PSALM XXIII. I.
The Twenty-third Psalm is one of the sweetest songs in the inspired Psalter, and has been justly admired for the chaste and tender beauty of its poetry as well as for the bright and lively faith of its piety. The Psalm in its metrical form is well known in almost every clime, and is one of the first spiritual songs that the child in Scottish households learns at its mother’s knee. It is to be feared, however, that multitudes, who are constantly singing this Psalm, never get beyond the natural figures of speech in which it is couched, and never penetrate into its real spiritual meaning, while it is equally certain that many who appropriate to themselves with ease the language of assured faith and confidence that runs through the Psalm, were never taught the same by the Spirit of the living God. It is not, indeed, at every time that even the true Christian can sing this Psalm for himself. Its comforts are so rich and its faith is so unwavering that the trembling child of God may often feel that the Psalm is entirely beyond him, and that it expresses rather an elevation of soul that he would fain attain unto, than such as he can honestly claim as his own. Unbelief may also be bold enough to suggest that the experience is too high to be attained, but this evil thought must be resisted, for this Psalm, as surely as the others, was designed as a well of faith and comfort for the benefit of the weak as well as the strong of Christ’s flock to the end of time. The humblest believer may at times, by divine grace, join “the man after God’s own heart” in his loftiest songs.
It is not our intention on the present occasion to handle the whole of this Psalm in detail, but simply to enlarge a little on the opening verse with some general reference to what follows. “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.” How simple are these words, and yet how rich and precious are the thoughts that they express! The soul that can appropriate them in the exercise of a living faith is made up for eternity.
The first thing that we observe is that the Psalmist here speaks of Jehovah as his “shepherd.” While the Lord might direct any of his inspired servants to the use of this appropriate comparison, there appears a peculiar fitness in David’s employment of it. He was a shepherd of his father’s flocks in the days of his youth, and knew by personal experience all the careful activities of a shepherd in relation to the natural sheep. But now the scene is changed; he is himself the sheep, and the Lord Jehovah is his Shepherd. And he has evidently found in the spiritual sphere that he had all the needs of a silly, helpless sheep, while the Lord had all the provision of a rich and gracious Shepherd.
The underlying thought of this Psalm suggests the profoundest need and dependence on the part of God’s people. Here are depths as well as heights—the deepest depths of spiritual need as well as the highest heights of faith and confidence toward God. This is not in any sense a song of self-sufficiency—it is the song of “the poor man” who has been made rich in spiritual blessings, and who, having nothing in himself, possesses all things in Christ.
The Psalmist came to know the Lord as his shepherd in the depths of his first spiritual experience. He had found himself a poor lost sheep in a horrible pit and among the miry clay, sinking down to destruction, and utterly unable to recover himself from the imminent danger to which he was exposed. He cried, and the good Shepherd, who was in search of the lost sheep, found him, and took him out of the dreadful pit, set his feet upon a rock, established his goings, and put a new song in his mouth, even praise to the Lord. And it is in this lost condition the Shepherd of Israel finds all His people under the New Dispensation as well as the Old. They do not all pass through the same depths of spiritual anguish, but they are all made to see that they had destroyed themselves by sin, and that they are now debtors for salvation to the grace and loving kindness of the good Shepherd who goeth after “that which is lost, until he find it.”
But it was not alone in the time of first deliverance that the Psalmist felt he had needs which none but the Divine Shepherd could supply. He is still dependent—never more consciously dependent than now. Though he was a man of great natural gifts and acquirements, he did not rely upon these for the maintenance of the life of faith, or the walk of godliness, in the discharge of the duties of his high vocation. He depends on God alone, and his needs are many. He feels himself still a dark, ignorant creature, who needs guidance; a hungry, thirsty soul that must get provision from Zion’s “green pastures” and “still waters”; a wanderer ready to go astray and often requiring restoration; and a pilgrim, trembling and fearful, who, in view of dark valleys of trial and temptation, needs comfort and courage, until he reach the house of everlasting rest at last. And surely if a man of such remarkable attainments as he, has such real and felt necessities as these, need we wonder that the humbler sheep of Christ find themselves in a similar case? Their spiritual needs are many and great, and they must live in entire dependence upon their great Shepherd.
Let it be carefully noted, then, that the relation here brought before us of the Lord to His people teaches a truth that is apt to be forgotten, the truth of their profound spiritual necessities all through their earthly pilgrimage, and of their absolute dependence upon Him as the fountain of all good.
We now pass on to observe the fulness of supply that is presented in the fact that the Lord is the “shepherd” of His people. It may suitably concentrate our thoughts on this blessed truth to think of the Lord here as the Son of God, the second person of the glorious Godhead, to whom the title “shepherd” is given in a special way in the Scriptures. He said Himself in the days of His flesh, “I am the good shepherd,” and spoke of the children of God as His sheep. As the mediator of the new covenant, He is the shepherd unto whom the Father has committed the work of redeeming and saving lost sinners of Adam’s race, and He shall yet present all those who were given Him, in safety and without spot, before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. The Lord Jesus, in His pre-incarnate state, was David’s shepherd, as surely as He is the Shepherd of poor sinners since He appeared in the flesh. David also saw the day of His incarnation and redeeming work afar off, and, like Abraham, was glad.
It is the office of a shepherd to guide, to feed, and to protect his flock, and these three things the Lord Jesus performs on behalf of all His sheep. He is their guide. They are ignorant and foolish, and He gives His word as a light to their feet and a lamp to their path. It is their privilege to walk in the paths of righteousness He has marked out, and all their thoughts, desires, and ways are to be regulated by a regard to His revealed will. Not the wisdom of men or angels, but the wisdom of Christ is their true guiding star in the things of God, or in regard to the way to the heavenly country. He is their guide from darkness to light, from distress to peace, and sometimes from peace to conflict. He is the provider of His sheep. He supplies them with heavenly food, and gives them meat to eat that the world knows not of. He leads them to the green pastures of His Word, and beside the still waters of His Spirit. He speaks of Himself as the living bread which came down from heaven, and He has provided abundant food for the mouth of faith in His incarnation, obedience, sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension to glory. “Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, there is no life in you.” It is by a believing contemplation of these blessed mysteries that the souls of God’s people are nourished, strengthened and sanctified, and made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. He is also their protector. This glorious Shepherd already protected His poor guilty sheep from the stroke of the sword of justice. He endured the full weight of the stroke Himself, and died in their room and stead that they might be saved from eternal death, and he now protects them from every other foe to which they are exposed. Sometimes, in His mysterious wisdom, He allows their enemies to secure a triumph, but it is only temporary, and He shall yet make His people more than conquerors over sin, Satan, death, hell, and all their foes. He will carry them safely through every danger until they enter at last the house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. The Shepherd has made complete provision for all the need of those who put their trust in Him.
The second thing we note in the verse before us is the Psalmist’s confidence, in view of the excellency of his Shepherd, as expressed in the words “I shall not want.” We have already unfolded the grounds of this confidence, and shall add but little. The Psalmist felt, no doubt, that if he were left to created resources he might soon come to want. Earthly riches often take wings and flee away, and the well of received grace is soon dried up by the power of sin and carnality. He felt that he required an infinite fountain of blessing, and, being assured that the Lord was his Shepherd, he did not fear that he would lack any good thing. He believed the Shepherd’s riches were boundless, and that His love and faithfulness were pledged for the bestowal of these treasures upon every poor soul that He had rescued from the jaws of the destroyer. And truly we may add that as long as this glorious Shepherd has, His sheep shall never want, and that is, for ever and ever. He may not give them all they would like; and He may try them in various ways by losses and crosses; but He shall not withhold anything that His infinite wisdom sees good for them. They shall not want what is really necessary for body or soul, though they may be kept sometimes long waiting for an answer to their petitions. “None perish that Him trust.” At other times they may get more than they asked for, or thought of, and be constrained to exclaim, “My cup runneth over.”
The question should come home to each of our readers—”Is the Lord my Shepherd, or am I still pursuing my own way on the mountains of vanity?” We may be solemnly assured of this, that, if Jehovah is not our shepherd, the devil is still our master, and if we continue in his service to death, he will carry us away to eternal destruction. Christ, as the Shepherd of souls, still addresses us in the gospel, and declares His willingness to save the very chief of sinners who comes unto Him. And if any of our readers answer that they cannot come of themselves, which is also a solemn truth, we have to state that the arm of this Shepherd is long enough to reach them in the deepest pit of misery on this side of hell. He is mighty to save—able to save to the very uttermost. See that you cry to Him, and wait upon Him, whose arm is not shortened that it cannot save, and whose ear is not heavy that it cannot hear. “They that wait for him shall not be put to shame.” And let every doubting soul that has reason to think he was enabled, in a day of mercy, to embrace Christ as an all-sufficient Saviour, seek diligently at a throne of grace a well-grounded assurance of his personal interest in “the great Shepherd of the sheep,” who loves and keeps even to the end.
A Sermon.
BY THE REV. NEIL CAMERON, ST. JUDE’S, GLASGOW.
“And let the whole earth be filled with his glory.”—PSALM lxxii. 19.
This Psalm has been understood by the Old Testament Church as referring to Christ, and in the light of the New Testament no other opinion is tenable. The last prayer of David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, is recorded in it, and our text contains the last words of it, which were the last he uttered in time. He prayed for the coming of the kingdom of God throughout all the nations of the earth, and died after serving his own generation. The two last things he did before he died were to declare his satisfaction in the covenant of grace, and to pray for the spread of the knowledge of the Lord’s glory over all lands as the waters cover the channels of the deep. Christ and the covenant of grace have been, and shall continue to be, the only and real ground of the hope of all the people of God. Here, like David, they find all their salvation and all their desire. Upon this they exercise their minds daily, and upon their knees in their own secret chambers (where no eyes of man see them) they plead for the downfall of the kingdom of Satan and the coming of the kingdom of Christ. Such wrestlers with God in secret are few and far between in this poor generation. There is a form of godliness, while the power of it is denied; but the religion that will not separate the heart and mind, as well as the outward conduct, from the world and its ways, will not keep the sinner from hell at death and at the great day of judgment. But notwithstanding the awful lukewarmness and self-sufficiency of the bulk of professors, there are even yet a few who sigh and cry for all the abominations done in the land, and the Lord’s eyes are on the just, and His ears are open to their cry. “When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory. He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.” When we look to the exercises of the Lord’s people in the past, how we are made to blush! Where can you find to-day a Jeremiah saying, “Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people”? This would be very like Christ—“And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.” May the Lord pour upon us the spirit of grace and supplication, so that we may be led to look upon Him whom we have pierced and to mourn for Him. Sin shall cause mourning to every sinner either in this world or in eternity. If in this world, the truth shall be fulfilled which says—“But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys ; all of them mourning, every one for his own iniquity.” Then shall Christ be made glorious in their eyes.
But let us consider, as we may be helped and guided by the Holy Spirit, the words of our text.
I.—What we may understand by the words, “His glory.”
And
II.—Let us consider the petition, and the form in which it is expressed—”And let the whole earth be filled with his glory.”
I.—We are to consider first what we are to understand by the words, “His glory.”
(1) The glory of His person should be considered.
The Scriptures with one voice throughout teach that Christ is God. The Gospel according to John begins with a clear statement of this fact—”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.” In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Spirit proves from the Old Testament Scriptures that the Messiah was none else but God. He quotes the Father addressing Him thus—”Thou art my Son. . . Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth ; and the heavens are the works of thine hands. Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” The Scriptures also teach as clearly that He was true man. “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” Again, “And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest ; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.” So that our Lord Jesus Christ is God and man—two distinct natures in one person. Isaiah spake of His glory as Mediator when he said, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ; and the government shall be upon his shoulders : and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” This is the only Redeemer of God’s elect. This doctrine forms the foundation upon which the true Church of God is built, as the confession of Peter shows—”Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered, . . . Upon this rock I will build my church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
(2) The glory of Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King, calls for consideration when we speak of His glory.
As a Prophet He revealed the whole mind and will of the Father to man. It was Christ, by His Spirit, that communicated to the prophets under the Old Testament dispensation the truths they declared and put on record. Into these truths they searched in order that they might attain to somewhat of their meaning—”Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” The counsels and purposes that were in the mind of God were known only to the Three Persons. It was absolutely necessary that these should be revealed, because God purposed to save sinners of mankind. The truth about man’s fall; the guilt and misery in which that involved himself and all his posterity; the mercy and love of God in providing a Saviour; the way in which salvation could be procured; and the way in which lost men could be made partakers of the salvation purchased by Christ for them; along with the hope of eternal glory, were things which could never enter into the heart of man had not the Son of God taken upon Himself to become the Bearer of these glad tidings to men. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” The infinite distance between God and the creature, needed to be bridged by God Himself, as it is written—”Who only hath immortality, dwelling in light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see.” Had not our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Prophet, reduced these great, unspeakably great things into human words, they could never become known to lost men. He alone could declare the name of God unto His brethren. Christ sent forth prophets and apostles, but He alone is the Apostle of our profession. The Father sent Him.
Christ alone can teach men savingly the truths set forth by Him in the Bible. The dead will not hear the voice of man or angel until Christ speaks to them by His Spirit, and then they shall live and hear. He may and does use men as His servants in setting forth the way of salvation; but He tells them—”Without me you can do nothing.” All His true messengers have been made fully conscious of this. “A people shall be willing in the day of his power.”
Christ has glory as priest. God purposed to save sinners of mankind, and elected them to eternal life; but He, at the same time, appointed the means by which they were to be saved. He made it a condition that His justice should be fully satisfied. In other words, that without shedding of blood no sins should be forgiven. Consequently He revealed in Eden to our guilty parents the promise of a suffering Saviour. All the sacrifices of the Old Testament dispensation of the covenant of grace, were types of Christ crucified. This was the manner in which the gospel was taught during four thousand years. But we are told that the blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sin.
The great day of atonement was an eminent type of Christ. This day had to be observed once in each year in the Jewish Church. On this day the high priest offered first for his own sins, and then for that of the whole people of Israel. He sacrificed a he-goat upon the altar, after confessing the sins of the people on his head, and brought the blood into the holiest of all. He sprinkled the blood upon the mercy seat and seven times before the mercy seat upon the ground; and afterwards interceded for the sins of the people. He immediately came out. This showing that the way to the holy place was not yet manifest while the first tabernacle was standing. This taught that there was to be a great day of atonement in this world.
When Christ came as the great High Priest, the Father provided Him with a sacrifice; this sacrifice was the body He prepared for Him. Christ, as our great High Priest, offered Himself without spot to God. He needed not to sacrifice for Himself, for He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate for sinners. Therefore, He needed only a sacrifice for the sins of the people. The Father laid on Him the iniquity of all His people, and He, by one offering, for ever perfected all them that are sanctified. He finished the work the Father gave Him to do, and He finished it perfectly and for ever. God the Father’s eye was on this one sacrifice in forgiving sins during the four thousand years that were past, and His eye is on it still. The eye of guilty sinners, who were taught of the Holy Ghost, were on this sacrifice during that time. You will see this in the case of Abel, for he brought an offering in faith. Christ crucified, in the matter of forgiveness, is the object of faith. Since the death of Christ on Calvary’s cross, God never asked nor accepted any other offering for sin, and never will. It was not by any other blood, but by His own, Christ entered into heaven itself for us. Because the satisfaction which His blood gave to God’s justice was perfect, He will never need to offer another sacrifice, and He is now in heaven before the throne of mercy interceding for the remission of all the sins of His people. His intercession for His people is all prevailing, as it is written—”Thou hast given him his heart’s desire, and hast not withheld the request of his lips.”
The Son of God is our only High Priest, as He appears in heaven for us. All who pretend to offer sacrifices as priests now vilify the glory of Christ. They do this as regards His one offering, and also as regards His intercession. He was appointed for this office by God the Father, as it is written—”Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedech.” And again—”We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.” The day Christ died on Calvary was the great day of atonement for a lost world, and the eyes of guilty men look to that day backwards, as the eyes of others looked forward to it. All who are taught of God will say with the great Apostle of the Gentiles—”God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
Christ has glory as king both over all rational creatures, and over His Church. All power in heaven and on earth has been given Him as Mediator by the Father. He is King of kings, and Lord of lords on earth; and therefore kings are admonished to be wise, to obey Him in loving obedience for fear His wrath may be kindled against them, and they perish. He has absolute power over all flesh for the good of His Church. Nations may revolt against His Kingly authority, but to no avail, only to their own ruin. “For the nation and kingdom that will not serve Thee shall perish; yea, these nations shall be utterly wasted.” Earthly kings pass away, and all their vain glory vanish with them; but He is the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God to whom honour and glory are due for ever and ever. This Isaiah had a vision of—”In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.” The glory of this great King caused him to say—”Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Proud Nebuchadnezzar learned this great fact by sad experience as he confessed—”Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and His ways judgment; and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.”
Christ is also King over His own Church. He rules by His Word and Spirit in the hearts of His own people. They obey His voice speaking in the Scriptures, and take it as their only rule for glorifying Him in this World. It was because the people of God refused to obey earthly kings and rulers in their manner of worship and faith that they were persecuted unto death. But Christ promised them that not a hair of their heads should be lost. This was made manifest in Babylon, when the three young men refused to obey Nebuchadnezzar, and were cast into the fiery furnace. They came out without even the smell of the fire being off their garments or persons. It was for the same cause that some have suffered often since. They know that He rules in His providence most holily and most wisely over all His creatures and all their actions, and that no one can do them the least harm unless He permits. This makes the righteous bold as a lion in the affairs of God’s house in this world. Wicked men and devils are absolutely under His control, and, therefore, the righteous flee to Christ, their King, to protect them when Satan and men begin to roar. The views they get by faith of this King in His beauty and the land that is very far off, cause them to say that all the gilded glory of this world is nothing but vanity and vexation of spirit.
(3) The gospel in its purity, preached to a lost world, is also declared in the Word of God to be the glory of Christ.
The holy law reveals much of the glory of Christ. This glory—at the giving of it—made the children of Israel fear and quake. They could not stand before such glory. The Apostle describes it: “For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.” The law of God has much of His glory set forth in its authoritative declarations, and nothing can ever awaken the consciences of men, dead in trespasses and sin, but the voice of Christ in the law. Saul of Tarsus felt this when He spake to him on the way to Damascus and said, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” The voice of God’s law brings a sense of terrible glory and majesty into the human soul. The Apostle tells again his experience that day, and says, “And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus.” The despisers of this law will one day see their folly, as it is written—”The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God.”
But Moses, after he beheld the glory of the holy law, desired still to see the glory of God. “And he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. . . . And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, 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.” This is the glory of the gospel, which is a glory that exceeds that of the law. In the gospel God’s love, mercy, pity, and graciousness appear, and this to rebels of mankind. He calls to sinners to turn to Him by Jesus Christ, and offers to show mercy, and to forgive sins freely; throws the gates of mercy open, and calls to whosoever will to take of the water of life freely. This the Apostle Paul calls “the glorious gospel of the blessed God.” “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” But we must proceed.
(4) The ministers of the gospel are called the glory of Christ.
This you will see expressed in the words—”If our brethren be inquired of, they are the messengers of the churches and the glory of Christ.” This is certainly not applicable to all who bear the name of being messengers of Christ, for it must necessarily be restricted to the true messengers of Christ. These are very few among men in our day.
II.—Let us consider this petition, and the form in which it is expressed—”And let the whole earth be filled with his glory.”
In considering this petition we desire to notice two things: (1) That the iniquity with which the whole earth is filled must be removed; (2) That the place iniquity now holds should be filled with the glory of Christ.
1. That the iniquity with which the whole earth is filled must be removed.
This will appear clearly to every careful reader of the Word of God. To be a sinner in a state of nature is to be darkness, and to be in a state of grace is light, in Scripture language. Now these two elements—light and darkness—cannot exist together, as the one departs as soon as the other comes. We will divide this darkness into four parts:—
(1) The darkness of heathenism must depart before the glory of Christ shall fill the whole earth. This is so self-evident that none can gainsay it, and both the Old and New Testaments prove it beyond doubt. Its idolatry, its horrid cruelty, its games, races, and plays, and its ignorance of God—both as a just God and Saviour—shall be dispelled. This was the effect of the gospel among the heathen everywhere since the beginning of the Christian era.
(2) The idolatry, superstition, and enmity to God’s truth, and the profession of it which is according to godliness, shall have to be destroyed out of Roman Catholic countries, and from among the followers of the false prophet, i.e., the Turk. It will be by the breath of the nostrils of Christ—i.e., the Holy Spirit—that this great change will be effected. There are really wonderful changes taking place in the most of the countries which have been up till now under the sway of the Pope. In some of these the people seem to be really hating the Roman harlot and eating her flesh; while—to our great shame, be it said—we in this kingdom seem to be healing the wound which our forefathers gave the Beast. But when the glorious millennium will come Babylon will fall, never to rise any more for ever. These great changes will be brought about by the Word of God, but not probably until awful things will happen in the holy ruling of divine providence.
(3) The poor benighted Jews will have to be undeceived. They are still as bitter against the gospel of Christ as they were in the days in which Paul declared that wrath had come upon them to the uttermost. But the Word of God promises a bright day yet for the poor Jews, for it says—“For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?” The time when this glorious change will take place is indicated in the truth which says, “That blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.” All true praying people should earnestly plead for these great changes, both among the Gentiles and Jews.
(4) All the Churches designated Protestant will have to turn from their backslidings, idolatry, atheism, hypocrisy, and worldliness before the whole earth shall be filled with His glory. The Protestant Churches almost over the whole earth have departed from God’s truth, in doctrine, form of government, worship, and discipline. The Word of God has been brought into doubt, and the men who did so have been raised up to the highest places in churches. These men are really atheists at heart, and hold the very same opinions with those men who were called atheists in the past. They have made atheists of the people by their pernicious errors. This is true at our very doors. Notwithstanding, these teachers profess faith in Christ, and for the sake of worldly gain act the hypocrite. In worship they have introduced the most of the things which were cast out at the Reformation, and thereby build up the church of Rome again so that, in the name of Protestantism, almost all the isms with which the Church of God was tried in the past have been resurrected by this generation. All these things will have to be cast out before we can expect His glory to fill the whole earth. When you consider the four divisions we have made of the whole earth, the strong hold Satan has got of each, you will have to conclude that this work is on man’s side impossible; but not so on God’s side; for with God all things are possible. Therefore prayer can be made in faith in the power and promise of God that all these obstacles may be removed.
2. That the place which iniquity now occupies should be filled with the glory of Christ.
We have an absolute promise and the oath of God, that it shall be so—”But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.” He explains to us what He means by—the glory of the Lord—in these words—”For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” Then
(1) The knowledge of the glory of Christ as the only Mediator between God and guilty men shall fill the hearts and understands of all the peoples of this earth.
I don’t mean mere speculative and brain knowledge, but true saving knowledge. They will believe in the doctrine of His person, and those who teach that Christ is only a man will get none to listen to them, or to believe them. All men everywhere shall know that Christ is God and man, two natures in the one divine Person. They will rejoice in this glorious Person who is equal with the Father, and also, being man, has true fellow-feeling with His people in all their trials. He will have the heart-love of every one you will meet with when His glory shall fill the whole earth. As sure as it was the Father in heaven that taught Peter to know Christ, it will be His teaching, by His Word and Spirit, that will bring about this great change. The heathen will burn their images, and cease their heathenish practices; Papists will forsake the Pope, burn their images, crosses, altars, etc.; Turks will throw away their Koran, forsake the false Prophet, and all his worship; Jews will look to Him whom they pierced, and mourn, being amazed at their former blindness; Protestants will cast out of their creeds and worship, all the unscriptural matters they now haul with cart ropes; and all these will with one mind turn to Christ as their only Saviour and Hope.
(2) Christ as the Mediator, in His offices will be then believed in by all men.
They will not listen to men who teach that there are errors in the Bible. These men, should any of them exist, will get none anywhere to listen to their doctrines. Higher critics will be brought very low. The motto will be—”To the law and to the testimony; if they will not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”
There will be no priests then; for Christ will be their only Priest. To Him as the Great High Priest every sinner will come looking to the merit of His one offering and blood, as that which fully satisfied justice and which can purge the conscience from the guilt of sin. They will consider Jesus Christ, the Apostle and High Priest of their profession. They will all be taught how to come to God by Christ as their Priest, and all other so-called priests shall get none to come to them.
The whole earth will acknowledge Christ, and their kings shall become very useful to His Church—”And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth.” Now-a-days when kings visit one another they forget God, spend the time in sin, and bring wrath upon themselves and on their subjects; but at this time kings will think it their business to honour Christ, and to do what they can to advance His interests in the world. They will take the Word of God as the only rule to direct them how they may glorify God. Nothing will be done in Church or State but in accordance with the perfect rule set forth in the Old and New Testament Scriptures. All the subjects in every kingdom of the whole earth will become the willing vassals of the Lord, as it is written—”The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.”
(3) The gospel of Christ, in its purity, will spread over the whole earth.
There is a very promising thing taking place in our day—the Word of God is being spread among the heathen with extraordinary diligence and success. The heathen are also being taught to read God’s Word for themselves. This is true in every part of the inhabitable earth. Great pains are being taken to translate the Bible into the languages of the heathen; and what is very extraordinary, this is done, in many instances, by men who hold unsound views on inspiration. In any case the Word of eternal life is being put into the hands of our fellow-sinners in Africa, India, China, etc., with great diligence. This is especially the case with the Bible Societies, who are doing great good. Their Colporteurs go from village to village, and from house to house, spreading the Word of God among the people. This is particularly true in India. This is very hopeful, for God says of His own Word—”It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” So we may expect the rich harvest of the millennium to be reaped from the sowing of the seed of the kingdom of heaven in the earth. It seems to us that the lands which have had the gospel for ages, and despised it, are most likely to be the last parts of the whole earth that shall be filled with the glory of Christ.
When the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of the gospel there will be but one fold and one Shepherd then. All false doctrine, false ways of worshipping God, and false ways of Church government will disappear, and the Church will be governed according to the Presbyterian order set forth in the New Testament. In the family God will be worshipped morning and evening, and in secret by each member of these families. This will not be only in one house, town, or kingdom, but in every house, town, and kingdom under the sun.
The people will be gathered together into congregations and Churches, and will joy in going up to the House of God. Every pulpit will be occupied with a minister full of the knowledge of the glorious gospel of the grace of God, as it is written—”For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering, for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts.” In these days the gospel will be preached from every pulpit throughout the whole earth, and not in one here and there, as it is to-day. May the Lord hasten it in its time.
Let us now consider the form in which this petition, in the last prayer of David, the son of Jesse, is expressed.
(1) The word “let” is sometimes in scripture equivalent to a command;
“let all things be done decently and in order,” and in many other places of the Word it has this meaning. “Ask ye me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the works of my hands command ye me.” You will find Daniel using language to this effect when he prayed—”O Lord hear; O Lord forgive; O Lord hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God; for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.” The same holy boldness appears in Jacob—”I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. . . . And he blessed him there.” We think David had the same faith in the promise of God; and therefore wrestled with Him in his last words with the same holy boldness. There were many of the Lord’s people since, who, like Esther, took courage to ask no less than the presence of the king to the feast, also her life and people—”If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request.” This is prayer taking the kingdom of heaven by violence. Not the presumption of the graceless.
(2) This word “let” is also used in Scripture as equivalent to a grant or leave to do a thing—
“Let us come boldly to the throne of grace.” This sets forth the willingness with which the Lord receives His people, and how ready He is to grant their requests put forth in the name of Christ. “Let me hear thy voice.” Especially this is true in the things which concern His glory and the salvation of men in the world.
(3) “Let” also means a rebuke—
“Refrain from these men and let them alone.” This is a rebuke to all the adversaries of the cause of Christ. It is a rebuke to His enemies among men—also to devils—to stand aside and let the glory of Christ fill the whole earth. So God can at any moment command His enemies to stand aside. He will bind Satan and cast him into the bottomless pit for a thousand years, and say to His enemies among men, “Why persecute ye me?”
There are about four thousand years since this prayer was put up, and you will say it is not fulfilled yet. Yes; but do you not remember that it is written—”But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” You would not think it too long to wait for the answer of your prayer four days. The prayers of the Lord’s people will certainly be answered, in so far as they may be in accordance with the Lord’s will, and this prayer is in accordance with His promise and oath. Therefore, let us pray—”Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven.”
The Late Mrs. H. MACKAY, Lochcarron.
The many friends and acquaintances of the late Mrs. Alexander Mackay, Ardineaskin, Lochcarron (better known as Flora Dunvegan), would be expecting that some notice would have been taken of her in our Magazine, and we have to express our regret that this was not done before now. The Lord of the harvest is fast taking home his sheaves, while we may be compared to those described by the prophet Micah who “gathered the summer fruits.”
Flora was born at Dunvegan about 37 years ago, and grew up like her companions in sin and folly, especially in Sabbath desecration, sins on account of which, she would afterwards say, that it was of the Lord’s mercies that she was not consumed. In her young days she attended the Established Church along with her father, her mother being an adherent of the Free Church. In those days she had a bitter hatred to Free Church ministers, especially those of them who denounced the Established Church. Flora’s case should be of much interest, particularly to Free Presbyterians, as she was supposed to be one of the first, if not the first, at least in Skye, to be brought under the saving power of the truth in the Free Presbyterian Church. In 1893, shortly after we took up a separate position from the then so-called Free Church, one of our ministers preached on a Sabbath evening in Edinbane school, and this happened to be also the Communion Sabbath of the Free Church in Flashadder, and Flora’s mother attended the Communion. In the evening her father went with his conveyance to bring her mother home, and Flora thought it would be a fine outing for her to go with her father to Edinbane. While waiting for her father and mother, she heard that a peculiar man who had left the Free Church, a recommendation which no doubt appealed strongly to her, was to preach in the school, and, from curiosity, she thought she would go and hear him. As she was entering the place of worship the precentor was giving out the last line in verse 2 of Psalm 42 (“And in God’s sight appear”), and the words as arrows pierced her heart. During the sermon, which was based on John vii. 37, “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink,” the arrows of the Almighty were fast sticking in her. On her way home she tried all in her power to quench the fire that was now burning in her conscience by laughing and vain talking, but “who would set the briers and thorns against Me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together.” How long she was in this state of mind, or how she was brought to the liberty of the gospel, we are unable to say, but that she was made free by “the Son” was never doubted by any who knew her, and her after life and conversation was ample proof of this. She was much harassed with temptations, and often cast down through unbelief, but could also say with David, “He took me from a fearful pit, &c.” She was also a great sufferer from asthma, and we often wondered at and admired her diligence in attending the means of grace under great bodily affliction and weakness. There were few Communions held on the island and the neighbouring parishes on the mainland, but Flora attended, and her genial presence was greatly appreciated and is now sadly missed by all. She was a faithful rebuker of sin, wherever she met it, whether it be in lay or cleric.
About two years ago she married Mr. Alex. Mackay, Ardineskin, and continued since in good health until this summer when she had to go to Glasgow to undergo an operation. Nothing serious, however, was anticipated, and she got safely through the first operation. She herself fully expected to recover as she was much comforted by the words “But David encouraged himself in the Lord.” On the day on which she was to leave the Infirmary, the doctor examined her and found that there was something much more seriously wrong with her than the occasion of her first operation, for which she would require to undergo another serious operation. This passage of Scripture then began to speak to her, “Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me,” from which she concluded that the time of her departure had come. After going through the operation she improved for a few days, when a relapse took place, from which she never recovered. A few minutes before she died she said to her husband, who stood at her bedside holding her hand, “Let me go.” When asked where she was going to, she replied, “To be for ever with Christ.” Shortly after, we believe, she entered the joy of her Lord.
To her bereaved husband and parents we tender our sincere sympathies in their great loss, and trust that the “Friend which loveth at all times” and the “Brother born for adversity” may be their consolation.
N. M.
Convent Enquiry Petition.—The great petition which the Protestant Alliance intends to present to Parliament on this subject has now received 600,000 signatures at the time of writing. The time for signing closes on the 31st of December, and by the time this issue of the Magazine is in the hands of our readers preparations will be made for the presentation of the petition to Parliament.