Secondly, Christ would have the nations know they are by God’s making His, and He by right “is the governor among the nations,” Psalms 22:28. For it is God who rules and overrules in all the affairs of men and nations. God is the supreme judge, king, and lawgiver among and above all the nations and pretenders to God’s authority in the earth. The interests of the nations are His interests, and it is in the interest of His Providence — His perfection, His wisdom, and His justice — to permit or prevent the rise and fall of nations.

“And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us. . .” Acts 17: 26–27

God is nowhere far from any one individual nor any one nation. Each nation has a providential history; each nation is given its own light to witness; each nation has its own testimony of the One True God so that no nation is, nor shall be, with an excuse for unbelief. He is working in each and every nation all at once, for He has established them all for His purposes, for the good of mankind, and for the glory of His Son, for the glory of Christ’s power to make men and nations free from bondage and slavery.

God governs the nations by teaching: of a Creator in Nature itself; of the care of Providence in the riches of the earth; of personal life, liberty, and property in self-evident truths written upon the heart of every individual; of misery in disobedience; of tyranny in slavery; of sin in dying and death; and of liberty in the power of Christ in the life of the individual.

Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World, has come, and His Spirit has entered the life of the individual believer. The world is not the same as in the Pagan Era. The darkness of that heathen era is slowly, gradually being dispelled by the dawning light of Christ’s Gospel of Light, Life and Liberty. When the individual receives Christ, the individual receives the internal abiding and residence of Christ’s Spirit, which is the Spirit of Liberty.

“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
II Corinthians 3:17

The increase of Christ’s spiritual liberty within the individual has a political expression in the natural increase of local self-government within a nation. That nation is blessed with its own internal peace, prosperity and independence whose people are governed internally by Christ.

(to be continued)