by Rev. Donald MacLean, Glasgow
(The following sermon was preached by the Rev. Donald MacLean, Glasgow, on Monday, 2nd April, 1973, in Fort William.)
“And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and His rest shall be glorious.” (Isaiah, 11: 10.)
These words evidently apply to the glory of the New Testament church. It was at that time that the Gentiles, who before had in large measure been deprived of the Gospel of the grace of God, were to be gathered in. From the time of Abraham, and especially from the time of the Sinaitic covenant, the Word and ordinances of God had been given to Israel. To them were committed the oracles of God, and they enjoyed these privileges down through the generations until the Messiah came. After the death, resurrection and ascension of the Messiah, the Word of God was spread abroad to the Gentile nations, and they began to seek the One Who is able “to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him”.
It is true, of course, that even with regard to the family of David himself, there was a Gentile in the person of Ruth brought in to taste of the blessings of that covenant which contain “the sure mercies of David”. Again, in the days of the Saviour, we read of the Greeks who came up to the feast to seek Him Who is “the desire of all nations”, and who said, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” There were indications from time to time of this day when the Gospel would not be confined to Jerusalem or Judah any more, but would be spread abroad among the Gentile nations, and would continue in its glorious work till time should be no longer.
The Root of Jesse
We shall now, as we may be enabled, make a few remarks in the first place on what is said here with regard to the “Root of Jesse”. “In that day there shall be a Root of Jesse.” That is the first thing the Holy Spirit brings before us with respect to the Gospel day, and with respect to the spreading of the Gospel abroad. It is bound up with the Person Who is referred to here in these words: “the Root of Jesse”.
In the second place, we shall notice what this Root of Jesse became. We read here, He was to “stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek”. He was to be as the ensign, the banner around which souls gathered, who were like the Gentiles by nature, without God and without hope in the world. This is the One of Whom we read, “My beloved is white and ruddy.” He is “the chiefest among ten thousand”, or He is “the standard-bearer among ten thousand”. He is the ensign to which the Gentiles were to seek, and the One to Whom souls were to be gathered. As Jacob said on his deathbed, speaking of the prophecy regarding the tribe of Judah — “the sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come”, and unto Him was the gathering of the people to be. The word used for “the people” in that particular prophecy, is the word used with regard to the Gentiles. They were to gather to Shiloh, the Prince of Peace, the Peacemaker, the One of Whom Paul said to the church in Ephesus, “For He is our peace, Who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition.” He took away “the middle wall of partition” which closed the Gentiles out from penetrating too far into the temple, and closed them into the court of the Gentiles. That middle wall was taken away, and the Gentiles, who before had been kept outside, were now in a special way to come to the Saviour, to come to this ensign, and to gather and rally round it.
In the third place we shall notice how the Holy Spirit tells us here that with regard to this ensign, this banner fluttering in the breeze, which men could see, and to which men could gather, the rest of Him Who is the standard-bearer shall be glorious. “His rest shall be glorious.” This is the true glory of the church of God in a state of grace, that “God of Zion hath made choice” as we were singing in the Psalm. “There He desires to dwell. This is My rest.” He said. “here still I’ll stay; for I do like it well.” The true glory of the church is to have the presence of the Lord. That is what constitutes her true glory. “His rest shall be glorious.” This is what makes the church of God what it is, as every soul who like Moses has been born again and has been united to this glorious One, well knows. Moses said, “Except Thy presence go with me, carry us not up hence.” This was the glory of the camp of Israel, the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. “His rest shall be glorious”, and it was also part of the glory that the Gentiles were to be gathered in, as we shall come to notice.
Now, first of all, a few remarks on the first point brought before us here: “And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse.” We read with regard to the Saviour that He is “the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright and morning Star”. Just as the morning star indicated the ushering in of the day, so “the Root and the Offspring of David” in His appearance in the world was an indication of the day of the Gospel being ushered in. Sometimes we think of the words, “the Root and the Offspring of David”, as Christ being the Root of David in the sense of being his Creator, and being his Offspring in the sense of His being the man Christ Jesus. We feel, however, that in this portion the meaning is that He is the “Root of Jesse” with respect to the fact that the family of Jesse and the family of David at the time of the ushering in of the Gospel day, at the time of the appearance of “the bright and morning Star”, would be in a low and miserable condition, that, as it were, the tree of the family of Jesse would be lying on the ground. Nothing would appear to the outward eye with regard to that tree but the reign of death, until this root would be seen to be there. When Christ appeared in this world, the cause of Christ in the house of David was in a very low, very sad, and very miserable condition.
The spirit of prophecy had departed four hundred years before then with the death of Malachi, and now death reigned in the church of the Jews; spiritual death and darkness reigned. Formalism reigned in the hearts of the Pharisees and unbelief reigned in the hearts of the Sadducees, and the womb of the church was just as barren spiritually as the womb of Sarah was in the natural sense. But “the things which are impossible with men are possible with God”. It was then that the “Root of Jesse” appeared. It was when the family of Jesse and the tribe of Judah and the Jews were in this low and miserable condition of death reigning on every hand, and the Pharisees and the Sadducees full of a religion founded upon spiritual death. (“that which is of the flesh is flesh”), that the “Root of Jesse” appeared.
I am stressing that point, because we should not be unduly discouraged in the day and generation in which we live. There are many signs of discouragement, and Satan, of course, is very anxious to add to the discouragement, because he knows very well that if he can discourage the people of God, if he can cast them down, if he can weaken their witness and weaken their zeal, and cause their love to be cold, he will get his way much more easily. We should not err on the side of being unduly cast down. There is such a thing as being unduly cast down. The Apostle tells us in the exhortation with regard to Satan going about “as a roaring lion” “seeking whom he may devour”, not merely to be vigilant, but also to be sober. Be sober, and do not be the victims of every passing phase, the victims of every appearance of destruction and death. “Be sober, be vigilant,” he said, “because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” There is to be a sobriety and a steadfastness and an exercise of the spirit of judgment which lies in the Person of the glorious Head of the church and which is communicated to His people.
The Pharisees, of course, have their modern type in the Roman Catholic Church, because in it they add to the Word of God. They add their own traditions, as the Saviour said, to the Word of God, and put men astray from the Word of God by reason of their traditions. Just as the Pharisees were powerful in the days when the “Root of Jesse” appeared, so they are powerful now, and reigning with tremendous power. Just as the Pharisees claimed that they believed the Bible to be the inspired, infallible Word of God, so does the Roman Catholic Church. The controversy over the infallibility of the Bible was not a controversy at the time of the Reformation. It is something which has arisen within the past one hundred and fifty years — within the Protestant church, although it is now developing in the Roman Catholic Church. There are modernists there as well as in the Protestant church. The point just now is that when the Roman Catholic Church is in power, and so powerful throughout the world, and using its influence so much, it is a sign of great spiritual death in the generation in which we live.
The Sadducees were those who did not believe in the resurrection. They did not believe in supernatural things. They were infidels within the Jewish church. We have these too in the professing Protestant church, and now also in the professing Roman Catholic Church. That is part of the trouble which is rising more and more within the Roman Catholic Church. It is not the power of Protestantism and it is not the power of the Gospel, but it is the power of modernism. That is what is shaking the Pope, and disturbing him. When some theologians, such as Hans Kung, are criticising his infallibility, they are not criticising it from the point of view of Protestantism, but from the point of view of a form of liberalism which is an extension of the ideas of Karl Barth.
The point I want to make at the present time is this — powerful though all these forces are, and tremendously powerful as these forces are, and tremendously powerful as the forces of secular power and worldliness and immorality and sin are in our day and generation, that is no reason why we should be unduly cast down. It was just at a time when such death reigned in the Jewish church, that the “Root of Jesse” appeared. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 46, with regard to the point we are raising. “God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.” The words “right early” there mean at the turn of the morning. The Lord shall help her at the turn of the morning. The darkest hour just before the dawn, and that is the time when the Lord is to help His church as He did in the case of Sarah. When her womb was barren, and when she was the age that she was, and Abraham was the age he was, it was then that Isaac was born. When the church, and the womb of the church, was barren, and God’s people were weak, just men like Simeon and women like Anna waiting for the redemption of Israel, at that time the New Testament Isaac appeared. Therefore, we, like Abraham, should hope against hope that the Lord will turn the tide, that He will turn the shadow of death into the light of morning. He is able to do so, and a nation can be born in a day, and in our dark and cloudy day, instead of just mourning over the darkness of the day, let us hold to this: that this is the way the Lord works. He turns the shadow of death into the light of morning. He shall help His cause at the darkest hour, at the turn of the morning. He is able to do it as He did in the past. That is one point with regard to these words: “In that day there shall be a Root of Jesse.” When the tree of Jesse was laid barren and flat, and when, if you were to look at it, there was no appearance of anything except the appearance of the reign of death, and all the sap, to the outward appearance, had disappeared, it was then that there came this “Root of Jesse”, “The Root and the Offspring of David”, the “bright and morning Star”, the One Who was to usher in the Gospel day. By His appearance in Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, by His preaching in the land of Galilee, He was to signify that the Gospel day was soon to be ushered in, and that the kingdom of God was near. “If I,” He said, “cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.”
Another point is this: that the Saviour, although He was the Son of God, when He came as the “Root of Jesse” to be born into this world, He was born in a low condition. This was something outstanding with regard to the appearance of the “Root of Jesse”. When Mary began to sing her song of praise to the Lord, this was what she sang: “My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaid.” The Saviour was not conceived in the womb of a princess in the palace of Herod. He was not born in a high state in the nation of Israel who were then under the reign of Rome. He was born of one who praised the Lord for having regard to “the low estate of His handmaiden”. The one through whom the “Root of Jesse” was to come, and the one through whom the “Root of Jesse” was to be born into the world, the one to whom it was said that “that Holy Thing Which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” was this woman, a lowly person. The palace, in fact, was ranged in enmity against the “Root of Jesse”. The angels knew about this obscure maiden, and so did the shepherds, so did others, but they only knew about her because it had been indicated by the mind of God to them where the Son of God was to be born, and born to be a Saviour. This was the name given to the Root of Jesse: “Thou shalt call His name Jesus: for he shall save His people from their sins.” What a wonderful thing! How wonderful the dispensations of God are! How He casts aside the wisdom of men, and how He makes the wisdom of men to appear as foolishness in the presence of the wisdom of God! How He exalts those who are of low estate, and casts down the mighty and the powerful!
Now I would like to make an application of that in the light of what I have been saying. People despise the cause of Christ among ourselves. ‘It is small. It is weak. They have no powerful men. They have no noble men. They have no power. How can they be saying and contending that they have the cause of Christ in Scotland? How can they be saying and contending that they expect, and that their expectation is, that when God will revive His cause He will do it in a small insignificant body of that description and kind?’ People say that, but we do not agree with them. We have plenty examples in Scripture, and here is one of them. When Christ was to be born into the world, when “the bright and morning Star” was to begin to shine, He was born in obscurity. He was born of this lowly handmaiden, and that is why she praised Him, because she knew that He would have all the glory. We should not be discouraged by the weakness of the cause among ourselves, and certainly we should not be ashamed of it, nor should we think for a single moment that the Lord is not able to use the testimony which we hold, and the testimony which we profess, to revive His cause in this land of yours and mine. That is what we believe and we find every encouragement in the Word of God to believe it. It is not where the Word of God has been cast aside, and where the testimony of truth has been laid aside that God will revive His cause, if He has preserved His cause in Scotland for this purpose. Mary praised the Lord for regarding “the low estate of His handmaiden”. Let us also seek to pray to the Lord that He would preserve His cause among us, that He would preserve the testimony for truth among us, about which I shall be speaking later on, and that He would do so in order that Scotland might once more hear “the glorious Gospel of the blessed God”.
The “Root of Jesse” grew in obscurity. He was born of this lowly handmaiden. The Lord chose her for that very purpose, and she said herself, “Henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” The Lord, my dear friend, can “raise the poor that very low doth lie”, and from the dunghill set the man oppressed with poverty among the princes of His people. Do not let us be deceived, especially young people, by the notion spread abroad that we are insignificant, that we have no power, that people do not listen to us. That may be so, but it is their loss. Had they listened to us, for instance, when we protested against the Obscene Publications Act, we would not have the tide of immorality in the country that we have now. We warned the Government at the time that the introduction of that Act was going to lead to the floodgates of iniquity being opened, and that is what has happened, and it has happened again and again. The fact that men do not listen to the church of God has nothing whatever to do with the church performing its duty to the Lord and to the generation. They may despise us, but the hour is on the wing when they will know that God’s Truth standeth ever sure. Now this “Root of Jesse” appeared as the God-man, as the Divine Redeemer. He appeared as the One Who came in “God’s great name” to save. There were other things before my mind, but I must go on.
The Root of Jesse as an Ensign
In the second place, let us notice that this “Root of Jesse”, although He grew up in obscurity in Nazareth until He was thirty years of age, and although He was in this small land of Palestine, nevertheless this is what the Scripture says here, “which shall stand for an ensign of the people”. He was to be raised up. When the Apostle is writing to the Romans with regard to the future ingathering of the Jews, and regarding the position of the Gentiles, when he refers particularly to this verse, the translation is, as we have it in chapter 15, “Esaias saith, There shall be a Root of Jesse, and He that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in Him shall the Gentiles trust.” The Root of Jesse was to rise and be an ensign, first of all with regard to this: the accomplishment of the Word of God in providing a Lamb, a Lamb Who was to die for a number that no man can number. This is the One Who said, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me”, “signifying what death He should die.” Here again we are confronted with the Wisdom of God, that the Lamb of God was to be raised up in this way, and that He was to be an ensign in this way unto Which all men would be gathered, Jews and Gentiles, from every nation, kindred and tongue. “And I, if I be lifted up,” lifted up on the tree of Calvary, lifted up as the One Who died in the room and place of the guilty; this is the One of Whom the Word of God says, “When we were yet without strength, in due time”, according to God’s purpose, according to God’s Word, “in due time Christ died for the ungodly”. Here was One born in obscurity, coming out to begin His public ministry in the world at the age of thirty years, then ending His life upon the tree of Calvary, ending His life there dying in the room and place of the guilty, paying the great ransom price for those He loved with an everlasting love, in order that they might be gathered in, that they might be brought “out of darkness into His marvellous light”, that they might be brought to peace with God, and that this might be fulfilled with regard to them: “For God the Lord’s a sun and shield: He’ll grace and glory give.” Therefore the Redeemer is the ensign in this sense of the term: in His being raised up as the Lamb of God, in His being raised up as the Divine Saviour, raised up as the One Who magnified the law and made it honourable and paid all the ransom price for His folk. He is the Redeemer Who came to Zion. He is the One of Whom Peter says, “Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” There is no display here of outward glory. Here is a Person dying in darkness on the tree of Calvary, yet He died a death from which eternal salvation came, and He died that death in which God the Father was glorified by His finishing the work which the Father gave Him to do. He was raised up to be an ensign in that He as the Lamb of God died on the tree of Calvary, and that He paid the ransom price for His folk, and that in Him is to be found salvation. He died the death that we were commemorating here yesterday in order that His people might be saved in Him with an everlasting salvation.
He is also the ensign in another way. We read in the fifth chapter of the Book of Revelation that John saw a book with seals, and no man could open the seals. “And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.” And John “wept much”. Where there is grace in the soul, grace will weep when the Bible is closed, and when the Bible is tampered with. John wept. He “wept much” because this book was closed, but as he wept, one of the elders said to him, “Weep not: behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.” It is very remarkable, at least to us, that the description of the Saviour given by the elder, and we take the elder there to be representative of the church, was — “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” Who had “prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof”. Yet when the Person came “and took the book out of the right hand of Him that sat upon the throne”, it was a Person “as a Lamb as it had been slain”. “The Lion of the tribe of Judah”, the One Who had prevailed, the One Who is “the Root of David” and Who is the “ensign of the people” is One Whose victory is founded upon this: that He was slain, that “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him.” It was “a Lamb as it had been slain” that “took the book out of the right hand of Him that sat upon the throne”. The One Who had “the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth” was the Lamb of God. As “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” the victory that He obtained was based upon the fact that His body was broken and His blood shed. Here is the ensign.
The ensign was the banner. When, you remember, the camp of Israel was surrounded by the tribes, and the pillar of cloud moved, then the camp began to move, and the tribe of Judah began to move first. The ensign of the tribe of Judah was a lion. So we have here this ensign, Christ, not only as the One Who died on Calvary’s tree, but also as the Head of His people.
“O God, what time Thou didst go forth
before Thy people’s face;
And when through the great wilderness
Thy glorious marching was.”
The tribe of Judah, the tribe in which the Messiah was to be born, the tribe that was to have the house of David, the tribe that was to be so low when Christ was born into the world, went ahead. Their ensign bore the lion upon it to indicate that “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” was the One Who dwelt in the pillar of cloud by day and in the pillar of fire by night. He is our glorious Head, the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He is the One Who has prevailed, and He is the One Who has not only taken the book of prophecy to open it, as He did in the Revelation, but He is also the One Who said, “I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest Me; and they have received them.” Of course they have. They received them because the Lord changed their hearts. As for people who do not receive them, the reason is evident and the reason is plain — their hearts were never changed by divine grace.
The Saviour, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah”, is an ensign not only as the Lamb Who was slain, but also as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah”. He has overcome all His foes, and His ensign bears this mark of the lion. “The seven Spirits of God” are brought before us in that chapter as resting upon the Divine Saviour, the victorious Saviour, the captain of salvation made “perfect through sufferings”, but now exalted and glorious. He has the fullness, as the number seven means, of the Spirit of God. “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.” It rested on the Saviour and it rested on the Saviour in His Person as the God-man. It rests on the Divine Redeemer. We do not have time at the present moment to go out on these various aspects, though they are well worth meditating upon, and you should consider them yourselves later on. The Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord rest on Him, so that our Divine and glorious Head is One in Whom the fullness of the Spirit of God dwells. He is able to accomplish the counsel of God.
“O but the counsel of the Lord
doth stand for ever sure;
And of His heart the purposes
from age to age endure.”
Why? Because of “the Lion of the tribe of Judah”. He is the One Who is the glorious Head of the church of God. He is the ensign in this sense of the term: that He is the One Who opens the Book by the Spirit of God. He did that to the two on the way to Emmaus, and He does it in every age and generation. Ministers and elders, open the Word of God as the Lord helps them, but, my dear friend, it is the Spirit of God Who must open the Word of God to you, through the ministry of the Gospel, and we will come to that in a moment or two. This opening up of the Scriptures requires the internal work of the Spirit of God to open the understanding. “Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures.” He opened the heart of Lydia, and when He opened the heart of Lydia, Lydia was drinking in what Paul was preaching. If you had asked her at the time. ‘What is happening to you Lydia? Is your heart being opened? Is your understanding being opened?’ she would have said, ‘I don’t know. All I know is that I am seeing “wondrous things” in what Paul is preaching, and especially in the One Who is the “Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace”. I am seeing “wondrous things” in Jesus Christ, in the Saviour of the lost and the undone, and I am drinking this in.’ Why? Because the Lord opened her heart. She would have gone away from that prayer meeting just as she came, unless that had happened. The Saviour, you see, is a prophet mighty in word in opening the Word of God, and in deed in opening the understanding. Mighty in word and deed. That is what you and I need: when the Word of God is opened to us, that our understanding would be opened, and that we through the mouth of our understanding would drink in Christ. This is how “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” is to prevail in the experience of His people.
“A willing people in Thy day
of power shall come to Thee.”
See in that Psalm the glorification of Christ. That Psalm speaks of the glorification of Christ, how it was founded upon His priesthood. It was because He drank of the brook that ran in the way, because He drank of His infinite and eternal strength, that He lifted His head as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah”. The Divine Redeemer is the One Who can open the Word of God and Who can apply the Word of God. He is the One Who can give the words of wisdom, and the understanding, the knowledge, the counsel, the might, and all that pertains to the Word of God. He is the One Who can open the Word of God in the spiritual experience of a soul, so that that soul comes to “taste and see that God is good”, and, “who trusts in Him is blessed”.
His Rest Shall Be Glorious
In the third place — “His rest shall be glorious.” The first aspect of this rest is the one mentioned in the Psalm which we sang:
“For God of Zion hath made choice;
there He desires to dwell.”
That is what the Lord says. The Lord desires to dwell in His Zion. “This is My rest,” He said. “Here still I’ll stay, for I do like it well.” His rest is glorious with respect to this — the presence of the Lord in the church. “If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” Moses had the tribes of Israel. He had the camp. He had the tables of testimony. He was to set up the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle, but well he knew, and well he understood, that even if an angel was going to be sent with him, that was not enough. “If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” This is what the Lord said, “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.” Therefore, the true glory of the church of God in the world is the presence of God. The Saviour, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” is now as to His Person at God’s right hand, so the presence of the Lord means the presence of the Third Person of the Godhead. The Saviour said, “I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth.” The Spirit spoken of here, the Spirit of the Lord, rests upon the glorified Head in Heaven, and in virtue of His resting upon the glorified Head in Heaven, the Spirit of God abides in the church of God in the world.
“This is My rest, here still I’ll stay
for I do like it well.”
What does that mean? “I do like it well.” Well, if this is to be the habitation of Jehovah, if the church of God in the world is to be His habitation and He is to like it well, what must be true of the church so that He will like to abide there? The same thing must be true of the New Testament Church as was true of the Old Testament Church. Moses was to do all things according to the pattern shown him in the mount. The church, my dear friend, is not the house of men. It is the rest, it is the habitation of God, and because it is the habitation of God, it is part of the glory of the church that all things in the church are to be in accordance with the mind of God. If you had a house being built for yourself, and you had given specifications for articles of furniture to be put in it, and the people who were building the house intervened and changed the order of the house, and changed the order of the furniture, and you arrived, what would you say? I’m quite sure you would say this, wouldn’t you? “This is not the house that I want to dwell in. This is not the house I had in my mind at all. I’ll find no rest in this place.” So it is spiritually, but people nowadays do not think of that. They are far too busy trifling with, and introducing their own ideas and notions, and they do not think of the fact that the house belongs to God. The house belongs to Christ. It is His house and He says this concerning it:
“This is My rest, here still I’ll stay
for I do like it well.”
If men are going to alter the house, they are going to discover that the Lord will depart. That is what has happened. Oh! that is what has happened in this land of yours and mine, where the house of God was restored at the time of the First and Second Reformations, until there was no church, and until there was no place in the universe to be compared with the church of God in this land. Lowly though it was, and far off in the isles of the sea, the Lord blessed Scotland with men of integrity, and men of discernment and men of understanding. When they began to build the house of God in Scotland, everything was to be there according to the mind of the glorified Head. But now we have men trying to be better, trying to be wiser than God, trying to be wiser than their forefathers, trying to alter the house of God in its doctrine, in its worship and in its practice. Now, it is not necessary for me to elaborate on all these points, because you are, or you ought to be, well acquainted with them.
This is the important point, and the point I want to stress: “this is My rest” and it is glorious. It is glorious because it is according to the mind of Christ. The Word of God in all its fullness, and the doctrine of the Gospel in all its fullness — that is a glorious thing. The ensign held up in all its fullness is the banner “Thou hast given to them that fear Thee, that it might be displayed because of the truth”. It is unfurled in the preaching of the everlasting Gospel, in the truth of God, law and Gospel, in all its fullness, being set before sinners. That is a glorious thing, and the Lord delights in it. What did Paul say with regard to it? When he preached the Gospel, “We are,” he said, as we preach the Gospel, “unto God a sweet savour of Christ.” The Lord delights in that. He delights in the purity of the Gospel. He delights in the Gospel being set forth according to the mind of His Spirit. It is something which fills His house with a savour that He delights in, and if we are not mistaken, that savour goes into the souls of His people. It is “the savour of life unto life” in “the glorious Gospel of the blessed God”.
The same thing is true of the worship of God. The glory of the temple came to an end. The instruments and the music had a glory but it was a glory of this world. It was a glory that essentially appealed just to the ear of the body. That kind of thing has now departed from the church. We are to offer this sacrifice: “the calves of our lips”, so that we would sing the praises of the Lord without any of that carnality. That was true in Scotland till about one hundred and fifty years ago, when these innovations, choirs and organs, came in. On one occasion, when Dr Duncan was taking a service and the choir was singing, and the savour of the choir was of such a fleshly nature, he stood up after they had sang and said, ‘The choir has now sung to its own praise and glory; let us sing to the praise of God.’ And he presented himself. Why? Because he felt the savour of the flesh. That’s why.
The same is true with regard to the practice and discipline of the church. It is quite a simple thing for us to fill our buildings, if we drop our worship and drop our discipline. I have had people sitting opposite me in my study in my manse, who came up from England and professed evangelical religion. They told me that they appreciated the doctrine that we preached, but that they did not feel at home in the worship, and of course they did not feel at home in the practice — that they were expected to live lives of righteousness and holiness, and to behave themselves as Christians in the world, and not have a mere profession that is dead and not alive, and to live on the side of Christ, walking in the way of God’s commandments. It is quite a simple matter for people to build big congregations if they like to do so, and ignore the practices, the proper scriptural practices of the church of God. But, you see, there is a savour of that too. It is Christ’s house, and the discipline of Christ’s house is intended to please the Saviour. He is the One Whom we are seeking to please as we exercise the discipline of the house of God. “His rest shall be glorious” when the Holy Spirit is present in the house of God and God’s people are being fed with “the finest of the wheat”, and when they are being strengthened inwardly, and the doctrines of God’s Word distil as the dew and fall upon their souls. That is glorious. Is it not? Of course it is. It is glorious in the eyes of Christ and glorious to the poor soul who gets a crumb from the Gospel table and a moment of the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the presence of the Spirit of God. In the singing, the praying, the preaching and the reading of God’s Word, “His rest shall be glorious”.
I should like to say this from the example of “Moses, the man of God”. When the Lord said to him, “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest,” Moses said, “For wherein shall it be known here that I and Thy people have found grace in Thy sight? Is it not in that Thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and Thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.” The Lord’s presence among them caused the children of Israel to be separate “from all the people that are upon the face of the earth”. Now, people make a lot of the fact that the Free Presbyterian Church keeps to itself, and is separate from other churches, and so on. The reason given for this is that some of its ministers especially are very narrow minded people. Well, they are deluding themselves. The separation of the Free Presbyterian Church in 1893 had to do certainly with doctrine and discipline, but we believe it also had to do with the men who separated being given the presence of the Lord. Our authority for saying that is, that I am quite sure that when Mr MacFarlane and Mr MacDonald left the Free Church, they left behind them some ministers who were godly men, such as Dr Aird who was in the parish of Creich. Why did they not separate? I will tell you. It was not given to them. They had a whole lot of reasons, and the present Free Church has a pile of reasons that are very unpleasant and unconvincing as to why they did not separate in 1893. The real reason is that it was not given to them. It was given to Mr MacFarlane, and it was given to Mr MacDonald, Mr Cameron, Mr Sinclair and the other students who stood with them, and to God’s people. It will be a sad day for the Free Presbyterian Church if men lose sight of that, and it will be a sad day if office-bearers and people in the Free Presbyterian Church are not there because they get the presence of the Lord there as they get it nowhere else. We can say something about that, because we spent five years away from the Church during the war, and we met some of God’s people in other places, some whom we believe truly worshipped God; and we can say from our own experience that we never found the presence of the Lord in the same way among them as we found it “within the courts of God’s own house” in the midst of the Church to which you and I belong. “His rest shall be glorious”, and it is glorious to God’s people. The world may despise it, and may look down upon it, but the world, my dear friend, loves its own and always will. You will never change the world until this happens: “to it shall the Gentiles seek.”
This is the next part of the glory. The Gentiles were to seek Christ. Those who were without God and without hope in the world were to come to the Saviour, in Ephesus, in Galatia, in Corinth and in Scotland. Those sinners who learned in their own experience that they were without “hope, and without God in the world” came to this ensign in “the glorious Gospel of the blessed God”. They came to the Saviour Who died and Who rose again, and that is glorious. Christ saw and sees of the travail of His soul and He is satisfied, and this is the glory of the church of God. It is not in the possession of great men or rich men or noble men or learned men. It is in the possession, my dear friend, of those of whom the Lord says, “This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth My praise.”
Now the second aspect of this, and I must conclude, is that “His rest shall be glorious” not only in a state of grace, but there is in view eventually that the church in this world and those who are united by faith to Christ, are those of whom the Saviour says as He addresses the Father, “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory.” “His rest shall be glory.” This is the rest where Emmanuel is. This is the rest where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are, where Isaiah is, and where men whom we knew in Scotland are, men who were the salt of the earth, and who gave the clearest possible evidence that they were Christ’s, and that Christ was theirs. They are now on Mount Zion above. They have now entered into this rest which is the rest of everlasting glory. “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord” “that they may rest from their labours.” They enter into rest, the rest that remaineth for them, the keeping of an eternal Sabbath, the keeping of eternal communion. That rest shall be glorious, and Christ will give it. He will bring His people there. “The Lion of the tribe of Judah” shall prevail over every enemy. Because He overcame, they shall overcome also. They shall overcome “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of the testimony”, and as long as they remain faithful to that, Christ will be with them, and Christ will never forsake them. Though Zion may say, “The Lord hath forsaken me”, yet the Lord says, “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” “The mountains shall depart, and the hills shall be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, saith the Lord that nath mercy on thee.” Therefore, while we are in this world, let it be our desire that we would first of all rest in Christ for our eternal salvation, and also, that we would take His yoke upon us. “Take My yoke upon you,” He says, “and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and he shall find rest unto your souls.” Our desire should be to labour in His own strength in this world on His side, and then our rest will be glorious. Our rest will be glory. May we at the close of this communion season delight in that, and be strengthened by it, and in the midst of a dark and cloudy day, let us not lose sight of “the bright and morning Star”. Let us not lose sight, my dear friend, of Christ, as Peter did when he looked away from Christ, and turned his eyes to the waves of the sea, and began to sink. Let us keep our eyes upon the Divine Saviour, and thus through every trouble and trial that overtakes us, we shall discover that “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” will carry us through and preserve us unto the coming of “His heavenly kingdom”. May He bless His Word.-
When we shall come home and enter to the possession of our Brother’s fair kingdom, and when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and when we shall look back to pains and sufferings; then shall we see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory; and that our little inch of time-suffering is not worthy of our first night’s welcome home to heaven.
Samuel Rutherford.
God hath made many fair flowers, but the fairest of them all is heaven, and the flower of all flowers is Christ.
Samuel Rutherford.