BY REV. D. M. MACDONALD, PORTREE.
THE book of Revelation was written by the Apostle John when a prisoner on the Isle of Patmos. In order to prevent him from preaching the glorious Gospel of Christ his persecutors banished him to this lonely isle, but the Lord Jesus over-ruled their evil intentions for the good of His Church by giving the Apostle wonderful visions of His glory and revelations of His gracious purposes towards His people till the end of time. These visions and revelations were written by the Apostle in this book.
When John Bunyan was confined in Bedford Jail his enemies thought they had silenced him, but there God gave him the will and opportunity to write the “Pilgrim’s Progress”—than which no other book except the Bible is more widely read. Thus the Most High over-rules the evil purpose of His enemies and the trials of His own people for the good of His cause in the world.
The excellencies of the Saviour are proclaimed in the many wonderful titles given to Him in the Scriptures, and the description of Him in our text brings before us various aspects of His character as the Redeemer of His people. We shall consider Him first as “The root and offspring of David,” and in the second place as the bright and morning star.
I. The root and offspring of David.
(1) The Lord Jesus is spoken of as the great agent in creation. Through Him and by Him and for Him all things were made. He was the root of David in the sense that David had his being from Christ. Our natural life has its being from Him. He upholds us each day and provides for our needs. Sinners too often forget this and act as if they were quite independent of Christ. They neither submit to His authority nor own His claims on them. The mercies received from Him are abused, and the privileges bestowed are treated with contempt. How few they are who seek to use their term of life in the world for the glory of Christ and His cause! In our day the great majority are spending their lives in self-gratification, fleshly lusts, and carnal security. O, sinner, how dreadful your account will be at last if you pass on to the bar of judgment unrepentant and unforgiven? Seek grace to give yourself up to Christ now—that your time and talents may be employed for His glory and that you may possess His favour in which there is life.
(2) Christ is the root of the life of grace. In Him there is infinite fulness of grace to meet the needs of His people. They are altogether undone in themselves. They have no righteousness, no spiritual strength; no merit; no holiness as they are in themselves to meet the demands of God’s Law and Justice. Sin has corrupted them in their nature and faculties. The Holy Spirit convinced them of their ruined condition and led them as poor helpless sinners to Christ. He enabled them to believe in Jesus Christ and being united to Him by faith they were justified. He then became to them the source of the grace received so that they are saved by grace through faith. O, believer, how much you are indebted to grace! In Christ there is for you sustaining, preserving, sanctifying, and dying grace! “He will give grace and glory and will withhold no good from them that walk uprightly.”
(3) It is evident that if the Lord Jesus is the author of the life of grace in every Christian He must also be the source of the life of glory. The redeemed are glorified through Him. He declares that He gives His sheep eternal life, and that none of them shall perish. He has entered into the holiest of all on their behalf with the infinite merit of His sacrifice, and where He is there His people shall be at last. “I go,” he said, “to prepare a place for you.” “In my father’s house are many mansions.” Eternal glory awaits all true believers in virtue of their union with Christ.
We shall now notice what is implied in Christ being the offspring of David. It was prophesied that the Messiah should come from David according to the flesh. The psalmist-King of Israel rejoiced in anticipation of the fulfilment of the promise given to himself. Isaiah emphasises the humanity of the Saviour where he says, “And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” Thus the term “root” brings before us the divinity, while the term “offspring” implies the humanity of the Messiah.
The Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews, states the reason why Christ assumed our nature, sin excepted. “For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; 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.” The Lord Jesus became the substitute and surety of all whom the Father gave Him to save. It was necessary therefore that He should obey the Law and endure its curse in order to procure salvation for them. The inflexible justice of God also demanded satisfaction. The divine substitute met the demands of both. From His birth to His death on Calvary He obeyed the Law perfectly. On the cross He endured its curse to the uttermost and gave His blood to justice; for without shedding of blood there could be no remission. During the great war, a convalescent French soldier allowed the surgeons in the hospital where he was recovering, to transfuse a quantity of his blood to a fellow-soldier, who was at the point of death, with the happy result that he recovered. The nurses discovered that the soldier who parted with his own blood was in poor circumstances, and had a large family. They made up their minds to give him a present of money, and when they had gathered a sufficiently large sum, one of them in the name of the staff offered it to him as a token of their goodwill in view of what he had done for his countryman. The soldier looked at the gift, and firmly refused it, saying, “I gave my blood freely for my fellow-soldier, and I am not going to accept anything for it.” No doubt he considered it a sufficient reward that his blood had been the means of saving the life of the other man. On a far higher scale the Lord Jesus gave his blood freely for unworthy sinners, and His reward will be the eternal salvation of all who accept Him as their personal Saviour. “Who, it is written, for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.”
In our nature He has ascended to the right hand of the Father, and shall reign until all His enemies be made His footstool.
II. (1) In the second place we shall consider Christ as the bright and morning star.
The reference here appears to be to the Polestar, which, according to astronomers, never changes. It is described as being bright, and therefore gives light. Now Christ is the altogether glorious One, the chiefest among ten thousand, the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of His person. He is the light of the world. Sin has darkened the minds and alienated the hearts of sinners from God. But Christ enlightens the minds of all whom He saves, giving them a knowledge of Himself in the supreme worth of His adorable Person, and of themselves as poor and needy sinners. By His Spirit He brings the great realities of eternity before the minds of believers and causes them to see the nothingness of all created things in comparison with His own preciousness as a Saviour. He gives light on the world to come. His Word informs us that the righteous shall go to heaven, but the wicked to Hell. There is no middle place such as Purgatory.
All the saved shall be with Christ in glory; the unsaved shall be with the Devil in eternal misery.
(2) The stars give light during the night. Christ gives light as to duty in the night of persecution and backsliding. He enabled His people in Scotland to follow the path of duty when they were hunted to death on the moors and hillsides on account of their faithfulness to Him.
Mariners used to be guided by the stars at night, and made sure of their course by the stars. Christ guides His people through many temptations and trials to the place that He has prepared for them. We are all on the ocean of time passing on to eternity, and if we take our course from Him who is “the bright and morning star,” and be guided by Him all shall be well with us at last.
The morning or Pole star is regarded as a fixed star. It does not change its position like the planets. Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. He never changes in His person. We are subject to many changes in our appearance and in our minds, but He is always the same.
Nor does He change in His attributes. It is a most precious truth that, having loved His people from the beginning He loves them unto the end. His mercy, compassion, power, and goodness undergo no change. Believers are sorely troubled with wondering hearts and straying minds. They continually come short of the divine glory, but their Saviour will never cast them off. He bears with their weaknesses and infirmities. His favour will never be withdrawn from them, and eventually they shall be conformed to His own image and put into possession of that Kingdom that is incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away.
His Word is unchangeable. Some people think that the Bible should be altered to suit their views, and that what they consider uninspired portions of it should be expunged. God’s Word can be of no real benefit to such people, and unless they come to entertain orthodox views of the Scriptures, and receive Him of whom they testify, they must perish at last. A worthy missionary, who suffered intense persecution and trials during the Boxer rebellion in China, records that he felt the Word of God supporting and imparting strength to his body as well as to his soul. “I wonder,” he pertinently asks, “what benefit a higher critic placed in my situation and in continual danger of being killed could obtain from the Bible regarded by him as containing inaccuracies and uninspired statements.”
The promises of Christ are ever the same. He has declared that He will never leave nor forsake His people. “The mountains shall depart and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.” The believer finds many things in himself to depress him. He has to contend with a corrupt nature, a deceitful heart, and a tempting devil so that his hope may come very low and he may be afraid that he will be left a prey in the hands of his spiritual enemies. But that shall never take place, for Christ will uphold His people amidst all their trials and afflictions, and bring them eventually to that place that He has prepared for them.
The purposes of the Lord Jesus shall all be fulfilled because they are unalterable. Neither fallen angels nor sinful men can frustrate them. His infinite power controls all the events of time. Not even a sparrow falls to the ground without His permission. This is a comforting doctrine to the Church of Christ. All that concerns them has been ordered in the Covenant of grace, and will be perfected.
It is written that the glory of Christ shall fill the whole earth as the waters cover the deep. God’s people eagerly desire the coming of that time. They have themselves obtained a glimpse of His glory, and they wish that their fellow-sinners should likewise see His preciousness, knowing that if they do they shall, like Paul, count all things as loss and dung, that they may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having their own righteousness which is of the Law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. The world at present is in a state of turmoil. The nations have not, as a result of the war, become more disposed to accept the Gospel. Opposition to the claims of Christ and absolute indifference to true religion are prevailing in every country. False religions and infidelity are destroying multitudes, while in our own highly privileged land all kinds of sins are becoming prevalent. It is Christ alone by His Spirit who can bring about a change, and He shall convert the nations in His own appointed time. For it is written that all nations shall serve Him.
The morning star ushers in the day. He proclaimed the glad tidings of salvation personally. Throughout the towns and villages of Judea, sometimes in the synagogue, and at other times on the hill tops, and on the sea. He preached the precious doctrines of grace. He commissioned the Apostles to declare His Word to all nations, and He shall continue to send forth faithful preachers of His Word till the end of time. We need many such in our day. Our country would be very different to what it is if the Gospel were faithfully proclaimed in its pulpits. There can be no greater curse on a land than a graceless ministry.
A day is a very short period of time. The Gospel day is given to nations, Churches, and individual sinners for a time. If they abuse it they shall suffer loss, but if they use it aright they shall profit by it.
We associate the ideas of light and privilege with the word day. The Gospel gives us light on the great realities of eternity, and it urges us to make use of our precious privileges while we have them, that they may be of benefit by the blessing of God to our souls. “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.” My dear fellow-sinner, give yourself no rest until you obtain a saving knowledge of Christ.
Much might be said in developing our text, but we shall confine ourselves to a few remarks in conclusion. The Lord Jesus will bring about the millennial day when Satan shall be bound for a thousand years and the Spirit poured forth in Pentecostal measure and power fulfilling the prophecies which declare that in this period a “man shall not say to his brother, know the Lord, for all shall know me from the least unto the greatest.”
Then the great day of eternity shall assuredly come. To the people of God it shall be a day that shall have no night, a Sabbath that shall have no end. Their sun shall no more go down neither shall their moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be their everlasting light and the days of their mourning shall be ended.
To the wicked it shall be a night that shall have no morning, the blackness of darkness for ever. You who are still in your sins forsake them; flee from the wrath to come unto Him who is mighty to save. “The Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is athirst say, Come; and whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely.”
AMEN.