Did you ever wish that you were a member of the royal family—a prince or a princess, the child of a king? No one can be adopted into the royal family because all the members must be of “the blood royal.” So it is only by royal birth that one can get into the royal family.

Of course there is no difference between what men call “royal blood,” and any other; for God “hath made of one blood all nations of men.” In His sight there is no difference between the white, the black, and the red man; the master and the slave; the king and the peasant.

There is really only one truly royal family, and of that every child who is born into this world may become a member. Would you not like to know what that family [is], and how you may get into it?

It is the family of the great King of heaven and earth,—the One who will “be King over all the earth,” when all the kingdoms of this world shall have passed away for ever. Is it not a grand and glorious thing to belong to His family?

“Adam was the son of God.” But he lost his high position as a member of the royal family, and so he lost also the crown of glory and honour that his heavenly Father had given him.

But Jesus died to restore all that Adam lost, and to bring back to the Father His lost sons and daughters. He came to “bring many sons unto glory,” to make them again of royal blood, sharers of His own kingly nature. So He is calling all to leave the family of the wicked one, who is the father of all evil, and to come back to the Father’s house, the household of God. He says:—

“Come out from among them, and be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord AImighty.”

When God led the Israelites out from the darkness and sinfulness of Egypt, He said to them: “Ye shall be unto Me a kingdom.” But He is “the King of kings.” Every one who belongs to His kingdom, becomes a king, as Adam was in the beginning.

Do you remember the beautiful song of the redeemed that we spoke of last week: “Unto Him that . . . hath made us kings and priests unto God”?

So when God said, “Ye shall be unto Me a kingdom,” He meant that they should be His family, and that each one of them should be a “king and a priest.” And what He said to them, He says to us also, “ye shall be unto Me a kingdom.” So let us see how this can be.

God gives to us “exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine nature.” If we are to be kings, members of the family of the great King of the universe, we must have the royal blood; we must share His kingly life, and have His Divine nature. And He says that it is His great and precious promises that are to make this wonderful change for us.

And what a change! Think of the Israelites, a nation of slaves; all that we have learned of them thus far shows their cowardice; their slavish fear, their unbelief and hardness of heart. And was it such as these that God wanted for His kingdom? Yes, for

“He raiseth up the poor out of the dust;
He lifteth up the needy from the dunghill;
To make them sit with princes,
And inherit the throne of glory.”

So no matter how poor, how low, how sinful we may be, God can make us kings.

The first thing that God did after He sent the message to Israel that if they would obey His voice they should be His kingdom, was to give them the “exceeding great and precious promises” by which they might become kings, partakers of the Divine nature.

That they might realise more of the mighty power of Him who spoke these precious promises to them, and to know how able He was to fulfil them all, God come down in terrible majesty upon the Mount Sinai, and the holy angels with Him.

“His glory covered the heavens,
And the earth was full of His praise,
His brightness was as the light.”

And “there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud. And all the people that were in the camp trembled. . . . And Mount Sinai was altogether on smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.”

Then from the midst of this glory, God spoke to the people “the Royal Law,” that had the power to make them kings, those great and precious promises that would make them partakers of the Divine nature, and therefore members of the Royal Family.

And that they might know the power of God’s Word to carry out all that He said, “His voice then shook the earth.”

Did you ever hear the story of the old woman who was so calm in the midst of an earthquake, that her friends asked her how it was that she could keep so peaceful when in such danger? Her answer is well worth remembering: she said that “she was glad that she had a God who could shake the earth.”

But when God came down upon Mount Sinai to show His people His power to give them life and to keep them from sin, which brings death, they “trembled and stood afar off,” and said to Moses, “Let not God speak with us, lost we die!” Moses was the only one who dared to draw near to hear the joyful sound of God’s almighty Word.

On the opposite page you can read the words that God spoke to them, and as you do so, you will see that each of these commandments is, like all the commands of God, a precious promise to all who will believe and receive the Word.

God promised them that they should have no other gods before Him; that they should not make nor worship any graven image; that they should not take His name in vain, that they should remember His Sabbath and keep it holy; that they should honour their parents and live for ever in the new earth; that they should not kill, steal, lie, nor covet.

Were not these great and precious promises, and would not such a people be kings indeed? Yes; if they had heard in faith, the Almighty Word, which created the heavens and the earth, would have fulfilled itself in them. It would have written itself in their hearts, and worked out in them all these precious things that God promised.

And this is what it will do for us, if we hear and believe it. It will write the Father’s name upon us, so that we shall be recognised as His children, as members of His royal family, by all who know Him.

“His commandment is life everlasting.”

The Present Truth – May 16, 1901
E. J. Waggoner

The Royal Law