THE voice of the last messenger has been heard speaking very loudly in various parts of the world during the past month. In the course of one week the country was thrilled with the tidings of at least four disasters, two of which were of more than ordinary magnitude. These alarming events happened in the three spheres of sea and earth and sky. The Lord has been showing that He is master in all the spheres of creation, whether men recognise Him or not.
The first disaster that falls to be noticed was the loss of the British steamship “Volturno,” which was destroyed by fire in mid Atlantic Ocean. This vessel was on its way from Rotterdam in Holland to New York, and carried emigrants and crew to the number of 657 persons, of whom something like 134 perished. The majority were saved with great difficulty, owing to a storm that raged, by steamers that came to the rescue. The second and the most extensive of the calamities happened in the coal-field of South Wales, at a place a few miles from Cardiff. A terrible explosion took place in a coal pit on Tuesday morning, the 14th October, when 935 men were at work. Fire immediately broke out, with the sad result that no help could be rendered to 400 men, who perished in the mine. This is stated to be one of the very largest disasters that has happened in the history of the British mining industry. A third disaster was a railway smash near Liverpool which occasioned the loss of six lives. The fourth of these melancholy events took place in Germany, when a new airship of immense proportions, belonging to the Government, collapsed in mid air, and fell to the earth a total wreck. The result in this case was the death of 28 persons. By these four disasters, the large number of nearly 600 souls were suddenly ushered in a painful manner into eternity. It was a week of
most distressing sorrow and loss to many families, for whom the keenest sympathy ought to be everywhere felt.
Now, we desire to press home some of the lessons taught by these events, especially upon the minds of those of our readers who have never been properly awakened to realise the sovereign authority and power of God, their accountability to Him, and the urgent necessity of being adequately prepared for death, judgment, and eternity. Many are the dangers by land and sea, which people, when preserved from them, little grasp or understand.
First, there is a general lesson to the age in which we live by these disasters. Men seem to think nowadays that they are the lords of creation, and that by their scientific knowledge they can overcome at their pleasure all the forces of nature and make them subservient to the demands of human ambition. God is not in all their thoughts, and they take little or no account of Him in their reckonings. But they must be taught that He is the universal governor, and that the success of their voyages, schemes, and inventions is dependent upon His approval and help. If He withdraws His hand, the most wonderfully-constructed air vessel in the world falls to the earth in splinters. The practical atheism of multitudes is becoming so gross and defiant that we wonder not at these outbreaks of divine judgment. If such events would be blessed to the spiritual awakening of careless sinners, they would not happen in vain.
Secondly, these events are a succession of voices to all who are accustomed to travel, or who occupy posts of danger in the world. The message is, “Prepare to meet thy God.” Men take great pains to ensure temporal interests in the event of death, but how little thought is given to the soul and its vast interests in view of eternity! Death at most only reduces the body to dust and ashes, but death ushers the soul either into the abode of eternal happiness, or into that of eternal woe. What infinite need of concern to escape the latter! Nowadays, however, the delusion is almost universally fostered that all men, well-nigh without exception, enter into rest at death, and so people imagine they have nothing to fear, no matter how they have lived. A greater mistake could not be made. “The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment,” saith Christ.
Thirdly, these disasters loudly proclaim to everyone the solemn truths that “it is appointed unto men once to die,” and that they know “neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.” Some of us may be far removed from the situations of danger in which many of our fellow-creatures are placed, but this affords us no exemption from the hand of death. That hand may be laid upon us in a quiet and gentle manner, without any of the appalling and dreadful accompaniments that others experience, but the issues are equally the same. It therefore becomes those of us who are out of Christ to take serious warning by the case of
others, no matter in what way death comes to them. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Apart from the new birth, we cannot see the kingdom of grace here, or the kingdom of glory hereafter. Can we contemplate with ease the prospect of being cast into “the outer darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth?” These painful dispensations of providence are all messages from God, and the more numerous they are, the greater are our responsibilities, and the more inexcusable we shall be found at last, if we neglect and despise them. “The Lord’s voice crieth unto the city and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it” (Micah vi. 9).
Fourthly, we would take occasion from these sad calamities to commend the unspeakable privilege of having a saving interest in Christ. The Son of God took part of flesh and blood that “through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. ii. 14, 15). He has taken the sting out of death, and delivers even from the fear of death. True believers have no reason to fear what has been called “the king of terrors.” Their Lord and Saviour has obtained an eternal victory over him, and they shall share in that victory. “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” And even although God’s people, through the infirmity of the flesh or the remaining influence of unbelief, are sometimes afflicted with fears as to the future, yet their state is unchangeably safe. No power in earth or hell can separate them from Christ or His love, and so in life or in death they are “more than conquerors” through Him that loved them (Romans viii. 35, 39). Is there any condition under the sun more to be envied than this? And will those who read these lines and yet know in their consciences that they are on the way to death and eternity without Christ, and without hope, not consider their dreadful state and prospect, and by grace, betake themselves without delay to the Saviour of “that which was lost”? Some have no doubt been saved from “going down to the pit” at their latest breath, but these are the exceptions and not the rule. Rather, a most solemn warning has been given to those who set at nought the Lord’s counsel in the day of privilege and prosperity, in those most impressive and alarming words, direct from His own mouth: “I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me; for that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord; they would none of my counsel; they despised all my reproof. . . . But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil” (Proverbs i. 22, 33).
“Stewards.”
A SERMON BY THE LATE C. H. SPURGEON, METROPOLITAN
TABERNACLE, LONDON.
Delivered to the Annual Conference of the Pastors’ College
Association, 1887.*
“Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the
mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be
found faithful.”—I COR. iv. 1, 2.
MY beloved brethren—I might even say with Paul, “My
dearly beloved and longed for”—it gives me intense
delight to look into your faces once again; and yet I feel
weighted with a solemn responsibility in having to direct your
thoughts at this time so as to give the keynote to our solemn
conference. I ask your continued prayers that I may speak
aright, saying the right thing in the right way.
There is considerable advantage in the freedom of the usual
inaugural address. It may take the methodical form of a sermon,
or it may wear looser garments and come forth in the undress of
a speech. Certain freedoms which are not usually accorded to a
set sermon are allowed me in this discursive discourse. You
shall call my talk by what name you choose when I have done,
but it will be a sermon, for I have a very definite and distinct
text in my mind, and I shall keep to it with at least an average
closeness.
I may as well announce the text, for it will furnish you with a
clue to my intent. You will find the passage in the First Epistle
to the Corinthians, in the first verses of the fourth chapter: “Let
a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ and stewards
of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards
that a man be found faithful.”
The apostle was anxious to be rightly accounted of, and well
he might be, for ministers are not often estimated rightly. As a
rule, they are either gloried in or else despised. At the com-
mencement of our ministry, when our stores are fresh and our
energies are full—when we blaze and flash and spend much time
in the firework factory—people are apt to think us wonderful
beings, and then the apostle’s word is needed: “Therefore let no
man glory in men” (I Cor. iii. 21). It is not true, as flatterers
insinuate, that in our case the gods have come down in the like-
ness of men, and we shall be idiots if we think so. In due time
foolish expectations will be cured by disappointment, and then we
* A friend who was much impressed with this sermon obtained permission
for its re-publication in the Free Presbyterian Magazine, from Messrs. Marshall
Brothers, Ltd., London, the proprietors of Spurgeon’s sermons.—Ed.
shall hear unwelcome truth, mingled with unrighteous censure. The idol of yesterday is the butt of to-day. Nine days, nine weeks, nine months, or nine years; be it more or less, time works disenchantment and changes our position in the world’s account. The primrose day is over and the nettle months are come. After the time of the singing of birds has passed away we come nearer to the season of fruit; but the children are not half so pleased with us as when they wandered in our luxuriant meadows and strung our daisies and buttercups into crowns and garlands. In our more autumnal years the people miss our flowers and greenery. Perhaps we are becoming sensible that it is so. The old man is solid and slow, whereas the young man rode upon the wings of the wind. It is clear that some think too much of us and some think too little of us; it would be far better if they accounted of us soberly “as the ministers of Christ.” It would be for the advantage of the Church, for our own benefit, and for the glory of God, if we were put in our right places and kept there, being neither over-rated nor unduly censured, but viewed in our relation to our Lord rather than in our own personalities. “Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ.”
We are ministers. The word has a very respectable sound. To be a minister is the aspiration of many a youth. Perhaps if the word were otherwise rendered their ambition might cool. Ministers are servants. They are not guests, but waiters; not landlords, but labourers. The word has been rendered “under-rowers,” men who tug the oar on the lowest bench. It was hard work to row a galley. Those rapid strokes consumed the life-forces of the slaves. There were three banks of oars. Those on the upper bank of oars had the advantage of fresh air; those who were beneath were more closely shut in; but I suppose that the lowest bank of rowers would be faint with heat as well as worn out with sore travail. Brethren, let us be content to wear out our lives even in the worst position, if by our labour we can speed the passage of our great “Cæsar” and give speed to the trireme of the Church in which He has embarked. We are willing to be chained to the oar and to work on through life to make His barque cleave the waves. We are not captains nor owners of the galley, but only the oarsmen of Christ.
The text, however, does not call us simply ministers or servants, but it adds, “of Christ.” We are not the servants of men but of the Lord Jesus. Esteemed sir, if you think, because you subscribe to my support, that I am bound to do your bidding, you are under a mistake. Truly, we are “ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake,” but in the highest sense our sole responsibility is to Him whom we call Master and Lord. We obey superior orders, but we cannot yield to the dictation of our fellow-servants, however influential they may be. Our service is glorious because it is the service of Christ. We feel honoured in being permitted to wait upon Him whose shoe’s latchet we are not worthy to unloose.
We are also said to be “stewards.” What are stewards? Let us consider—
I.—What is the office of steward?
What is required of stewards? This is our duty. We are not now speaking of anybody outside, but of you and myself; therefore let us make personal application of all that is said.
First, a steward is a servant and no more. Perhaps he does not always remember this, and it is a very pitiful business when the servant begins to think that he is “my lord.” It is a pity that servants, when honoured by their master, should be so apt to give themselves airs. How ridiculous Jack-in-office makes himself! I do not refer now to butlers and footmen, but to ourselves. If we magnify ourselves we shall become contemptible, and we shall neither magnify our office nor our Lord. We are the servants of Christ, and not lords over His heritage.
Ministers are for churches, and not churches for ministers. In our work among the churches we must not dare to view them as estates to be farmed for our own profit or gardens to be trimmed to our own taste.
A steward is a servant of a peculiar kind, for he has to superintend the other servants, and that is a difficult thing to do. An old friend of mine, who is now with God, once said, “I have always been a shepherd. Forty years I was a shepherd of sheep, and another forty years I was a shepherd of men, and the last flock was a deal more sheepish than the first.” This witness is true. I think I have heard that a sheep has as many diseases as there are days in the year; but I am sure that the other sort of sheep are liable to ten times as many. A pastor’s work is an anxious one. All sorts of difficulties occur with our fellow-servants; and, alas! unwise stewards make a great many more than there need be by expecting perfection in others although they do not possess it themselves. Our fellow-servants are, after all, wisely selected, for He who put them into His household knew what He was at. At any rate, they are His choice and not ours. It is not our place to find fault with our Lord’s own election.
The other servants will take their cue from us. A steward who is dull, inert, and slow will have a slow team of servants about him, and the business of his lordship will fare badly. Those who travel will have noticed that the servants in a hotel are very much like the landlord. If the landlord is cheery, attentive, and obliging, all the maids and waiters partake of his geniality; but if he looks sourly at you and treats you with indifference, you will find that the whole establishment is of a disdainful order. Oh, that we may always be alive and earnest in the service of the Lord Jesus that our people may be alive also! A minister must give himself wholly to his work. I have read of a Puritan divine that he was so full of life that his people said he lived like one who fed on live things. Oh, for a life sustained by living bread! We
shall not be good stewards in the management of our fellow-servants unless we are ourselves filled with the grace of God. We must set our fellow-servants an example of zeal and tenderness, constancy, hopefulness, energy, and obedience. We must ourselves practise constant self-denial, and select as our own part of the work that which is hardest and most humiliating. We are to rise above our fellows by superior self-forgetfulness. Be it ours to lead the forlorn hopes and bear the heaviest burdens. Arch-deacon Hare was giving a lecture at Trinity College when a cry of “Fire” was raised. His pupils rushed away and formed themselves into a line, to pass buckets of water from the river to the burning building. The tutor saw a consumptive student standing up to his waist in the water, and cried to him, “What! you in the water, Sterling.” The reply was, “Somebody must be in it, and why not I as well as another?” Let us say to ourselves, “Some fellows must be doing the drudgery of the Church and labouring in the hardest places, and why should not we take that post.”
Next, remember that stewards are servants under the more immediate command of the great Master. We should be as the steward who daily goes into his lord’s private room to receive orders. John Ploughman was never in the squire’s parlour, but the steward is often there. If he neglected to consult the squire he would soon be doing amiss, and involving himself in heavy responsibility. How often ought you and I to say, “Lord, show me what thou wouldst have me to do.” To cease to look up to God, so as to learn and practise His will, would be to quit our true position. A steward who never communicates with his master! Give him his wages and let him go. He who does his own will and not his master’s is of no value as a steward. Brethren, we must wait upon God continually. The habit of going for orders must be cultivated. How grateful should we be that our Master is always within call! He guides His servants with His eye, and with His guidance He gives also the needful power. He will make our faces to shine before the eyes of our fellows if we commune with him. Our example must encourage others to wait upon the Lord. As our business is to tell them the mind of God, let us study that mind very carefully.
Again, stewards are constantly giving account. Their account is given as they go along. A business-like proprietor requires an account of outgoings and incomings from day to day. There is great truth in the old proverb that “short reckonings make long friends.” If we make short reckonings with God we shall be long friends with Him. I wonder if any of you keep account of your faults and shortcomings. Perhaps the time will be better spent in constant efforts to serve your Master and increase His estate. We ought each one to ask himself, “What am I doing by my preaching? Is it of the right kind? Am I giving prominence to those doctrines which my Lord would have me put in the forefront? Am I caring for souls as He would have me care for
them?” It is a good thing thus to review one’s whole life and inquire, “Do I give sufficient time to private prayer? Do I study the Scriptures as intensely as I should? I hurry about to many meetings, but am I in all this fulfilling my Master’s orders? May I not be gratifying myself with the appearance of doing much, whereas I should really be doing more if I were more attentive to the quality than to the quantity of the work?” Oh, to go often to the Master, and to be right and clear in our accounts with Him! This will be profitable both to our Churches and to ourselves.
To come to the main point: a steward is a trustee of his master’s goods. Whatever he has belongs to his master, and choice things are put into his custody not that he may do as he likes with them, but that he may take care of them. The Lord has entrusted to each one of us certain talents, and these are not our own. Gifts of knowledge and thought and speech and influence are not ours to glory in, but ours in trust for the Lord alone. It is His pound that gains five pounds.
We ought to increase our capital stock. Are all the young brethren doing that? Are you increasing in gift and capacity? My brethren, do not neglect yourselves. I observe that some brethren grow, and others stand still, dwarfed and stunted. Men, like horses, are very disappointing creatures. Good colts drop suddenly lame or develop a vice of which they were never before suspected. To be always giving out and never taking in tendeth to emptiness.
Brethren, we are stewards of the mysteries of God; we are “put in trust with the Gospel.” Paul speaks of the Gospel of the blessed God which was committed to his trust. I hope none of you have ever had the misfortune to be made a trustee. It is a thankless office. In executing a trust there is little scope for originality. We are bound to carry out a trust with literal exactness. One person wishes to receive more money and another desires to alter a clause in the deed; but the faithful trustee falls back upon the document and abides by its provisions. I hear him say as they worry him, “Dear friends, I did not make this trust; I am simply the administrator of it, and I am bound to carry it out.” The Gospel of the grace of God needs great improvement—at least, so I am informed. But I know it is no business of mine to improve it; my part is to act upon it. No doubt many would improve God Himself from off the face of the earth if they could; they would improve the Atonement until it vanished. Great alterations are demanded of us in the name of the spirit of the age. Of course, we are warned that the very notion of punishment for sin is a barbarous relic of mediæval ages, and must be given up, and with it the doctrine of substitution and many other old-fashioned dogmas. We have nothing to do with these demands; we have only to preach the Gospel as we find it. Stewards must keep to their orders, and trustees must carry out the terms of their trust.
My brethren, we are at this present hour set for the defence of the gospel. If ever men were called to this office, we are so called. These are times of drifting: men have pulled up their anchors, and are driven to and fro with winds and tides of divers kinds. As for me, I have in this hour of danger not only let down the great bower anchor, but I have cast four anchors out of the stern. That may be quite the wrong place; but in these times we need anchoring both fore and aft. Now am I fixed. Sceptical reasonings might have moved me at one time, but not now. Do our enemies ask us to lay down our swords, and cease to fight for the old faith? Like the Greeks to Xerxes, we answer, “Come and take them.” The other day the advanced thinkers were going to sweep the orthodox into limbo; but, as yet, we survive their assaults. These boasters do not know the vitality of evangelical truth. No, glorious gospel, thou shalt never perish! If we are to die, we will die fighting. If we shall personally pass away, fresh evangelists will preach upon our graves. Evangelical truths are like the dragon’s teeth which Cadmus sowed, they breed men all armed for the fray. The gospel lives by dying. Brethren, at any rate, in this contest, if we are not victorious, we will at least be faithful.
A steward’s business is to dispense his master’s goods according to their design. He is to bring forth things new and old; to provide milk for babes and strong meat for men, giving to each one his portion of meat in due season. At some tables I fear the strong men have been waiting a long time for the meat, and there is small hope of its yet appearing: the milk and water is more plentiful by far. Someone went to hear a certain preacher last Sunday, and complained that he did not preach Christ. Another remarked that perhaps that it was not the due season; but, my brethren, the due season for preaching Christ is every time you preach. God’s children are always hungry, and no bread will satisfy them but that which came down from heaven.
A wise steward will maintain the proportion of truth. He will bring forth things new and old; not always doctrine, not always practice, and not always experience. He will not always preach conflict, nor always victory; not giving a one-sided view of truth, but a sort of stereoscopic view, which shall make truth stand out “evidently set forth” before them. Much of the preparation of spiritual food lies in the correct proportion of the ingredients. Excess in one direction and failure in another may breed much mischief; let us, therefore, use weight and measure, and look up for guidance.
Brethren, take care that you use your talents for your Master, and for your Master only. It is disloyalty to our Master if we wish to be soul-winners in order to be thought to be so. It is unfaithfulness to Jesus if we even preach sound doctrine with the view to be thought sound; or pray earnestly with the desire that we may be known as praying men. It is for us to pursue our
Lord’s glory with a single eye, and with our whole heart. We must use our Lord’s gospel, and our Lord’s people, and our Lord’s talents, for our Lord, and for Him alone.
The steward should also be the guardian of his master’s family. Look to the interests of all who are in Christ Jesus, and let them all be as dear to you as your own children. Servants in the olden times were often so united to the family, and so interested in their masters’ affairs, that they spoke of our house, our land, our carriage, our horses, and our children. Our Lord would have us thus identify ourselves with His holy business, and especially He would have us love His chosen. We, beyond all others, should lay down our lives for the brethren. Because they belong to Christ, we love them for His sake. I trust we can heartily say:—
“There’s not a lamb in all Thy flock
I would disdain to feed.”
Brethren, let us heartily love all whom Jesus loves. Cherish the tried and suffering. Visit the fatherless and the widow. Care for the faint and the feeble. Bear with the melancholy and despondent. Be mindful of all parts of the household, and thus shall you be a good steward.
I shall cease from this picture when I have said that the steward represents his master. When the master is away, everybody comes to the steward for orders. He had need to behave himself well who represents such a Lord as ours. A steward should speak much more carefully and wisely when he speaks for his lord than when he speaks on his own account. Unless he is guarded in his utterances, his lord may be forced to say to him, “You had better speak for yourself. I cannot allow you thus to misrepresent me.” My beloved brethren and fellow-servants, the Lord Jesus is compromised by us if we do not keep His way, declare His truth, and manifest His Spirit. Men infer the master from the servant. Are they not to be excused if they so do? Ought not the steward to act after his master’s manner? You cannot dissociate the squire from the steward; the Lord from His representative. A Puritan was told that He was too precise, but replied, “I serve a precise God.”
If urged to utter your own thoughts rather than revealed truth, follow Jesus, who spake not His own things, but those of the Father. In this you will be acting as a steward should do. Here lies your wisdom, your comfort, and your strength. It was a sufficient vindication for a steward, when one accused him of folly, that he could reply, “Say what you please of what I did, for therein I followed my master’s orders.” Caviller, do not blame the steward. The man has done according to the command of his superior; what else would you have him to do? Our conscience is clear, and our heart is restful, when we feel that we have taken up our cross, and have followed the footprints of the Crucified One. Wisdom is justified of her children.
II.—Our obligations as stewards.
“It is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.” It is not required that a man be found brilliant, or that he be found pleasing to his associates, or even that he be found successful. All that is required is, that he be found faithful; and truly this is no small matter. It will need that the Lord Himself be both our wisdom and our strength, or we shall surely fail. Many are the ways by which we may come short of this requirement, however simple it may seem to be.
We may fail to be faithful through acting as if we were chiefs instead of servants. A difficulty arises in the church which might readily be settled by loving forbearance, but we “stand upon our dignity;” and then the servant grows out of His livery. We can be very high and mighty if we please; and the smaller we are, the more easily do we swell out. No cock is greater in fight than a bantam; and no minister is more ready to contend for his “dignity” than the man who has no dignity. How foolish we look when we play the grandee! The steward thinks he has not been treated with proper respect, and he will “let the servants know who he is.” His master was roughly used the other day by an angry tenant, and he took no notice, for he had too much mind to be put out with so small a matter; but his steward passes by nothing, and fires up at everything; is this as it should be? I think I see the gentle master lay his hand upon his furious servant’s shoulder, and I hear him say, “Can you not bear it? I have borne far more than this.”
Brethren, our Master “endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself,” and shall we be weary and faint in our minds? How can we be stewards of the gentle Jesus if we behave ourselves haughtily? Let us never ride the high horse, nor attempt to be lords over God’s heritage; for He will not have it, and we cannot be faithful if we give way to pride.
We shall also fail in our duty as stewards if we begin speculating with our Master’s money. We may play ducks and drakes with our own, but not with our Lord’s money. We are not bidden to speculate, but to “occupy” till He comes. Honest trading with His goods is one thing; but to play a high game and run unlawful risks is quite another. I do not intend to speculate with my Master’s gospel, by dreaming that I can improve it by my own deep thinking, or by soaring aloft with the philosophers. We will not, even with the idea of saving souls, speak other than the gospel. If I could create a great excitement by delivering novel doctrine, I would abhor the thought. To raise a revival by suppressing truth is dealing deceitfully; it is a pious fraud, and our Lord wants no gain which might come by such a transaction. It is ours simply and honestly to trade with our Master’s pounds, and bring Him such increase as they gain in fair dealing.
We may become false to our trust by acting as men-pleasers. When the steward studies the good pleasure of the ploughman,
or the whims of the servant-maid, everything must go wrong, for everything is out of place. We are influenced by one another, and we influence one another. The greatest are unconsciously influenced in some measure by the least. The minister must be overwhelmingly influenced by the Lord his God, so that other influences may not warp him from his fidelity. We must resort continually to headquarters, and receive the word from the mouth of the Lord Himself, so that we may be kept straight and true, otherwise we shall soon be biassed, although we may not be aware of it. There must be no holding back to please one person; no rushing forward to satisfy another; no moving an inch even to gratify the whole community. We must not harp upon a certain string to win the approval of this party, neither must we be silent upon an important doctrine to avoid offending that clique. What have we to do with idols, dead or alive? O brethren, if you go in for pleasing everybody, you have indeed set yourselves a task! The toils of Sisyphus and the labours of Hercules are nothing to this! We must not flatter men; we must speak plain words, and words which conscience will approve. If we please men, we shall displease our Lord; so that success in our self-imposed task would be fatal to our eternal interests. In trying to please men, we shall not even succeed in pleasing ourselves. To please our Lord, though it may seem very difficult, is an easier task than pleasing men. O steward, have thine eye alone upon thy Master!
We shall not be found faithful stewards if we are idlers and triflers. Do you ever meet with lazy ministers? I have heard of them; but when mine eye sees them, my heart abhors them. If you plan to be lazy, there are plenty of avocations in which you will not be wanted; but, above all, you are not wanted in the Christian ministry. The man who finds the ministry an easy life will also find that it will bring a hard death. If we are not labourers, we are not true stewards; for we are to be examples of diligence to the household. I like Adam Clarke’s precept—”Kill yourselves with work, and pray yourselves alive again.” We shall never do our duty either to God or man if we are sluggards.
Yet some who are always busy, may yet be unfaithful, if all that they do is done in a jaunty, trifling manner. If we play at preaching, we have chosen an awful game. To shuffle texts like cards, and make literary essays out of themes which move all heaven and hell, is shameful work. We must be serious as death in this solemn work. There are boys and girls who are always giggling, but who never laugh; and they are the very image of certain ever-jesting preachers. I like an honest laugh—true humour can be sanctified—and those who can stir men to smile, can also move them to weep. But even this has limits, which the foolish soon exceed. Be seriously in earnest. Live like men who have something to live for, and preach like men to whom
preaching is the highest exercise of their being. Our work is the most important under heaven, or else it is sheer imposture. If you are not earnest in carrying out His instructions, your Lord will give His vineyard to another, for He will not put up with those who turn His service into trifling.
When we misuse our Master’s property, we are false to our trust. We are entrusted with a certain amount of talent, and strength, and influence, and we have to use this trust money with a single purpose. Our purpose is to promote the Master’s honour and glory. We are to seek God’s glory, and nothing else. By all means let every man use his best influence on the right side in politics; but no minister has liberty to use his position in the church to promote party ends. I do not censure workers for temperance; but even this admirable purpose must not push out the gospel; I trust it never does. I hold that no minister has a right to use his ability or office to cater for the mere amusement of the multitude. The Master has sent us to win souls—all is within the compass of our commission which tends towards that—but that is chiefly our work which drives directly and distinctly at that end. The danger lies at this time in setting up theatricals, semi-theatricals, concerts, and so forth. Until I see that the Lord Jesus Christ has set up a theatre, or planned a miracle-play, I shall not think of emulating the stage or competing with the music-hall. If I do my own business, by preaching the gospel, I shall have enough to do. One object is enough for most men—one such as ours is enough for any minister, however many his talents, however versatile his mind.
If we would be faithful as stewards, we must not neglect any one of the family, nor neglect any portion of the estate. I wonder whether we practise a personal observation of our hearers. Our beloved friend, Mr. Archibald Brown, is right when he says that London needs not only house-to-house visitation, but room-to-room visitation. We must, in the case of our people, go further, and practise man-to-man visitation. By personal intercourse alone can certain persons be reached. If I had a number of bottles before me, and were to play upon them with a fire-engine, how much of the water would be lost? If I want to make sure of filling them, I must take them up one by one, and carefully pour the liquid into them. We must watch over our sheep, one by one. This is to be done not only by personal talk, but by personal prayer. Dr. Guthrie says that he called upon a sick man, who greatly refreshed his soul, for he told him that he was wont to accompany his minister in his visits. “While I lie here, I shall follow you in your visitation. I keep on remembering house after house in my prayer, and I pray for the man, and his wife, and his children, and all who dwell with him.” Thus, without moving a step, the sick saint visited Macfarlane, and Douglas, and Duncan, and all the others whom his pastor called to see. We ought thus to beat the bounds of our parish, and go round and round our
congregations, forgetting none, despairing of none, bearing all upon our hearts before the Lord. Especially let us think of the poor, the crotchety, the desponding. Let our care, like the hurdles of a sheepfold, enclose all the flock.
Another thing must not be overlooked: in order to faithfulness we must never connive at evil. This injunction will be warmly commended by certain brethren, whose only notion of pruning a tree is to cut it down. A gardener comes to a gentleman’s house, and when he is told that the shrubs are a little overgrown, he answers, “I will see to it.” In a few days you walk round the garden. He has seen to it with a vengeance. He has done the garden, and done for it. Some persons cannot learn the balance of virtues: they cannot kill a mouse except by burning down the barn. Did I hear you say, “I was faithful, I never connived at evil”? So far so good, but may it not happen that by a bad temper you yourself produced more evil than that which you destroyed? Yield in all things personal, but be firm where truth and holiness are concerned. We must be faithful, lest we incur the sin and penalty of Eli. Be honest to the rich and influential; be firm with the wavering and unsteady; for the blood of these will be required at our hand. Brothers, you will need all the wisdom and grace you can get in order to fulfil your duties as pastors. There is an adaptation to rule men which would seem to be quite absent from certain preachers, and the place of it is supplied by an adaptation to set a house on fire, for they scatter firebrands and burning coals wherever they go. Be ye not like unto them. Strive not, and yet wink not at sin!
Some neglect their obligations as stewards by forgetting that the Master is coming. “He will not come yet,” whisper some; “there are so many prophecies to be fulfilled; and it is even possible that he will not come at all, in the vulgar sense of the term. There is no particular need for us to make haste.” Ah, my brethren, it is the unfaithful servant who says, “My Lord delayeth his coming.” This belief allows him to put off labour and travail. The servant will not clean the room by daily duty because the master is away, and she can have a great clear up, in the form of a revival, before her Lord arrives. If we would each feel that each day may be our last day we would be more intense in our work. While preaching the gospel, we may some day be interrupted by the blast of the trumpet, and the cry, “Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him.” This expectation will tend to quicken our pace. The time is short, our account is near, our Lord is at the door, we must work with all our might. We must not be eye-servants, except in this sense that we labour in the Lord’s presence since he is so near.
I am impressed with the rapid flight of time, the swift approach of the last great audit. These annual conferences return so speedily: to some of us it seems only a day or two since that of 1886; the last of them hastens on. I shall soon be giving in the
account of my stewardship; or if I should survive for a while others of you may be summoned to meet your Lord; you will soon go home to your Lord if your Lord does not soon come to you. We must work on from hour to hour with our eye upon the audit, that we may not be ashamed of the record which will be found in the volume of the book.
The reward of faithful stewards is exceeding great; let us aspire to it. The Lord will make the man who is faithful in a few things to be ruler over many things. That is an extraordinary passage where our Lord says, “Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and he will come forth and serve them.” It is wonderful that our Lord has already served us; but how can we comprehend that he will serve us again? Think of Jesus rising up from His throne to wait upon us! “Behold,” He cries, “here comes a man who served me faithfully on earth! Make way for him, ye angels, and principalities, and powers. This is the man whom the King delighteth to honour.” And to our surprise the King girds Himself and waits upon us. We are ready to cry, “Not so, my Lord.” But He must, and will, keep His word. This unspeakable honour He will pay to His true servants. Happy man to have been the poorest and most despised of ministers to be now served by the King of kings!
Beloved brethren, we are bound to go forward, cost us what it may, for we dare not go back: we have no armour for our backs. We believe ourselves to be called to this ministry, and we cannot be false to the call. If I must be a lost soul, let me be lost as a thief, a blasphemers, or a murderer, rather than as an unfaithful steward to the Lord Jesus. This is to be a Judas, a son of perdition indeed. Remember, if any of you are unfaithful, you win for yourselves a superfluity of condemnation. You were not forced to be ministers. You were not forced to enter upon this sacred office. By your own choice you are here. In your youth you aspired to this holy thing, and thought yourselves happy in attaining your desire. Brethren, if we meant to be untrue to Jesus, there was no necessity to have climbed this sacred rock in order to multiply the horrors of our final fall. We could have perished quite sufficiently in the ordinary ways of sin. What need to qualify ourselves for a greater condemnation? This will be a dreadful result if this is all that comes of our college studies, and our burning of the midnight oil in acquiring knowledge. My heart and my flesh tremble while I contemplate the possibility of anyone of us being found guilty of treachery to our charge and treason to our King. May the good Lord so abide with us, that at the last we may be clear of the blood of all men. It will be seven heavens in one to hear our Master say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
The late Miss MacKay,
85 HIGH STREET, DINGWALL.
MISS Anne Moore MacKay was born at Bridge of Dee, Aberdeen, in the year 1837. Her parents, Thomas MacKay and Isobel MacKenzie, were godly persons. They were ecclesiastically connected with the Original Secession Church, and were members of the Original Secession congregation in the town of Aberdeen, of which the Rev. John Aitken was minister. Her father was an elder in that congregation. Her mother, to begin with, was a member of Gilcomston Chapel, where the famous and worthy Dr. Kidd preached. Dr. Kidd had a great respect for Isobel MacKenzie, and performed the ceremony when she was married to Thomas MacKay.
Miss MacKay was the youngest of a family of eight, five of whom died in infancy. We are not able to say at what period of her life she was converted, but her Christian life was an evidence that she had undergone a saving change. From the fact that she was a follower of the means of grace for the most part of her life, and able to discern when the gospel was preached, it would appear that “the good work” was begun in her at a comparatively early age. As her parents were eminent for piety, we may be sure that she, like Timothy, knew the Scriptures from her childhood.
After her parents’ death, and when she grew up to womanhood, she was, while at Aberdeen, a member of Union Free Church congregation, of which Rev. Alexander Bannatyne was minister. Though she worshipped in the Free Church, she was in principle of the Original Secession Church, and was a strong advocate of the “National Covenant.” But, as she saw that this Church was like other Churches in Scotland, beginning to depart from early purity, she could not worship with them any longer. As Rev. Mr. Bannatyne was a godly man, a faithful preacher, and a strong upholder of the doctrines of the Reformation, she sat under his ministry till he left Aberdeen. When Mr. Bannatyne left she told us that there was no minister in that town she could go to hear with profit to her soul. Thus deprived of the public ordinance of the gospel, she, like many others in Scotland at that time, groaned in bondage, and prayed for deliverance. She was looking for an answer to her prayers. She was not disappointed in her expectation; deliverance came at last. When she read in the newspapers that a stand was made in defence of the truth at the Assembly in 1893, she took courage, thanked God, and said, “I will join that party.” She told this herself. Our taking up a separate position that year in defence of God’s word, brought relief to many, in the Highlands especially. As there was no meeting in Aberdeen in connection with the Free Presbyterian Church, Miss MacKay and her sister (Mrs. Ross, a godly woman) went to reside in Glasgow as soon as they could conveniently
leave Aberdeen. Miss MacKay’s state of health caused considerable delay. They were in Glasgow for several years, members of St. Jude’s congregation, of which the Rev. Neil Cameron is minister.
After the death of her sister, Miss MacKay left Glasgow and came to Dingwall, where she resided to the end of her pilgrimage in the wilderness. She visited Dingwall several times on communion occasions in Dr. Kennedy’s time, so that she was not quite a stranger in the town, nor a stranger to some of the Lord’s people there, whose acquaintance she had formed during those visits, when she took up her residence in it. She was a worthy and useful member of our congregation in this town for the last seven years, and acted as collector of the Sustentation Fund till within a short time of her decease. She contributed to the Fund herself according to her means, and left a legacy of £100 for the General Sustentation Fund of the Free Presbyterian Church, £15 for the Dingwall Manse Debt Fund, and £10 for St. Jude’s Building Fund.
Miss MacKay was a most intelligent Christian woman, possessed of spiritual discernment to understand the Scriptures, well read in Church history, and an able defender of “the faith once delivered to the saints.” Many a contest she had with men and women who held unscriptural views on the subject of religion. If they did not yield to her scriptural arguments, and tried to defend themselves by the opinions of men, she did not hesitate to declare to them their awful doom if they persisted in their error till death. Nor did mere orthodox teaching satisfy her. As a living Christian she needed spiritual nourishment; and although the gospel table might be furnished with dishes of the most precious material, if there was no food in them, she could not relish the entertainment. The kingdom of heaven was within her, and she knew the voice of Christ. No thanks to her, for she was taught of God. Miss MacKay, in her own sphere, spared no effort to promote the glory of God and advance His kingdom in the world. She made herself useful for this purpose by writing as well as otherwise. She re-published several religious booklets for the benefit of sinners and saints. Notices of these have appeared in the Magazine of our Church. She also wrote letters to the newspapers on controversial subjects affecting the truth of the Bible and the cause of Christ in general. She could not endure to see the truth of the Bible run down by the “higher critics,” or any other enemies, without raising her voice against them. She was a public witness for Christ and His cause.
She was a great sufferer, and learnt by deep experience the truth which declares that it is “through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of heaven.” She was for many years afflicted with melancholia—a painful disease, causing gloomy, groundless fears and general depression of the spirits. On two occasions especially, she had a severe attack of this malady—first
at Aberdeen, and secondly at Dingwall. Through this infirmity Satan found a door of entrance to assault her with unbelief, with the intention of driving her to despair. But he was disappointed in his hellish design. The Lord came to her relief in her distress at Aberdeen, and she was, for several years after that severe ordeal, enjoying more or less of gospel liberty; and, although she suffered severe agony in her last conflict with the enemy, she was made more than a conqueror through Him that loved her and gave Himself for her. She died in peace, never again to be disturbed. She was, for a day or two before the end, unable to speak, but the beaming expression of her countenance indicated the inward peace of soul she enjoyed. She passed away quietly, and without the least struggle, on Thursday, the 7th August last. The last fight was over, the victory was won, and she entered into her everlasting rest, we believe, with the triumphant shout—”Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Her remains were interred in Aberdeen the following Saturday. Mr. Murdo Urquhart, Craigview, Craig Road, Dingwall, and Mr. Alexander Maclean, Kirkhill, accompanied the funeral all the way to that town. We extend our sympathy to her surviving relatives in their bereavement.
We should not omit to mention in connection with this incomplete sketch, that Mr. Murdo Urquhart and his wife showed great kindness and attention to Miss MacKay in her last illness, and that Mrs. Macleod, Alness, and latterly Nurse Cameron, Kiltearn, attended her night and day to the end with commendable attention. Dr. Adam, the genial and skilful practitioner, whose cheerful visit would be good medicine to a patient, spared no pains for the recovery of Miss MacKay, but he could not drive away the strong hand of death which was laid heavily on her mortal body. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivereth them out of them all.” “There remaineth . . . a rest to the people of God.”
The removal of the Lord’s people from our midst has a solemn voice to us. The most of the fathers and mothers in Israel who adorned our Church in the past, have been called away to be with Christ, which, for them, is far better. Will the young seek grace to take up their place?
D. M. F.
“I will bless the Lord that ever there was such a thing as the free grace of God, and a free ransom given for captive souls. Only, alas! guiltiness maketh me ashamed to apply to Christ, and to think it pride in me to put out my unclean and withered hand to such a Saviour. But it is neither shame nor pride for a drowning man to swim to a rock, nor for a shipwrecked soul to run himself ashore upon Christ.”—Rutherford.
“O happy and blessed death, that golden bridge laid over by Christ, my Lord, betwixt time’s clay banks and heaven’s shore.”—Rutherford.