Preached by the Rev. E. MACQUEEN, in St. Jude’s Glasgow,
24th April, 1933.
II.
(Continued from page 51.)
“For He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children. That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children. That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments. And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation: a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God” (Psalm lxxviii. 5-8).
(1). Let me notice again that He gave many revelations of His love to them—many revelations of having made choice of them; and the first revelation I would ask you to notice is His words: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore, will I punish you for all your iniquities.” If you are a chosen one, the Lord will have His rod on your back. First of all, the rod of His law, and secondly, the rod of His providence, just like a good father. You will know a loving father; he will not allow his child, or children to go wrong, or grow careless. He will lay the rod on their back. I may say that I see the mark of the
beast coming on this generation by the behaviour of many fathers and mothers, who are supported by some governments and school authorities. They think the rod should not be used in correction. You will find a fool of a mother going to the schoolmaster and shouting: “Did you strap my child?” He must be brought before the school authority. That is just breaking down all law and order and making those youngsters to be the masters. One reason why an idolatrous generation is up in arms against true religion, is because it punishes their children for wrong doing. Therefore they manufacture a new religion for themselves, and for those whom they think such beautiful children; children, according to them, who have never sinned and have had no connection with Adam at all. They were born good, and have no necessity for the New Birth. From the gospel which they read, God and the New Birth are ousted entirely. My friends, it is not a gospel at all, but just a hotch-potch of something else that is so prevalent in our midst to-day.
(2). Next I would point out that He shows His love to His people by giving them the sacraments. That night long ago in Egypt the blood was put on the two door-posts and the lintel, and the people were given to feed on the Passover Lamb. That which typified—”the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” Oh! my friends, did you not see a mark of the Saviour’s love when you saw that Table spread, and the symbols of the broken body and shed blood of the Lord of Glory on that Table. It was a seal, a mark of God’s love to poor sinners in this congregation. Not only has He given them that mark, He has given them another mark. What was, or is that mark? It was separateness. The poor Jews are still seeking for the Messiah to come. I suppose that if you were to go among the children of Abraham, according to the flesh, in the city of Glasgow, you would find that they have the outward mark of circumcision in the flesh. That mark shows that they were cut away from every other nation, and they were accepting the Most
High as their covenant God and they were giving themselves up to Him as His Covenant people. They were separate. We are told! “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.”
II. I proceed to notice next what the Most High gave.
Here we are told: “He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel.” You will find that the Word of God at the time when this Psalm was given to Asaph had not many books. At the same time let us notice how did they look upon these books? Did they, and did the Holy Ghost look upon them as some of the professors in Scotland did, and do? They did not. We do not know all that is being said, because we are away from them now. Some said that some of the books of Moses were a wilderness of weary waste. I remember, even when I was a boy, our minister was getting so frail that he required an assistant or helper as they were sometimes called. The helper had to preach at a certain place which was very outlandish with no road from it for a gig, or cart. A crofter took his horse and put the minister in the saddle, and was just on the verge of setting out for Portree. The minister was anxious to find out from the crofter whether he was having family worship in his home. The man said, “Certainly, I have been born and brought up to keep family worship.” “Do you read all the Books of the Bible?” asked the minister. “Certainly! I read them all,” was the reply. “Well,” said the minister, “I would advise you not to read the Book of Deuteronomy, especially among women and children, there are so many immoral things in the Book of Deuteronomy.” The crofter called: “Come down out of that saddle, and go on your own pins to Portree. A man who says that the Book of Deuteronomy is immoral is not fit to sit on the back of my horse.”
(1). Notice now first of all in regard to God’s testimonies. When a man is giving a testimony he is put on oath. My
friends, the God of Heaven in giving us His Word, has given it on oath, and He has given us the truth, and nothing but the truth. When a man is brought before a judge as a witness; before he gives his evidence he is asked to hold up his right hand and say: “I swear by Almighty God, as I shall have to answer unto God at the great day of judgment, that I will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Here it is brought before us by the Most High Himself, that He established a testimony.
Let us notice His testimony regarding Himself. Look you, my friends, at the five Books of Moses: at the outset we see God as a Creator. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” That is God’s testimony regarding Himself. That He is Creator is very clear. There is nothing hazy there. Any haziness is in human minds. Some people say to me: “Oh! minister, you are too blunt, you ought to go round about things a little.” If I may use the words, “God is not ambiguous.” In all His declarations about Himself as Judge He is very clear. “I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return. That unto me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess.” Is there anything ambiguous there? He brings before us here the testimony of Himself that He is the Covenant God of His people, and their Saviour; as it is written: “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else.” Is there ambiguity there? There is not. That is a very clear testimony. You know that a will which is drawn up simply is all the better. A testimony or will is made in connection with the death of the testator. If I may so put it, there is nothing clearer in the Word of God, than that the Testator making this testimony was to die Himself, in order that He would seal that testimony in His own blood. Is there ambiguity there?
(2). Notice in the next place that God gives a glorious testimony even in the Books of Moses of the things regarding
“the fall of man.” He is very concise, for God does not require to use many words. In the first chapters of the Book of Genesis you will find an account of the “fall of man.” “God created man, male and female, after His own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness,” says our Shorter Catechism. “Being left to the freedom of their own will, they sinned and fell in Adam’s first transgression.” Death and misery followed the trail of man’s sin. Is there ambiguity there? That is a clear testimony revealed all down the ages to this moment. I may say that I feel myself to be in the fourth generation since I began to preach here. I need not say that I cannot see the original congregation of thirty-eight or thirty-nine years ago. But God’s testimony regarding them stands. The time comes for each one to die, even, although there were among them many gracious men and women. For “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”
(3). Notice in the third place, that God gave a clear testimony as to how a sinner is to be saved.
First of all, there is the testimony of the ceremonial law; that it was only by the shedding of blood remission could be obtained. Yet it is clearly pointed out that the blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sins. When the Second Person of the adorable Trinity came into the world He said: “Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body has thou prepared me.” Though this is a mystery of God, yet it is the testimony of God that by the death of Emmanuel the way for the sinner has been opened. Some would say it was only His humanity which died. Never was His humanity separated from His divinity. It was the Eternal God in human nature, and no other who died, and He died to make reconciliation for the sins of His people. The Father gives clear testimony of Him. “Deliver from going down to the pit: for I have found a ransom.” Let me point out, has it not been established in St. Jude’s that it was by the regeneration of the Holy Ghost, it is possible
for us to embrace Christ. Are we now to put from us the necessity of being “born again,” and the necessity of sanctification? For “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”
“He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel.”
There were three kinds of law—the ceremonial, which was abolished. There was also the moral law which took and takes to do with every individual in every age. Men to-day, and many of them in high places, do not believe this. Nelson, when he got the command from the admiral of the fleet, put the glass to his blind eye and carried on and won the battle. Men in high positions in our day when it comes to concerns between God and men, put the glass to the blind eye but never win any battles for good. They rob God of what belongs to Him. They give God’s property to men. Are we not as a nation immoral? There is the ceremonial law, and there is the moral law. People may say what they like and think as they please, but they cannot get away from the moral law. The moral law takes to do with you. You may be unconscious of the moral law, but it is a truth: man cannot get away from the moral law, either in time or eternity. Angels high in glory cannot get away from it and as angels cannot get away from it neither can you or I. God has appointed laws, and they will be to the end of the world, and throughout eternity. Yes! the moral law will meet the soul in a lost eternity, but the Almighty has appointed another law, the law of the gospel. Oh! blessed be the name of God for ever for the law of the gospel. “Ah! minister,” someone may say, “now in that connection you are wrong altogether, what’s happened when you call the gospel a law?” Yes! and if you were more of a theologian than you are an Arian you would see that the Apostle Paul calls the gospel a law, and it is a Law of all laws. And where is the gospel called a law? In the eighth chapter of the epistle to the Romans, there he speaks of two laws, (1) “the law of sin and death;” (2) he speaks again of “the
law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.” That is the law of the everlasting gospel. Blessed be the name of the Lord. God has appointed these laws and given them to us, and has given them to His Church. Whatever may become of some of us before we leave the world we cannot deny but that we felt the power of the Lord Jesus delivering us from the law of sin and death.
III. We will now consider the charge God gave.
“And charged our fathers it to show to their succeeding race.” I know and acknowledge before the Most High His protection and goodness, and I put it to your own hearts, that although the Almighty has been so good to you, do you when you rise in the morning, commend Him? Do you speak of His laws at your work, and when you come home for your meals? “Ah!” you will say, “that is really too much.” Yes! it is too much for the carnal man. Most people are ashamed to be seen going to Church with a Bible or going to Church at all. Are you ashamed of the Bible? Most of the people to-day in Scotland are ashamed of Presbyterianism. You see how the Church of Scotland is going over to Episcopacy. Oh! Scotland, Scotland, what—hast thou come to be ashamed of Presbyterianism? Ashamed of the clear testimony of the God of Heaven. Ashamed of the religion for which John Knox contended. Ashamed of the things for which Alexander Henderson and men like him suffered so many years ago. “Ah! yes, minister,” you will be saying, “but it’s fine to see a minister dressed with a beautiful white gown, instead of your dull black coats.” Ah! yes! for the carnal mind it is fine to have a man dressed like that going up to the altar, having the collection sanctified and all the rest of it. “Fine! fine!” you say. Poor Elders! Poor Elders of the Church of Scotland! they are going in with their eyes open to what is not the clear testimony of the God of Heaven. Can you find Episcopalianism in the Word of God? You cannot.
One of the many reasons why the Church of England is as it is to-day, is because Henry the Eighth wanted to be Pope himself. As far as the Episcopalians are concerned the majority of them in our day, with their bishops and priests, are Roman Catholics. And we know ourselves that there are many in the Church of Scotland as popish as the Episcopalians in the Church of England.
“ His testimony and His law
in Israel He did place,
And charged our fathers it to show
to their succeeding race.”
I was born of Presbyterian parents. I am not ashamed of it, and I hope I will die a Free Presbyterian. I hope to be enabled as long as I live to hold up the banner of Presbyterianism. I am not a prophet, but I believe the day is not far off, when there will be a big union and a Bill brought before Parliament appealing that there be only one Church. Black outlook for Presbyterianism! Are you charging your sons and daughters to read the Bible? Are you charging your young men with God’s testimony? Do you pray? Do you keep to God’s Word? Are you walking in the testimony of the Lord, in that way which God has pointed out to you? You may think that you can get rid of God’s testimony and God’s law. You never can. He charged our fathers and their succeeding race, for the reason that the children might set their hope in God. I was about five months living in England and I went to an Episcopalian Church. Between the bowing and responses and everything I saw and heard, my brain was reeling, so that I would be saying to myself: “I wish I could get out without being seen.” At one time the minister (or should I say the priest) cried out: “The Lord be with you, the Lord cause His face to shine upon you!” Then the congregation would respond “and be with your spirit,” and commence bowing. That my friends, and things like that, is that which is wooing the hearts of so many of the poor Presbyterians of the Church of Scotland.
“Charged our fathers.” Why? “That they might set their hope in God.” If there is one thing required more than another in this day, it is that you set your hope in God. “What are you to do this Communion Monday?” I believe God is saying to us!
“Set your hope in God,
and suffer not to fall
His mighty works out of your mind,
but keep His precepts all.”
And be not like the fathers in the days of Asaph, “a stiff rebellious race.”
Dear friends, in conclusion, some of us are nearing the end of our journey. Death has taken away your former minister, and now by the goodness of God you have got another. Be attentive on the means of grace, to the testimony and laws of God.
“Set your hope in God,
and suffer not to fall
His mighty works out of your mind,
but keep His precepts all.”
Keep to Presbyterianism, not because it is Presbyterianism, but because it is the clear testimony of God. Presbyterianism is based on God’s Word. It is founded on God’s law. You keep to it.
— The late Mr. Alex. Mackenzie, Elder, Dingwall.
ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, our late elder, passed to his rest on Saturday, the 27th day of January, 1934, at the age of 80 years. He was born at Ardessie, Little Lochbroom, and was to trade a shipwright. Owing to his trade and family circumstances, he settled down in early life for a period in Glasgow, where he enjoyed God’s appointed means of grace, for a time, in St. Jude’s Church. On account of his trade, he was a good deal abroad, on ships, and also on yachts in
home waters, during the summer seasons. Latterly, he settled down near Dingwall and then in the town itself, where he was a most helpful and conscientious elder in the congregation.
Of Alexander Mackenzie, it could be said that the spirit and substance of the 84th Psalm was in his soul. The place of God’s honour was lovely to him. He loved God’s Word, God’s Day, God’s Cause. It grieved him to the heart to see, and know of, all forms of Sabbath-breaking. On one occasion, he reproved boys who were amusing themselves on the Lord’s Day on the street. They watched him until a suitable opportunity was got, and running behind him, knocked off his hat into the roadway. Such occurrences may seem of light moment to thoughtless boys and young men, but these misdeeds and the spirit of revenge following reproof are but scabs of the moral leprosy and malice within which shows itself in these outbreaks. The disease of immorality rages within, and will do so eternally, unless repentance and divine mercy reach such miserable souls. He had the blessing of such as are hated and reviled for righteousness’ sake. “Great is your reward in heaven.”
He had internal trouble some years ago from which he recovered to a great extent, in the good providence of the Lord. About August of last year, he fell ill again. Complications set in, and it could be seen that the tabernacle was coming down apace. He suffered much, and it was repeatedly thought that one of the severe turns which came upon him would mean his end. He was spared, however, until the 27th of January, as mentioned already. His fellow-elders and others were most mindful of him when on his deathbed—also ministers who could spare the time to visit him when passing through. He was beloved in the congregation for his modesty, humility and gracious Christian character and consistency. We miss him much in Dingwall. He has been taken home to be with Christ, which is far better. His remains lie near
those of the late John Maciver, Scorraig—his brother in the Lord—in Dundonnell Cemetery, until Christ come the second time. With his daughter, who attended upon him devotedly to the end, and with the other members of his family, we sincerely sympathise. May they follow his faith, and consider the end of his conversation!—D. A. MacF.
The late Mr. Simon Campbell, Beauly.
THE late Simon Campbell, who died in Beauly, in November of 1932, was an Israelite indeed in whom was no guile. He was brother-in-law to Alexander Mackenzie, of whom we have just been writing. They were both exemplary in their lives, alive to the plague within, rejoicing in the remedy, fearing God and eschewing evil, yet how greatly they differed from one another in characteristics and temperament! Simon Campbell was, after a manner, an exposition of the word, “Happy art thou, O Israel!” He was happy in being allowed of the Lord to attend His house at all!—and doubtless the Lord of the house gave him from time to time that meat to eat which the world knoweth not of. He could neither read the Gaelic nor the English Bible, but the word dwelt richly in him for all that. The gospel that the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth from all sin, made Simon Campbell happy. “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice,” was no burdensome appeal to Simon, although he was not ignorant of Satan’s fiery darts and his own stoniness. He suffered long and patiently in his closing days, and was lovingly cared for. He had little to say of himself, at least in the way of complaint, when one visited him. He had such a lengthy mental list of friends whom he longed to know of that one might think he scarcely was weak and ill at all. To be in the company of the brethren, to be able to go to the house of God or to a Communion was Simon’s
heaven upon earth. Had this aged Israelite lived in Judah’s land in Old Testament times, he would have been among the foremost to be up at the holy feasts thrice in the year. He would not have felt the command grievous although a cypher were added to the figure three, for going up every year to Jerusalem, “to God’s name thanks to pay.”
We need not remark much on the details of his life in the world. He belonged to Scorrnaig—was by occupation a shepherd, went to the Falkland Isles, and fled from them on account of unnecessary Sabbath-work—finally came to reside in Beauly and died at the age of 76 years.
Mr. Samuel Fraser, elder, wrote to me at the time:—”Dear old Simon Campbell passed away to his eternal rest on Sabbath morning at 5 a.m. (i.e., 13th November). What a Sabbath it would have been for him! . . . The funeral is to take place . . . to the Urray Cemetery. Rev. Mr. Macqueen is expected to be present, and Rev. D. J. Matheson may be there also . . . .” A number of the brethren were able to be present at his burial, and is not Simon Campbell among Christ’s “kings,” for that he did good in Israel, both toward God and toward His house?
May the Lord deal bountifully with the household of this worthy man that they may be with him when the former things are passed away!—D. A. MacF.