God’s work in connection with the children of Israel manifested at different times His mercy, power, patience and long-suffering, and also His holy indignation. He brought them forth from the land of Egypt and the house of bondage with an high hand. “He divided the sea and caused them to pass through,” and overthrew their enemies in that same sea; He sweetened the waters of Marah for them; “He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths”; “And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven”; and “He rained down flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls as the sand of the sea . . . So they did eat and were filled: for He gave them their one desire.” But above all else God “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 they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments.” Yet from the time of their entry into the wilderness, in face of all that God bestowed upon them of spiritual privileges and did for them in His good and marvellous care for them in providence, Israel as a people repeatedly provoked the Lord, tempted Him and even spake against Him. And we see in Psalm 78, from which we have been quoting, that the Lord waxed wroth against Israel because of their sins, as we read, “The wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel” (Ps. lxxviii. 31). Yet following upon the heavy judgments of their God upon them and the experience of His wrath therein, they were not even reformed as a people, inasmuch as the psalmist records from their history, “For all this they sinned still . . .” (Ps. lxxviii. 32). They went on sinning, and continued to dishonour God and expose themselves to further punishments. What hardness of heart, carnal boldness and blind folly! This is what men ruined by the Fall are capable of. Men under the power of their corrupt and wicked hearts do not appreciate God’s mercies nor His long-suffering with them in their ungodly living, and they are so brutish and ignorant that when God in His anger smites them, they cleave to their abominable works and continue to delight in the same. So it was with Israel time and again in the wilderness and during their subsequent history. How like we are as a nation and a people to Israel, as depicted in the aforementioned Psalm and their history as set forth in the books of Moses.
How has God dealt with us as a nation?
In times past God in His sovereign kindness raised up godly and able men who feared His name greatly to bring about a blessed reformation of religion both in Scotland and England, delivering the nation from the yoke of the Papacy and especially Episcopacy in Scotland. Thereby the Christian and Protestant faith was established in our midst and the Church and Cause of Christ set up firmly as a city set on a hill, and not without much suffering for Christ’s sake, on the part of our fathers. And throughout all the changes of a religious and ecclesiastical nature which have taken place since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there has been conserved and handed down to us in these present times an infallible and open Bible, the pure gospel of salvation, the sacraments instituted by Christ and the scriptural essentials of Church government. Although we are bound to state that those who value and adhere to the Truth and witness genuinely and faithfully on the side of Christ to-day, are indeed a small remnant throughout the length and breadth of our land; but they constitute God’s Zion and their religion and witness in the midst of the irreligious millions are derived from heaven. And, “except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah” (Isa. i. 9). So it is, that in the kindness and forbearance of God, the light of the gospel continues to shine among the sinning people of this land. Then in the government of God over men and nations, we have, in these modern times, been involved most deeply and disastrously in two international calamities, viz., the wars of 1914 and 1939. And out of these tremendous struggles for preservation and freedom the Lord commanded deliverances for Britain. That is instead of being oppressed by pagan tyrants such as Hitler, we have retained our freedom to live and work, and greatest of all, to worship the God of our fathers according to the Scriptures of Truth. All this is to the praise of Him that is Most High. Yet our sins on a national scale have been clearly evident whatever God has done for us, and His long-suffering and forbearance have been conspicuously extended to us for protracted periods. He has been long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all manner of sinners throughout the nation should come to repentance. Although since the end of the last World War, and indeed as we look back upon this year itself, we can call to remembrance, clear and evident judgments sent upon us by Him who “ruleth ever by His power,” indicating the divine indignation against us for our national iniquities. Among these adverse dispensations were the widespread floodings in the South of England and terrific and devastating storms around the coasts of the whole country, with serious loss of life and property. Then in Persia, Egypt, Kenya, Malay States and British Guiana our Government has been met with bitter criticism, opposition and armed resistance, involving much controversy, loss, and even bloodshed. From these sources have grown up sharp thorns to afflict us as a nation, and certainly not apart from the divine permission; as when Joshua warned Israel as to the result of backsliding, that heathen nations would be “. . . snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes . . .” (Joshua xxiii. 13). And further, by the grace of God, a witness on the side of righteousness and against transgression has been raised periodically in a public manner, by various parties concerned for the honour of the Lord and the moral and spiritual wellbeing of all classes throughout the land. For example, a sound and public witness against His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, for open violations of the law of the Sabbath, has been raised again and again. But in general, however, God deals with us, there seemeth to be a fixed determination among the people to live without law to God.
How do we continue to conduct ourselves as a nation?
Our iniquities testify against us, and our backslidings are many, and there does not yet appear to be even a tendency to return from our national sins; inasmuch as the fact remains that we proceed apace in the pursuit and practice of all manner of evil, undeterred, unabashed, unafraid and unaffected by the general mercy and kindness of God toward us, by divine warnings, the patience and forbearance of heaven and by those drops of God’s wrath which have fallen upon us during this year itself. For all this we sin still. Our blindness, hardness, boldness and folly are to be clearly seen in the revealing light of the Scriptures of Truth.
We constantly read and hear of undermining attacks made upon the Inspired Word of God by modernistic theologians, and we are assured that multitudes of professed ministers of the Gospel are false prophets throughout the visible Christian Church in the land, and who preach not the blessed Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, but another gospel which pleases the worldly-minded. And as to the public worship of God, the most have long since forsaken the assembling of themselves together for this purpose, even after a formal manner. Those who frequent the public means of grace are a peculiar people to-day in the most of villages, towns and cities, by reason of the fact that they are a small company comparatively, when one considers the hundreds, thousands and millions who have long since ceased to attend any place of worship as a regular practice. There are millions who are Churchless. Many blame the Churches for this state of affairs. This is justly a line of argument. But we seriously state that the masses who have abandoned connection with the professing Christian Church have largely done so, on the one hand, out of complete indifference to the things which relate to God, the soul and eternity, and on the other, on account of being inordinately swallowed up with the cares of this world and carnal attractions of the broad way that leads to destruction. As to the National Churches in Scotland and England, the English Church is permeated with men who seek to bring about reunion with the Church of Rome and with Romish practices, and as to the Church of Scotland, many of the leaders within her pale are working to introduce Episcopacy into her services and to accomplish union with the Church of England. And so past times of Reformation are either forgotten or sneered at.
The holy Sabbath Day is trampled underfoot by all sections of the nation, and the binding obligation of the Fourth Commandment rejected out of hand by multitudes. Immorality and infidelity are rife and the marriage bond is treated with contempt by an ever increasing number. The divorce courts cast a lurid light upon this phase of our sinning still. Brutality and murder occur most frequently, and even young lads in their teens will knife and murder their fellow like dogs after the prey. And this in an educated and so-called enlightened age. God is not in all their thoughts, and parents have reared these, their offspring, as heathen. As to dishonesty, the prisons of the land are full of thieves, housebreakers and embezzlers. And as to the sin of covetousness it is as a plague throughout the homes of Britain, in which football pool betting is the regular order of the week-end. Here is a thirst and a craving for sums of money without due and proper work or service. Millions of pounds are spent on betting on horse racing and dog racing, and many homes ruined thereby. And what of the crowded sports stadiums throughout the country, the crowded theatres and cinemas, the altogether abnormal and phenomenal output of fiction devoured by readers of all ages, the music festivals, the innumerable organised and public dances in town and countryside, to which hordes of young men and women proceed when normal people are retiring to rest for the night? The answer to all this is that the masses are living for time, for self, for the flesh, and for the god of this world, and for “the pleasures of sin which are but for a season.”
It does appear that a substantial cross-section of the population of Britain are heathen, being completely in the dark as to the true contents of the Bible, ignorant of the revealed truth of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, one God, ignorant of what sin is, and to whom the glorious Saviourship of Christ Jesus is just a matter of no meaning, moment or value. And to these among us, the eternal world with heaven and hell is non-existent. They just don’t know and do not believe in such assertions. And so we continue and persevere in all manner of evil on a national scale; and only one thing can reform, change and bring to repentance the people of our beloved land, and that is the forthcoming from God, for the sake of His only Son Jesus Christ, of the exceeding greatness of the power of the Holy Spirit, first to the true people of God and then to sinners in general. On the day of Pentecost the Apostles were firstly endued with power from on high, then through their gospel the people were awakened and converted. And so may God yet in His sovereign mercy bring to us times of refreshing from His presence, and thus that “Zion by the mighty Lord built up again shall be” (Ps. cii. 16).