In many other nations a similar expectation has been cherished. We find
it, for example, among some of the tribes of our North American
Indians. It is world-wide, in other words, in its range. It is no
peculiarity of the Jews. But let us confine ourselves a moment to their
particular hope. It is a perfectly natural belief. It required no
revelation in order for it to grow up. They believed that the God of
the world, of the universe, was their God; that they were his chosen
people. Do you not see what a necessary corollary would be a belief in
their ultimate prosperity and triumph? God would certainly bless and
give the kingdom to that people which he had specially selected for his
own. And so, as the coming of the kingdom was postponed, they believed
that it was because they had not complied with the divine conditions,
they had not kept the law or they had not been good, they had not
obeyed him. Somehow, they had done wrong; and that was the reason the
kingdom so long delayed.
Remember another thing. We have come, in this modern time, to place the
kingdom away off in another world after the close of this life. The
Jews had no such belief about it. They expected it to come right here
on this poor little planet of ours; and they expected that a kingdom
was to be set up which was not only to place them at the head of
humanity, but through them was to bless all mankind. Different thinkers
among them held different views, but this in substance was the belief;
and they were constantly looking for signs of this imminent revolution
which was to make the kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of our God
and of his Christ, that is, his Anointed One.
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