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GRASSHOPPER MEN / (Continued from page 549)
ideas and plans in the place of the revealed will of the King. I am glad that there is a saving sense of humor in the life of Deity. “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh.” That is not a cynical laugh, but a pitying smile. It does seem so pitiful to think of grasshopper men objecting to the throne! The throne means the King. These men may look quite important when we look on the level of the “Wilshire Boulevard line.” But I am wondering how they look from the throne. In any case there can be no mistak ing the point and significance of God’s answer to the man who does not like the idea of the King. “YET have I set my King upon My holy hill of Zion!” ? “Yet”— notwith standing the misgivings of men, God has appointed His King. This man who said that he does not like the idea of a king said also that he likes to think that God is like Abraham Lincoln. That reminds me of a line we used to have in the kindergarten days— it was in a poem in which a little boy was asked if Lincoln was a king. His conclusion was “He wasn’t a king outside, but I think he was in his- heart.” There is no question about the fact that he was kingly and with all his great heart of love and his loving patience when the hour came he made it clear to the people of North and South and even to Seward, that he was Presi dent of the United States. God is love, but He is also King, and He has never abdicated the throne in favor of any power in heaven or in earth. Jesus is King Jesus, who is God manifest in the flesh, is the King of kings and Lord of lords. The making of Jesus King is not left to us. That was determined in the counsels of Deity. We are not asked as to whether or. not we shall have Him as King. We have positively no option in that matter. God settled that thing long ago. What we are asked to do is to recognize His Kingship— to submit to His government.
but the grasshopper man did not have the discernment to see this. The grasshopper man is never able to rightly dis cern the times. He is out of touch with the throne and therefore lacks the insight that makes real the eternal forces and purposes which give history its final meanings and determine its course. The Grasshopper Man is a Coward As a result the grasshopper man is a coward. He did not have the courage to follow God’s command and to accept the challenge of the hour. The grasshopper man never knows the compelling power of a life that is dominated by the throne and its authority, the sense of mission and destiny that blinds him to all obstacles standing in the way of the destined course— that thing that was in the mind of Lord Tennyson when he made one of his finest characters say, “For the deed’s sake have I done the deed In uttermost obedience to the King.” That is the utterance of a soul that feels carried along by a compelling sense of loyalty to the King and feels it must do what the King commands whatever the conse quences. That was the thing that moved Paul and drove him on to Rome regardless of dangers. It was the thing that made Martin Luther irresistible as he stood in the midst of his enemies and the enemies of God’s throne at Worms. It was the thing that gave courage and steadfast ness to Abraham Lincoln during the dark days when the storms threatened to break the ship of State on the rocks of human selfishness. Caleb knew what it was when his righteous soul cried out against the cowardly advice of the grasshopper men, saying, “Let us go up at once and possess it: for we are well able to overcome it.” There is nothing of the coward in that loyal challenge to obey the King. Obstacles to Progress Because he is a coward the grasshopper man is in dan ger of holding back the movement of God’s hosts in the day of conquest. He cannot defeat the ultimate purposes of God— the land must be taken, and if the grasshopper man is not willing to risk everything in obedience to the command of the King, God will raise up a generation who will do it. But He must wait for the grasshopper man to die in the wilderness and to get out of the way of His onmoving chariot. In this case He had to pause for nearly forty years While the grasshopper men marked time in the wilderness. After they turned their back on the King and turned aside from His orders they had nothing to do but to wait for death. They ran around a good deal and did a good deal of talking and complaining, but all their activity and dust-raising counted nothing for God and His purpose. It is a very solemn thing to disobey the commands of the throne and to turn from the God-given task to the barren ness of the wilderness. Lack of Vision That is the thing that men are in danger of doing in the fateful hour in which we are living. Men are looking too much along the earth line and are losing the vision of the throne and the regal compulsion that drives men to do exploits for the King. In fact some so-called leaders do not like “the idea of a king.” I noted with a conflict of emotions what one of our ministers put in a church notice in the morning paper yesterday. He says that we Americans do not like the idea of a king. After reading that notice I turned to the second Psalm again and read, “Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?” What is “the vain thing” they are raging about? The idea of casting away from them the compulsions of the king. They are raging about this idea of a king. They want to put their
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