joy and peace and consolation. What wonder, then, that we appreciate the
statement, "Blessed are your ears, for they hear." Not only have we heard the
Message of our Lord Jesus, of His love for us, and that He gave Himself a Ransom for our
redemption, but we have heard the Father saying that He has spoken peace to us through
Jesus Christ our Lord. He tells us also, "The Father Himself loveth you."
Hearkening we not only have heard the Message of God's love and
favor for our race, and how a Ransom has been provided, and that in consequence a
preparation is being made for the blessing of all the world, but we learn that we may
appropriate this blessing to ourselves now by faith in advance of this general
application, and that being justified by faith we may have peace with God. And,
furthermore, after we had thus been accepted, we heard the voice of the Master inviting us
to become His disciples, to walk in His steps, to share now in the cross and sacrifice
with Him and by and by in the crown.
Ah, yes! He brought life and immortality to light through the
Gospel--life everlasting, life which we now see is possible of attainment by all the
families of the earth, and immortality is attainable by those who now have the hearing ear
of faith and the heart desire to follow in the footsteps of their Redeemer.
"WONDERFUL WORDS OF LIFE!"
The character of Him who is to ride prosperously as the conqueror of the world assures us
respecting His treatment of those who shall fall down before Him and accept His righteous
Reign and Law. He who loved them so that He gave His life as their Redemption-price
establishes His Reign, not for their injury, but for their blessing, for their uplifting,
for the destruction of their real enemies. All the weaknesses and depravity of the fallen
conditions are our enemies, if we love righteousness; and we are glad to have our Lord's
co-operation in fighting a good fight against these. And so will all the right-minded of
the Millennial Age be glad to have all the assistance He can render them. And the Church
of this Gospel Age, now gaining experience through trials and disciplines, will also be
fitted and prepared to co-operate with her Redeemer and King in the work of blessing our
race, instructing them in the ways of the Lord and teaching them to go up on the Highway
of Holiness, at whose further end, by perseverance, they may have eternal life.
Let us continue to pray, dear friends, for this Kingdom of
Messiah, when His sharp arrows shall pierce many hearts and cause the masses to fall under
Him and to confess Him and to adore Him. Let us continue to pray, "Thy Kingdom come;
Thy will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven." Yes, let us be glad that in the
consummation of the Plan of God all who refuse to learn righteousness and to love it, and
to hate iniquity, shall be utterly destroyed, so that God eventually will have a clean
Universe.
He's come! Let all the earth adore Him!
The path His human nature trod
Spreads to a royal realm before Him,
The Life of life, the Word of God!
