A Sermon

BY THE REV. M. MORRISON, LOCHINVER, SUTHERLANDSHIRE.

“Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.” —ISAIAH xxvi. 20.

IN times of national trouble and distress the people of God betook themselves to the Lord, the source whence their deliverance could come. It was He who alone could inspire them with the hope and confidence that made them strong. Thus did Isaiah and the saints of old. At the prospect of fulfilled divine threatenings their attitude was not one of murmuring, but of submission and acquiescence in the righteousness of God therein. They were not slow to acknowledge divine intervention in all the evils and calamities which came upon them, and they justified God in the justice with which these were inflicted. The messages which they delivered from the mouth of the Lord often contained threatenings of divine anger and wrath. They explained the causes of His displeasure, and gave solemn calls to repentance. Sin and idolatry provoked God’s holy anger. But He encouraged His own people who were faithful to Him amid all those dangers, to be strong in Himself, while He denounced war against the wicked.

To His people He addresses the words of our text when, in view of a violent storm that was either raging or about to break out, they required His direction and guidance. If this chapter is introduced with a song of triumph, it ends with words indicative of sore and trying providences to the world. Now, in times of storm and wrath, God’s people are here exhorted. A terrible war is presently raging, in which we are engaged; but terrible though it is, it is but as a small drop of divine wrath as compared to what that wrath will be to Christless sinners through eternity. Now, in considering this solemn portion of God’s Word, I shall, as I may be enabled, deal with it under three heads:—

I.—The people who are exhorted in the text—”My people.”

II.—The circumstances in view of which they are exhorted—”Divine indignation.”

III.—The exhortation addressed to them.

I.—The people who are exhorted—”My people.” God has a people in the world. With an eye to their welfare He controls all events which come to pass, and directs the dispensations of His providence. Usually worldly men are inclined to ignore this, but it does not alter the real fact. The Lord and Saviour says, “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth.” Again, “As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him” (John xvii. 2). And He is set “far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come” (Eph. i. 21). These statements clearly point out to us that Christ, the God-man and Mediator, possesses the reins of absolute government and dominion over all tribes, tongues, nations, and kingdoms. One particular object of His mediatorial government is that He might give eternal life to as many as were given Him by the Father. In ancient times He had His special people or nation, distinct from the heathen round about, and here we shall notice—

i. The Lord laid claim to this people as His own peculiar property. Them, of all people existing on the face of the earth, He knew and set apart for Himself. All the events of His providence, His conduct of affairs, His wondrous works, and His dealings with the rest of the world, were subservient to the fulfilment of His gracious purposes towards His people. He always asserted an unchallenged right to ancient Israel, as distinguished from the heathen nations. We may consider this right to them as threefold.

(1) In virtue of election and choice. They were a chosen people. This distinction could not be applied to any other people. “For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people. But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto thy fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt” (Deut. vii. 6, 7). This choice and election of them was entirely sovereign, and was implied in His covenant. It was not due to any desert in them, nor any greatness or glory which they possessed. They were a few despised and insignificant people, but on them the Lord had set His heart. They were set apart and consecrated to the service of the Lord. Therefore He could truly say they were His people.

(2) They were His also in virtue of the favours and privileges bestowed on them. Not only were they chosen by Him, but He deposited His word, laws, statutes, and commandments with them. He instituted His ordinances and true worship among them, and provided them with shepherds, pastors, and leaders, prophets, priests, and kings to feed and guide them. Nothing was withheld from them which was necessary to their temporal, national, and spiritual well-being, or to their preservation as a people for the Lord. Surely He might well look on them as His own people—a people for whom He did such great things; He might well look for their constant loyalty and obedience to Himself. “For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for. And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day” (Deut. iv. 7, 8). “He also exalted the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Praise ye the Lord” (Psalm cxlviii. 14).

(3) They were the objects of His special care and providence. Many times He saved them from their enemies, delivered them from dangers and troubles, upheld them in temptations, trials, and distresses, and succoured them in wants and miseries. When they forgot His works and wonders, forsook His word, worship, and ordinances to go astray after strange gods—the work of men’s hands—the Lord graciously exhorted and pleaded with them to turn back to Himself. “Return unto me, ye backsliding people, for I am married unto you, saith the Lord.” “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them and carried them all the days of old” (Is. lxiii. 9). When He showed hard things unto them, it was on account of their sins. Their own base ingratitude and wicked hearts led them to such excesses oftentimes, that nothing would correct them but sore and smarting experience of the fruits of their own doings. Therefore the Lord permitted many evils to come upon them—death, sword, famine and pestilence, calamities, and captivities of various kinds. And let us observe, friends, that it was after every effort failed to induce them to obey and return, after the most persuasive pleadings and gracious invitations, promises the most sweet and threatenings the most solemn used to influence them, the Lord, owing to their disregard and disobedience, permitted these judgments to come upon them. He did not afflict them willingly, nor grieve the children of men.

Now, may we not consider our own land as in a somewhat similar situation? We were set apart in a manner at the Reformation for Christ and His service. We have been, until now, much more highly favoured by the Lord than any other people, and what returns have we made to Him? God’s word found a place among us in the past, and we rejected idolatry and false worship in Church and State. We have been in the past acknowledged as a strong Protestant people, who prospered as no other people did. Our principles of justice and righteousness and well-ordered laws come nearest to the model, presented by the truth of God, that we find in the world. It is owing to this that we have attained to such a high position of authority and influence in the councils of the nations of the world. All these considerations are truly fit to impress upon us a deep sense of indebtedness and obligations to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The Lord has had also a great cloud of witnesses and faithful followers in the land. Their prayers availed much in the past, and they avail much still, and it is not altogether our own arm and might that got for us the victories of the past. When Gideon overcame the Midianites with three hundred, it was not surely his own sword that got him the victory; it was the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. He planted His church and ordinances among us as He has done among no other kindred. In our many and grievous backslidings and declensions, He has been calling us to repent and turn to Himself, our chief glory and honour. May He not, on these considerations, say to us, “Return unto me, ye backsliding people, for I am married unto you, saith the Lord.”

1. Those, however, who are specially meant by our text are the true people of God in every age—the effectually-called by His grace. They were not all the true people of God who were named Israel, for it is said that, “though Israel should be as the sand on the seashore, yet a remnant only shall be saved.” To be a privileged people is not necessarily to be a gracious people. Those who are here exhorted are specially sinners called by the grace of God. Therefore, they belong unto Him by reason of special grace. Of them He takes care in times of distress and storm.

(1) They are a people whom He loved from eternity. As their God, His love to them was infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. The Father loved them, and the Son loved them, and the Holy Spirit loved them. This love was an electing love, a redeeming love, a grace-applying and soul-sanctifying love. “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee” (Jer. xxxi. 3). “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but hath everlasting life.” “Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.” It is for His love to them He stands forth as their Mediator—God-man in one eternal Person. As their Saviour, He is their Prophet, Priest, and King. And His love to them as their Prophet is an enlightening and instructing love; His love to them as their Priest is a justifying, reconciling, and pardoning love; His love to them as their King is a soul-winning, heart-alluring, and sin-destroying love. “We love him because he first loved us.” “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end” (John xiii. 1). The enmity of men and devils cannot make ineffectual the love of God towards those whom He purposed to save, and this affords much comfort to the tried children of God.

(2) They are a people effectually called in time by God’s Word and Spirit. They are forthwith separated from the world in their nature, desires, inclinations, and practices. “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John xv. 19). The common call of the Gospel is addressed to all sinners unto whom the Gospel comes, but this call becomes effectual at God’s appointed time to those whom He loved from everlasting. No sooner does God, by the operations of His Spirit and Word, bring a sinner from darkness to light, than Satan, the world, and a deceitful heart make their presence felt, and proceed with redoubled fury to make ceaseless attacks on the delivered captive. This has always been the experience of God’s people. If you are truly called by Him you have found this out—that you are tempted, tried, and harrassed by Satan, and are subject to the like outward troubles and calamities with the wicked. The sinner who hears the voice of the Son of God effectually is “called unto his kingdom and glory.” “As many as have heard and learned of the Father shall come unto me, and him that cometh unto me I will in nowise cast out.” He exercises great and tender care over His people when His judgments are abroad. O how happy are they whose God is the Lord in times of sore visitations, because to Him they feel they can repair with hope and confidence, and from Him they can derive strength. What a privilege, therefore, is theirs! He wants them to enter into their chambers.

(3) Further, they are a pardoned and justified people. “Therefore, as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (Rom. v. 18). As a reconciled God in Christ, He pardons their sins most freely, fully, and completely, and accepts of their persons, and henceforth of their graces, duties, and exercises. God’s justification of a sinner, which, as it is an act, is done in an instant, and absolutely perfect and complete, is wholly founded on the meritorious doings, sufferings, and righteousness of the blessed Immanuel. Christ died for them; He paid the price of their redemption. Therefore they are His property—His peculiar property. “Inasmuch as ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter i. 18, 19).

(4) They are a sanctified people. A new nature has been given them; a radical change in all the faculties of the soul has taken place. They are created anew in Christ Jesus. In the new birth they take on them the image of God as their Father and of the Saviour as their elder brother. So that, like as they have borne the image of the earthly, they now bear the image of the heavenly—even of the Lord from heaven. “Be ye holy, even as I am holy.” It is unto this holiness and sanctification of heart and life they are destined. To Christ’s example and image they must be conformed. They are His peculiar people in the world, whom He dearly bought, and on whom He spent and is spending a great deal of trouble and labour, as it were. A consecrated and sanctified people they must be, for nothing shall enter in that defileth or worketh abomination or maketh a lie. As they are God’s workmanship in Christ Jesus, the graces of the Spirit of God are implanted—yea, the Spirit of Christ is put within them. “For if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his.” Now, the sanctification of the inner man proceeds and advances through the tuition of God’s Word and Spirit. It is evidenced in the soul’s ever-growing consciousness of his own nothingness and unworthiness—of his ignorance, darkness, helplessness—and of his entire dependence on the resources of grace and glory with God in Christ.

Now, it is to these people He says, “Enter into thy chambers until the storm be overpast.”

II.—The circumstances in view of which they are exhorted. There is a storm coming, or a storm raging, and in such outward circumstances the Lord’s people need divine comfort and direction. A storm is what everyone naturally avoids, if he can, and when overtaken by it, such is the violence of the raging elements that the traveller’s life is in danger. The mariner, whose weather-glass warns him of an impending storm, directs his course towards land, and makes for the nearest harbour as swiftly as he can. The Lord acts in a similar manner towards His people when storms are brewing and coming on the land. He shall make sure that they are preserved. Storms in Scripture are employed figuratively, and this text obviously contains metaphorical language. They invariably represent divine judgments, and here the words are to be understood in that sense. Application may be made to the state of things in the final judgment, but here we shall content ourselves with considering it under a two-fold aspect—namely, spiritual and temporal judgments.

1. Spiritual judgments are, in God’s sovereign dealings, allowed upon a people because of abuse of light, mercies, and privileges. The spiritually dead, whether in Church or State, are not conscious or sensible of these judgments. It is God’s people alone who do really groan and sigh as they see the desolation which results from these judgments when they are abroad. And may we not say that spiritual death is thickly and widely prevailing throughout a land that once flourished with the blessed fruits of the gospel? We have grieved and vexed His Holy Spirit, so He hath turned to be our enemy. We desire not to retain the knowledge of God. Something else is substituted for the true knowledge of God among this generation. At what an alarming rate has the healthy and vigorous spirituality of former days declined. Instead, there is grown and growing a coarse materialistic spirit, which shuns any acknowledgment of, and dependence upon, the living and true God. As in the days of Amos, the Lord threatened and inflicted spiritual desolations on Israel for their sins, ingratitude, and apostacy, so we are sharing in this land in like spiritual desolations. “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord; and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it” (Amos viii. 11, 12). Let us now for a short time inquire into some of the causes why the Lord is permitting this storm, this ravaging, destructive storm, which seems to be carrying everything before it to ruin.

(1) We are, as a people and nation, become imbued so much with the spirit of gross and worldly materialism that no time or attention is devoted to anything serious pertaining to the world to come. Man’s life seems to consist in what he can accumulate of this world. A mercenary spirit enters into all his activities in his religion as in other things. The god to whom the generality of men bow the knee is the silver and the gold which they can amass. Such a treasure ministers to their lusts, which they seek to gratify to excess. God and the all-important concerns of their souls are left out of all calculation. Is this not one of the procuring causes of our spiritual desolations? People desire to carouse in every form of luxury; to indulge in every form of sport, play, and amusement. What a wicked height we have reached in all these vanities which provoke a Holy God against us to destroy us. We may be sure that in the measure in which all these indulged forms of sport and amusement come in and prevail in the land, will the gospel lose its effect and influence, and the Spirit of God be withdrawn. Before this land was favoured with the truth and pure worship of God, all these sports and plays existed on a universal scale, and the sound preaching of God’s Word was the means of breaking their hold on the people and making them turn from these vanities unto the living God.

(2) A contempt of the truth and worship of God. His worship is forsaken and neglected, and His laws are trampled under feet. The perpetual obligations of the moral law are rejected and His authority is opposed and resisted. The day, which He appointed as one day in seven to be holy and sanctified to himself, is privately and openly desecrated in the most shameless fashion. It is the only day on which certain forms of man’s wickedness are indulged in to the greatest excess. No wonder, indeed, though the anger of the Lord should burn in fury against the inhabitants of the land for these transgressions. Worldly men do not hesitate to conduct their business on the Lord’s day, and place at the disposal of a profane and indifferent public all their steam, railway, and vehicular facilities in the pursuit of their lusts and pleasures to add to their worldly profits. What a precious promise the Lord gives to those who keep His Sabbaths—”If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord honourable; and shall honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it” (Is. lviii. 13, 14).

(3) Unsound doctrine and preaching have brought this spiritual leanness upon us. Pulpits, schools, and colleges have been for a long time the great nurseries for the training of men’s minds in all the wild and soul-destroying errors which have gained so wide a currency in the present day. What a spiritual judgment is this on a guilty people! “For the time will come,” says the apostle, “when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. And they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Tim. iv. 3, 4). And as the Lord’s witnesses are being removed quickly one by one, and others not raised up in their stead, we are becoming spiritually desolate, and this indicates a time of storm. Another mark of the Lord’s anger is the amount of unbelief and atheism which abounds. “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” The crowning sin is the sin of unbelief; for Christ and the Gospel are rejected, and “how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” To be outside and exposed to the violence of these storms, and not betake ourselves to our chambers, will bring ruin upon a professing people.

1. Temporal judgments sent on a people are also an expression of the divine displeasure. When Israel would not hear and obey the voice of the Lord, but persisted in their evil ways, walked after the imagination of their own hearts, and followed after the ways of the heathen and worshipped their false gods, the Lord visited them with sore and severe judgments. He sent sword, famine, and pestilence on the people, and made them an easy prey to their enemies. In our own day the sword is unsheathed, and we are engaged in a terrible conflict on the plains of Europe, the equal of which has not been known hitherto. Our land is being drained of its brave and vigorous manhood to oppose the mighty and bloody hordes of the German military system, which is a great curse to our common civilisation. What distress and suffering this dreadful war is bringing to thousands of our homes! “Is there an evil in the city, and the Lord hath not done it?” A vast number of our dear fellow-countrymen are laid silent in the dust, and we fear before the storm is overpast the number will swell enormously. Is there not a most solemn voice speaking to us in these terrible events? Does it not indicate that the hand of the Lord is stretched out, letting fearful drops of His anger fall on the nations of the earth? We readily acknowledge that our country was forced into this war for the vindication of honourable international pledges and treaties, and to maintain the rights of independent States, which it was bound on its honour to do. And we have no doubt but our own ultimate security and independence was at stake. But that circumstances should so arise in which we had to take up the sword, is fraught with significance. Let us then for a moment consider some of the reasons on account of which the Lord, in righteous judgment, may have sent this storm.

(1) Germany prided herself in her culture and prosperity. This culture was like the image which Nebuchadnezzar had set up in his kingdom. To it the whole world was directed to bow. It was a god that they should worship—a shrine at which they should pay their votive offerings. How very successful, alas! has this would-be culture been in the theological seminaries of the world. It has permeated the theological teaching of Great Britain to an alarming extent. The professor and the students in the college, the minister in the pulpit, and the people in the pew have become intoxicated with the new wine of German theology. It will have none of its followers to believe in the divinity of Christ, in the atonement He made for sin, and in the necessary work of regeneration by the Holy Ghost. The whole Word of God is explained away, and is become meaningless in the estimation of this high system of theological culture. On the other hand, it calls on them to glorify man’s nature and his divine capabilities. This is their gospel, which is yet no gospel. How very guilty are Scotland and England of imbibing this lifeless religion! No wonder though the divine forbearance is exhausted. But when this storm is raging, the command of God to His people is, “Come, enter into thy chambers.”

(2) A second reason is the countenance we are giving to “the man of sin.” Those in authority are giving their strength to “the beast,” and Popery is making great progress in our land. The emissaries of this pernicious system have been taking advantage of Protestant weakness and apathy to further the interests of the Roman Catholic religion by legislation and otherwise. The idolatrous religion of Rome has a fascinating attraction for many in high and low places. By their subtle intriguing they were successful in repealing the Protestant Declaration. This gave a great impetus to their activities in their sinister work, and they will never pause until a Roman Catholic government is set up in Ireland. Let it be further observed that our country has been in constant turmoil and disruption from within ever since the repeal of that Declaration. Strike after strike, riot after riot, the spirit of mutiny and rebellion against masters and constituted authority have been remarkably in evidence. The Lord will avenge the quarrel of His covenant. We have sadly betrayed our trust. “Thus saith the Lord, what iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity and are become vain” (Jer. ii. 8).

III.—The exhortation addressed to them, “Come, enter into thy chambers, shut thy doors about thee; hide thyself for a little moment until the indignation be overpast.” Let us consider to what chambers does the Lord invite His people in the times of His indignation. Chambers always presupposes a house. The Scriptures represent God Himself as a house. “Be thou my strong rock for an house of defence to save me” (Ps. xxxi. 2).

(1) There are chambers in this house into which we are invited, called chambers of defence, in order to be safe and secure in the most stormy times. God in Christ proves to be a strong refuge to His people in the worst of times. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous flee into it and are safe” (Prov. xviii. 10). Thus the name of the Lord is a chamber of defence from assaults of the devil and the world in stormy times. In the Lord Jehovah have we righteousness and strength, and they that know Thy name will put their trust in Thee. “Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” What more could be a source of strength of refuge to the righteous? In this chamber one feels safe from the world and the evil one when they seek to take advantage of God’s indignation abroad. It is by faith and repentance they enter into these chambers. As we might consider that Christ Himself is a chamber of defence to His people, so He is the way to them, and He is the door through which they enter in. “I am the way.” “I am the door.” “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” All the perfections of God are a defence to His people, into which they can flee to be safe. They are round about the Church as the mountains were round about Jerusalem (Ps.cxxv. 2). He is a wall of fire round about them, and the glory in their midst. When they are bowed down with a sense of divine indignation against themselves, as against the land, they feel that it is their wisdom to look to Him again and betake themselves to His chambers of defence. For to be outside these chambers and exposed to the judgments, which are the expression of His indignation, is to be in danger. And when we feel we cannot come, nor able to take one step ourselves because of hardness and death, let us look unto Himself; for the Church thus confessed, “The king hath brought me into his chambers” (Song i. 4). There is no condition in which the righteous can be but the Lord exhorts and invites him to Himself; nay, any sinner in any way burdened with a sense of God’s wrath upon himself or others, is repeatedly urged to flee into these chambers of defence. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mat. xi. 28). Christ in all His offices and relations is chambers of defence to His people, to sinners who come to Him. He is chambers of defence in His sufferings, death, sacrifice, resurrection, and ascension, in all of which He gives a view of Himself to the believer. Surely, then, these are chambers of defence to a poor sinner in every state and condition in which he may find himself. Christ is the “man who shall be an hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest, and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”

(2) The next chambers of which we shall speak are chambers of distinction. If we come to Christ, we are not to think we can be like the world, which lieth in wickedness. Godless sinners, who are invited by the common call of the gospel, imagine they can come sometime before their death, when they hope to repent and reform. Those who are taught of God have realised the folly and hollowness of such hopes. With the world, it is a matter of coming to Christ in their own vain imaginings, on their own terms and overtures. Some imagine they can be saved with their sins, and not from their sins; with the world, and not distinct from the world. Now, this is the way with unregenerate men, because they know not God, the nature of a Holy God, and their own wicked hearts. But those who are taught from heaven know the necessity of separating from the world in conduct, life, and practice from without, and in nature, desires, and inclinations from within. It is out of the world the Lord calls His people; it is out of themselves, and out of the service of the flesh and Satan, that the Lord calls and brings His people to Himself. “Come out from among them and be ye separate” (2 Cor. vi. 17). They are brought out of all false security and carnal ease—out from false worship and false gods, out from the idolatry of nominal professors and heathen worship, and they come to Christ the Saviour, Redeemer, Prophet, Priest, and King of His Church. “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and so partake of her plagues” (Rev. xviii. 4). We can only serve one master. If God be God, let us serve Him, and if it be Baal, let us serve him, and as we cannot serve two masters, we must renounce the one and cleave to the other. So these are chambers of distinction to which you must come in times of divine indignation. We must show that God hath set us apart for Himself, to show forth His praise. The Apostle says—”And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Rom. xii. 2). Our actions also show where we are, and the wicked take particular notice of professors. The evil actions of religious professors have always been held up by the world with a view to bring discredit upon the Christian religion. They take advantage of these actions to pour ridicule and contempt on Christ, His truth, and His people. If all religious professors acted conformably to the truth of God, and after the example of Christ and His true people, the world would have no semblance of reason to ridicule the Christian profession. Thus, we must come into our chambers of distinction, and take God’s word as our rule of life and conduct.

(3) In this house there are also chambers of devotion to which we must flee in times of indignation. We should constantly make use of the means of grace in public and in private. “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is.” “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst.” A duty in which we should be always engaged is prayer. These are chambers to which we should come and enter. “Enter thou into thy closet and shut thy door, and pray to thy Father which is in secret and seeth in secret” (Matt. vi. 6). Truly this is a duty on all the people of God in these times of trouble. We should bear the cause of our nation before the throne of grace—pray earnestly in public and in private that the Lord would give wisdom and grace to those in authority, so that they might at least humble themselves outwardly and acknowledge the hand of the Lord upon them. How desirable it is that the King should even signify His mind to this effect, that there should be a day of national humiliation and confession held throughout the land! Alas! we see no signs of such God-acknowledging disposition in high quarters. But our duty is to pray for kings and those in authority and for all men. Especially should we bear the case of our poor soldiers and sailors at the throne of grace, and seek that the Lord should give them, when face to face with death and suffering in all the horrible forms invented by the evil genius of man, to look to Him who is able to save from natural, spiritual, and eternal death. And may the Lord in His infinite mercy grant them the spirit of prayer and repentance. For it is a fearful thing to die a Christless sinner, because it is a falling into the hands of the living God, who is a consuming fire against iniquity.

Let us shut our doors about us and hide ourselves for a little moment, “until the indignation be overpast.” Let us seek to be alone with God, and have the doors shut through which Satan, the world, and a deceitful heart rush in upon us, for there is no secret, gracious exercise in which the people of God are engaged but Satan seeks to harass them. May the Lord give us grace and wisdom thus to live and die, and may He bless to us His word! Amen.