<p>When Thou Comest - King’s Heralds</p>

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Voice Of Prophecy

H.M.S. Richards

The Earth for the Blessed

It's nice to be with you too for this worship service and our prayer is that it will bring you great encouragement for this coming week.

Just before we open the Bible, let's ask a special blessing, shall we?

Heavenly Father today as we open thy holy word, may it bring to us the strength that we need.

Please Lord if we have come with a discouraged heart may we go from this place encouraged because we ask it all in Christ's name.

And now our subject is the earth for the blessed.

Among his many promises is this 1 our Savior made, Matthew 5.5.

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

Notice the earth itself is promised to the meek who are the blessed, for they are said to be blessed.

And I can hear someone ask, do you mean that this earth and all its problems, its exploding population, threatened wars, diseases, economic and social frustrations, disappointments, its death is to be given to the blessed people?

Well, the answer is right here in the words of Christ, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Now that's Christ's promise and it certainly will be fulfilled.

There is nothing in this promise about the condition of the earth when the blessed receive it, but in other places in the scripture it is plainly stated that conditions will be changed.

In the very beginning of the world the earth was not as it is now.

There was no sickness then, no death, no war.

And we are on scriptural ground when we suggest that such things will be no more when Christ's kingdom of glory covers this earth.

Here is our answer in the Gospel of Luke 19.10.

For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

He lost dominion over the earth, which God had given him in the beginning.

The Holy Apostle Paul declares that the earth, along with the human race, waits for the day of redemption.

On the cross our Savior not only bore our sins, but He wore on His blessed brow a crown of thorns.

Someday the thorns will be gone from the earth.

His redemption is far greater than many people suppose, His atoning sacrifice vaster than our minds can conceive.

He came to seek and to save that which was lost.

Someday there will be not only a redeemed race rejoicing in their blood-bought redemption, but a redeemed earth brought back to its Eden glory.

No wonder the Apostle Paul tells us that through faith and patience we are to inherit it.

He says that those who turn from Satan to God and receive forgiveness of sins will have an inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith.

And in Hebrews 9.15 we read that this is an eternal inheritance.

Now in our first text, this wonderful inheritance, according to the very words of Christ himself, is for the meek.

In a certain Sabbath school class in New York City, the lesson was upon this very verse in Matthew.

The teacher asked which of the blessings the class would rather have.

1 little girl replied, I'd rather have the 1 pronounced upon the meek.

When asked why, she replied, O sir, if I live in such a way as to have that blessing, I'll have all the rest.

Christ was the perfect pattern of meekness.

He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.

Who when he was reviled, reviled not again.

When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.

The meek person, then, is 1 who is like Christ.

And this we cannot be unless we are born again and led by His Spirit.

For we read in Galatians 5.22, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

Notice the promise does not say, Blessed are the meek, for they do inherit the earth.

In the 37th Psalm we read 3 times that the Lord's people shall inherit the earth and 3 times that they shall inherit the land.

Also we read the words, Their inheritance shall be forever.

We do not always see God's people inheriting the earth here now.

Many of them have no inheritance in the earth today at all.

While there are many blessings and promises in God's Word for God's people now, this promise of the inheritance of the earth is for the future.

This promise of Jesus does not apply to the present when the earth is occupied by both the wicked and the righteous.

How wonderful it is to be a Christian here and now.

His promises fulfilled right here on earth today.

Victory over the power and dominion of evil in our lives.

The promises of Christ reach right on into the age to come, into eternity itself.

It was Roland Hill, the famous preacher of over a hundred years ago, who told the story of a rich man and a poor man and his congregation.

The wealthy man desired to perform an act of benevolence, so he sent a sum of money to a friend to be given to a certain poor man as he thought best.

The friend sent him just 5 pounds with a note which said, This is thine, use it wisely, there is more to follow.

After a while he sent another 5 pounds and said, More to follow.

Again and again he sent money to the poor man, always with the cheering words More to follow.

So it is with the wonderful promises of God.

We are saved by grace through faith here and now, as we read in Ephesians 2.8.

Some people have the idea that at the end of the world the earth itself will burn up.

They base their idea on 2 Peter 3.10 which reads as follows.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

But notice, friends, this scripture does not say that the earth will be burned up.

It says that the works which are therein shall be burned up.

It says that the earth will melt the same as the elements.

The elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also.

There are over a hundred elements now that we know about, but it's the works, the works of men that are to be burned up, not the earth itself.

That's what the scripture says clearly and plainly.

And the works mentioned here are the works of the devil, which he, of course, does through evil men.

The Apostle John says that they are to be destroyed by our Lord, 1 John 3, verse 8.

They are the ones that are to be burned up, fulfilling the prophecy of the Scripture.

So sin and sinners will be removed from the earth in order to make way for the redeemed and the blessed who are to inherit the new earth.

The next verse, 2 Peter 3, verse 11, confirms this.

2 Peter 3, verse 11, seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?

You see, that brings it right down to us now.

The way we live now will decide whether or not we'll be in that new earth promised.

There are really 3 conditions of the earth brought to view in the scriptures.

The first, the earth before the flood, as it was when God first created it, the earth in its early pristine glory.

Second, the earth since the flood, the earth we live in now, which is really the wreckage of the great world which God made.

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The Earth for the Blessed

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