The breadth of the kingdom.
"They shall behold the land of far distances". We look at—
I. THE BREADTH OF THE HISTORICAL KINGDOM. Judah was to be delivered from her Assyrian oppressor. At present she was beleaguered, shut in on every hand, by the invading army; her citizens had no range of land they could traverse—they were confined to the narrow circle made by the besieging hosts of Sennacherib. But soon those boundaries would be removed, the army would be scattered and would disappear. Then the country would be open everywhere; in whatsoever direction they looked they would see hills they might climb and valleys they might cultivate at will; as far as the eye could reach the country would be free to the traveler and to the husbandman. They would behold a "land of far distances," a broad kingdom they might call their own.
II. THE BREADTH OF THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM. That kingdom of Christ, wherein we stand and in which we so much rejoice, is a "land of far distances," a region of glorious breadth of view and range of motion and of action. There is nothing in it that is limiting, nothing that confines; everything is on an enlarged scale. There is about it a noble and inviting freedom; the horizon-line recedes perpetually as we advance. This applies in full to its distinguishing features.
1. The grace of God shown to us in Jesus Christ. The breadth, the fullness, of the Divine Father's love in giving us his Son (John 3:16; Romans 8:32); the fullness of the Saviors love in making such a sacrifice of heavenly dignity, glory, and joy (John 1:1-14; Philippians 2:6, Philippians 2:7; Philippians 2:1-30 Cur. 8:9), and stooping to such depths of darkness, shame, and woe, humbling himself even unto death: what glorious breadths and depths and heights have we here!
2. The mercy of God now extended to us in Jesus Christ; reaching to those who have gone furthest in presumptuous sin, in vice, in crime, in unspeakable enormities; extending to those who have sinned against the clearest light and the most gracious influences; touching those who have gone to the very verge of human life: what noble breadths, what far distances, have we here!
3. The patience of Christ with his erring and imperfect followers.
4. The usefulness of a devoted and generous Christian life. Who can calculate the extent to which a life of holy love, of self-denying service, stretches out and flows on, out into the remote distance of space, on into the far future of time?
III. THE BREADTH OF THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM. We confidently expect to find in the heavenly country a "land of far distances."
1. In its spatial dimensions; if, indeed, that can be truly said to have dimensions which is boundless in its lengths and breadths. To no narrow sphere, reckoned in yards or miles, shall we there be limited. Our outlook will be one that is immeasurably large, for the country of the blessed is, "to our heart and to our hoping," a land of very far distances indeed.
2. In the excellences and glories of the character of its King. When will the time come that we shall have covered all the ground in that great exploration, that we shall have surveyed all the heights and traversed all the breadths of the glorious and beautiful character of the Son of God? There are regions beyond regions, summits beyond summits, there.
3. In the capacities of its subjects. There is something of great interest and of genuine worth in the growth of the human mind from infancy to maturity; something well worthy of being watched and in every way to be desired. But there comes a point beyond which that development may not go; there is a meridian-line, reached at a different age by different men, across which we may not step, at which it is imperative that we return, that we decline. We dare to hope that, in the "land of far distances," that boundary-line is indefinitely far off; that "age after age, forever," we shall go on acquiring not only knowledge but power, the horizon-line of spiritual maturity continually receding as we advance in wisdom and strength.
4. In the range of its service. "His servants shall serve him;" and in what varieties of way may we not hope to serve him there? Here the service of God and of man takes many forms—we can serve by action and by suffering, by example and by persuasion, in word and deed, in things secular and in things sacred, alone and in company with others. We look for a land, we wait for a life, in which opportunities of serving the Eternal Father and of blessing his children will be far more numerous, far more varied, far greater and nobler in their nature. We hope for a land of such glorious breadth on every hand that, not only in our enlarged capacities, but also in our multiplied and magnified opportunities, we shall find it a "land of great distances."