Sermon

by the late Rev. John Kennedy, D.D., Dingwall
(Continued from page 74)
“In wrath remember mercy.” — Hab. 3: 2.

1. The aggressive action of “the man of sin” is another token of wrath, and not less, but rather more so, is the facility with which this has been endured in this land of ours. The enemy has formed his estimate of our spiritual condition as a country. He found that we could endure a Popish aggression, and the result has proved that he did not miscalculate. Protestant Scotland has been too unruffled under this invasion. The hierarchy of the Church of Rome is again set up in this land. The soil of Scotland has again been partitioned into dioceses for bishops and sees for archbishops; and a cardinal will in due time complete the organisation. Were it only the presence of these officials of Antichrist Scotland had to endure, there has been surely some sad change of sentiment when this would be so quietly borne. But there is far more than this implied. To our face Antichrist has shown his ambition of winning back our country again. On soil reddened once by the blood shed by this fell power, all its organisation is again set up in order to regain the influence which proved to be so deadly. And all this is permitted, though all the restored appliances are to be worked in opposition to the truth, and in the delusion and destruction of precious souls. And still further, all these officers have been appointed in Scotland as the Pope’s executive to bring the canon law, as far as possible, to bear as a galling yoke on the neck of Scotland. Another civil law than that of our statute-book is introduced into our country, and these archbishops and bishops, with all the ecclesiastico-civil police of priests and friars and monks, are here to execute that law. And this is endured. The vox populi raises but a feeble protest, and the power of rulers offers no resistance.

To some there appears in all this nothing formidable. There is no reason to fear, they say, that Popery will ever win Scotland back again. And why not? Oh, there is too much enlightenment and too much love of liberty to allow of such a thing being possible. But what is all enlightenment, and love of liberty the most ardent, against the power of a “strong delusion” when God is provoked to send it? There is no security against Popery except where the love of the truth has been received. And even those who have this in their hearts need besides the unction from the Holy One to keep them. False is the hope that rests on other security than this.

And there are who think that it is the right thing to tolerate all that has been done. If civil rulers have nothing to do with religion, then they ought to lay no arrest on the advance of Antichrist. But Popish power is civil as well as religious. Canon law is State law as well as Church law, and opposition to its being set up in this country would surely seem to be legitimate action on the part of the civil magistrate. Yes, but it is part of the religious claim to demand liberty to use the sword as well as the keys. The Pope claims a right to have his belted knights as well as his surpliced clergy. And he claims this as the Church’s head. He demands toleration of all that he regards, or represents, as essential to the extension and establishment of his religious system. If the civil magistrate has nothing to do with religion, he can have therefore nothing to do in opposition to all the demands put forth by him who claims to be the vicar of Christ on earth. And so the civil power of the country must lie idly by when all this is attempted in invasion by a foreign power of our beloved land! Alas that on the year of this aggression our own Church should have asked the civil rulers to withdraw their hand from the support of that which it is the avowed ambition of Antichrist to banish from this country.

Surely this is judgment, and it is ominous of more. The Lord has in His providence branded the year of the Popish aggression by His dealings with Scotland. There are not a few who can see in the removal of the righteous no token of wrath. There are outside the Church who can discern, as a token of wrath, nought that may be done by the Lord in the withholding of His Spirit; and within the Church there are who do not regard the state of religion as indicating that the Lord hath a controversy with us. And there are, too, who see nothing to alarm them in the Popish aggression. But the year of that event has been made a marked one by calamities, which the most worldly and unbelieving have been compelled to feel. For —

1. Recent commercial disasters are surely to be regarded as a token of the Lord’s anger. The Lord would have us to know that He was angry with us, and this itself is mercy in the midst of wrath. Knowing our insensateness to judgments merely spiritual, He has visited us in a way by which the most carnal must be made conscious of trouble. Hundreds have been deprived of their only means of support, and thousands, yea, tens of thousands, have to some extent felt the effects of the disaster. Through their love of the world many have been wounded. This was their only sensitiveness, and on this the stroke has fallen, and those who cared least for God were compelled to feel that they were smitten. The very sin that provoked the judgment makes the pain of the judgment to be sorely felt. And to some extent the judgment was the means of discovering the sin by which it was provoked. Ungodly haste to be rich caused men to rush to the object of their ambition, over all the fences which divine authority had set up in their way. But the Lord’s power touched them, and their wealth has perished, their crime has been exposed, their reputation blasted, and their hearts made sad. And

2. As if all these things might happen and still some remain unaffected by these tokens of His wrath, the Lord has added a winter of unexampled severity. So extreme and so protracted has been the rigour of this season that no one could fail to observe it. And yet how few have really connected this with the hand of the Lord, and been affected by the anger it indicates! The very beasts have felt the rigor of the season; the sheep shivered on the hillside, and weak from want of food could no more move in search of it; the deer that used to roam in search of food over a wide expanse of forest could but creep to the roadside, and lie down there to die; the birds, out of which hunger drove all their wildness, hovered around the homes of men with the courage born of famine, and with no strength to fly away. These have been touched by the effects of the Lord’s anger provoked by our sins, and are we among those sufferers to hold high our heads, and to keep our hearts at ease, ignoring the anger of the Lord and indisposed to think of, and to confess, the sins by which He was dishonoured and provoked.

II. But we must now shortly consider the prophet’s prayer, or rather the last petition of it — “In wrath remember mercy.”

He was drawn thus to cry by the view he had of the awfulness of divine wrath. Tokens of that wrath abounded. There seemed to him to be a widespread work of judgment covering the whole area on which he looked. He felt as if the Lord, in His zeal to make His anger felt, had “forgotten to be gracious”. How prone to this is every mind that is directed to the aspect of a frowning providence! What is keenly felt interposes between one’s consciousness and all besides. The pain rivets the attention to that which produced it, and all besides is apt to be ignored. Wrath was seen, and the expression of it was felt, and it was as if on the field of providence there were nought besides. It was as if the Lord had “forgotten to be gracious”. Therefore the prophet cries, “O Lord, in wrath remember mercy.”

It was “mercy” for which he cried. If he had not realised that the Lord was angry — if he had not looked at, and trembled before, the tokens of His wrath, he had not cared to cry. And if he had not known enough of sin to be assured that the wrath was merited, it would not be mercy for which he would have cried. But he can only appeal to a justly offended God for His sovereign and unmerited favour, for he is pleading for sinners who deserved to die.

And what invests, to his view, the wrath with such awfulness, is a help so to think of the mercy that he cannot but cry for it. It was the measure in which he realised the infinite majesty of Jehovah, His wrath seemed awful; but that was just the measure in which it seemed to him a priceless boon that the Lord should “remember mercy”. To have to look on infinite majesty benignant with mercy towards the land, oh, how desirable!

But does not the awfulness of the wrath intervene as a boundless ocean of fire between the sinner and mercy? How, then, can he at all send his cry for mercy winged with hope across it? How can the mind constrained to think of wrath be free to think of mercy? Does not the one so overwhelm the mind that it cannot rise to any conception of the other? So at first sight it would seem. But the life of God, in its aspiration rises to all that God is in His matchless glory, and specially to His mercy, for only when this is the aspect of the divine character to it can it, in a sinful soul, move towards Him in hope, and reach Him so as to taste and see that He is good. And as it is only the life of God that is disposed to cry for mercy, so only one who has learned about a divinely provided atonement can cry for it in a time of wrath. He has been in faith at the cross of Christ. The time was when at Sinai each thunder-peal that told of wrath, with each lightning-flash of awful glory, combined to make impossible a hope of mercy. The infliction of the sentence of death was seen to be an immovable necessity. All God’s words, all God’s glory, as heard and seen at the base of the mount that “burned with fire”, assured him of this. For he was there alone in his sins. He saw the awfulness of divine wrath bearing on him in his weakness, while his guilt exposed him to its consuming fire. But now, at the cross, he is where wrath has been poured out to the uttermost, and yet he has survived. For another was charged with the sin, and endured the wrath. And now even the light of the consuming fire is shining on the beaming face of mercy; and the full expression given of God’s holy and awful wrath has opened up a way by which mercy, accompanied with truth, can come forth to sinners, bringing to them a peace which has been kissed by righteousness. Yes, he saw there and then how God can remember mercy in the midst of wrath, and it is because he learned this message there that he can hopefully send up the cry, “In wrath remember mercy.”

As he thus prays he is lifting up his eyes to God as He is revealed in His Word. He ceases to look exclusively on the aspect He presents through a frowning providence. He looks on His name and memorial as given in His Word. He thinks of Him as “the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty”. He finds there three-fold encouragement to cry for mercy. He has before him an exhibition of His character as “merciful and gracious” given by God Himself. Thus God introduces Himself to sinful men. It must be quite safe to reckon on God’s being and acting according to His name. It is His delight and His glory so to act. And He has a reserve of mercy for thousands who have not yet been partakers of it. And, besides, the Lord in revealing His mercy speaks of wrath, and declares that He “will by no means clear the guilty”.

And his eye is resting on the exceeding great and precious promises of God to Israel. All these are fraught with mercy, and all these must be fulfilled. The work of fulfilling these cannot surely be forgotten, even in a day when tokens of His wrath abound. At any rate He cannot make a full end of Israel. There must be mercy that the sons of Jacob may not be consumed. And has He not to bring out of Zion a Deliverer — a rod from the stem of Jesse, to be a Branch of Righteousness and a Tree of Life? Has not One to arise who shall be the “Lion of the tribe of Judah”, who shall secure to Israel a triumph over all their foes? Has He not through Him to fulfil many a promise of mercy to the Israel of Israel, who are to be saved with an everlasting salvation? Can the prophet look on all those promises of grace and glory pertaining to the chosen people without being encouraged to cry for mercy? And has he not good ground in the infinite wisdom and power of God for feeling quite assured that, even at the same time, He can do as He hath said, in a work of judgment and in a work of grace? The necessary fulfilment of His threat cannot make impossible the quite as necessary fulfilment of His promise.

And even if he must think of the great mass of the generation, in the midst of which he mourns and prays, as fuel which sin has ripened for the fire of judgment, and if he cannot but tremble and be sad when constrained thus to think of the multitude, can he forget that there is “a remnant according to the election of grace”? Remembering them how can he refrain from asking mercy for them. If not for others, yet surely for them, he may ask for mercy even in a time of wrath. For as in the heart of God, as in the mystical body of Christ, as temples of the Holy Ghost, and as witnesses for God on the earth, they are far apart from all besides. And they have been set apart for mercy, and the wrath cannot intercept it from them. Yea, in the very fire of a generation judgment these shall be preserved, by means of it they shall be refined and tried, through it they shall be brought, and beyond it they shall reach a rest which never can be broken. Yea, even that which is wrath to others can be mercy to them.

And may he not think of some even among those who are exposed to, and are still provoking, the wrath of God, as objects of His everlasting love, whom He has yet to visit with His salvation? Are there not “other sheep” on that field over which the fire of divine judgment is spreading, whom the Good Shepherd hath promised to bring in? That mercy the prophet may surely pray for. And is there not a response to this pleading in the heart of God? Yea, it is the love of the Most High to His chosen which touched his heart to stir it thus to plead, and that warmed it into the fervency of earnest prayer.

And, taking the generations of the future into his view, may he not rest the eye of hope on a brightness, beaming from the bosom of gracious promise, beyond the dread and darkness of a time of wrath? Even if this generation should pass unpitied off the face of the earth, is there not a season coming when the Lord shall make all the earth, so long a wilderness, to be as a garden of the Lord? Nothing in a time of wrath can prevent the coming of that time of mercy. Even looking out of present gloom and darkness, across the fumes of a fire of wrath, the eye may kindle with hopefulness and joy, as the promised grace is seen brightening into glory the Church of God upon earth.

And even beyond all this appears a light still brighter shining through the resurrection, and from beyond the awful glory of a judgment day, out of the home into which “the ransomed of the Lord” shall at last be gathered around the throne of God and of the Lamb. While there are mansions in the Father’s house, and the Lord is preparing a people to occupy them, let none who prays at all cease to pray for mercy.

But what of the present generation? Can I enjoy that bright prospect when I have to think of those around me as laden with sin, and hardened in impenitence, while a frowning providence is casting over them the dark shadow of death? I have seen a bird flying eagerly towards a place which it fain would reach in order to find rest, and food, and fellowship, scared back by something formidable it observed as it cast its eyes downwards in its flight. Often do we thus, Fathers and Brethren, have our enjoyment broken, as we pass on the wings of thought, over a rising generation on our way to rejoice in the brightness of millennial glory. But if we cannot but tremble as we look on present providence, let not this prevent us from rejoicing in promised good. Neither let our souls pass into listless dreamings of the future, forgetful of the claims which our own generation hath upon us. Let us look at the bright prospect, opened up in promise, that we may be more affected by the darkness in which we are now benighted. And let us not hide any tokens of present wrath from our eye, nor keep them away from our heart, lest we cease to care to rejoice in the glory that is yet to be revealed. Let not the darkness and the trouble dispirit us, till we become so faint in heart that we can stretch no vigorous hand to our generation service. And let us not withhold our prayer, any more than our service, from the generation in the midst of which we are. Even for a multitude “laden with iniquity” there is merit enough in the blood through which we may plead in their behalf with God; and divine mercy is infinite in its bounty, as is the blood in its merit, through which that mercy is expressed. Even a generation of sinners can, by the omnipotence of grace, be made broken-hearted penitents. Yes, we collect them all into our pitiful regard, and at the footstool of the Throne of Grace we may, for them all, send up a cry for mercy. But let us not blindly press our suit. Let us not buoy up our hearts with hopes which are unwarranted. We must submit to the sovereignty of Him who will have mercy on whom He will. Let us beware of the rude persistency which refuses to yield to the will of God, and to Scripture limitations of its hopes.

Whatsoever our hand findeth to do, in the Lord’s name and strength, let that work be done. This is our season in the vineyard. The Master has chosen for us our term of service, and let us not murmur because our lot has not fallen on other days than these. Let no wistful longings induce us to forget the aspect of the present time. If we may not ask to be ravished into listlessness before present duty by the joy of hope, nor to be dazzled into blindness to present sin and wrath by the glory on which the eye of hope is resting, let us not be scared back from sweet anticipations of what is promised by the gloomy aspect of the present. Let us be more sensitive to present wrath, let us be more broken-hearted because of present sin, let us be more given to earnest prayer for present mercy, let us be more devoted to the work which the Lord now calls us to do — then there will be a sweeter solace to our hearts in the hope of dwelling at last where “there shall be no more curse” for ever.