IV.
(Continued from Vol. xxxviii. p. 490.)
WE have already stated in general terms the pre-millennarian doctrine of the Second Coming of our Lord and it remains now to say something about what is termed the Post-millennarian doctrine. It is so called because it asserts that the Second Coming is after the thousand years or millennium is at an end. This is the view that was generally held by the Church. In the words of Dr. Charles Hodge: “The common doctrine of the Church . . . is that the conversion of the world, the restoration of the Jews, and the destruction of Anti-Christ are to precede the Second Coming of Christ, which event will be attended by the general resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, the end of the world, and the consummation of the Church” (Systematic Theology, iii., 862). But it may be said this view fails to do justice to the statement in the 20th chapter of the book of Revelation already quoted.* We do not think so: for a correct interpretation of the statement in this chapter will rather support than subvert the post-millennarian doctrine. Let us now examine this statement in the light of its contextual setting and its wording.
In the book of Revelation there are certain things stated which are to take place before the Millennium. The first is the downfall of Babylon, the Romanist counterfeit Church, symbolized first by the woman in purple and scarlet and second by the mystic Babylon. The downfall is to be brought about by two agencies: (1) The governments of the earth “shall hate the harlot and make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire” (chap. xvii. 16). (2) The saints, by preaching, teaching and publishing the pure gospel, shall expose all her heresies and idolatries (xii. 11), and by their prayers
* Magazine xxxviii., 444.
shall bring on her the judgment of God (vi. 10, and viii. 3-5) and she shall be finally overthrown (xix. 2).
The second thing that is to take place before the Millennium is the ingathering of the Jews. The days of the Gentiles being fulfilled the Jews shall come under the power of the gospel. The very thought of this day fills the heart of the Apostle with heavenly ecstasy. It will be one of the most extraordinary events in the Church’s history since the Spirit was poured forth at Pentecost. Following the conversion of the Jews God shall smite the nations that had gathered to destroy them and in this judgment “the beast” and the “false prophet” perish and with them all governments contrary to God (xix. 20-21).
The third thing that is to take place before the Millennium is the chaining and shutting up of Satan (xx. 1-3). In what sense is Satan chained? Is it not when all his agencies are swept away? A check will be put upon him and his work; this is significantly spoken of as binding him with “a great chain” (xx. 1).
After all these events comes the Millennium. Why is it so called? It is the Latin word meaning a thousand years, i.e., the period during which Satan is to be bound with the “great chain.” During this period according to the post-millennarian doctrine the gospel is to have unparalleled prosperity. Satan’s agencies in false religions, philosophy contrary to the truth, science falsely so called and all the other devices by which he deceived men and nations will receive a mighty check. When we speak about the gospel having an extraordinary sway in that blessed time we do not mean to assert that children will be born into the world saints. No. They will come into the world as sinners and will require the mighty power of the Holy Ghost to regenerate them. Neither do we mean that there will be no unregenerate people in those days. It is meant, however, that the saints will be in the ascendancy as the unregenerate are
to-day. People marry and are given in marriage and they die during the thousand years but the conditions of life will be very different owing to the sway of the gospel. John saw “thrones and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them” (xx. 4). Who sat upon the thrones? Is it not those who were arrayed in fine linen pure and white who followed the Lamb in His great campaign. They are now sitting on thrones — places of honour and trust are no longer at the disposal of worldly wire-pulling and political schemers.
We come now to an important part of our discussion, viz., the second part of verse 4: “And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” It is important to notice that it was not the bodies but the souls of those who had been beheaded that John sees and who lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. This manifestly refers to the righteous dead and their state is called the first resurrection. It is in connection with these terms first and second resurrection that considerable confusion has arisen and that confusion to a large extent is due to the fact that “resurrection” is taken to refer to the body. But surely with the New Testament before us we know that “resurrection” is sometimes used in a spiritual sense — the regenerated have had a spiritual resurrection. But it is not to regeneration that the term “first resurrection” refers. While spiritual, it is of another kind. For clearing up the matter and getting at the right interpretation, let us go back to the words in chap. vi. verse 9: “And when he opened the fifth seal I saw underneath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held, and they cried with a loud voice saying: “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? and white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet
for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.” These words indicate that, in a figurative sense, the righteous dead are yet not living. Their death seems to say that they were defeated and that their testimony is not recognised. God’s justice seems to allow their enemies and the enemies of His truth to triumph. But is it really so? Is that cry unanswered? — “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” Let us see what follows. In chap. xiv. 8-13, mystic Babylon which put them to death is judged. She drinks the cup of God’s wrath, the martyrs are avenged and vindicated. The reproach of their cruel and shameful death is lifted off them. They are now given the place that belongs to them instead of being branded as felons not worthy to live. Hence the 13th verse: “And I heard a voice from heaven saying: Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.” It was a wrong view to take of their death that their testimony failed and that their works were at an end. It was not so; for the dead that die in the Lord are really blessed. “That is,” as one has well put it, “when God has avenged them and their enemies are fallen, there is a great change in public opinion in the historic judgment, as to their place in the house of fame. To die in the Lord now is not to pass under a cloud — it is a triumphant ascension into glory and light. The change is so great that it is called a resurrection—They live and reign with Christ a thousand years. The principles for which they died are now triumphant. Judgment upon those who put them to death is to them as life from the dead; it is represented as a resurrection, and this is the only place in the Bible where the term ‘first resurrection’ is used, and it is expressly declared to be a resurrection of souls and not of the body. The principles that they advocated are triumphant — they have swept over the world” (Carroll’s Book of Revelation, p. 279).
But who are “the rest of the dead” (verse 5). They are the wicked dead who “lived not again until the thousand years were finished.” They do not live in that time. Their views and customs during the thousand years are not triumphant. They are to live again as we shall see for a short season when the thousand years are past. Their principles, etc., are to have a resurrection — this is the second resurrection but there is no blessing pronounced upon those who have a part in this resurrection such as is pronounced upon those who have a part in the first resurrection. When then is there to be a resurrection of the rest of the dead, i.e., the wicked. Is it not when the thousand years are expired and when “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea” (xx. 7-8). The wicked dead now live and reign with Satan. During this short season they appear to come from under the cloud of adverse judgment. Here again the resurrection is figurative. Neither the first nor second resurrection is of the body — they are both of souls. No doubt it may be easy to find objections to the interpretation we have given and some may not accept it but we feel convinced at any rate that there is not a word in these three verses (xx. 4-6) which says anything about the Coming of Christ nor about a bodily resurrection. When the devil is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone then shall the Lord come sitting on His great white throne — the small and great stand before Him — the books are opened and the Great Day of Judgment is come. Then to quote the sublime and awesome words of Dugald Buchanan:
“A ruddy blush along the sky,
Like dawn of morning rising red,
Now shows that Christ Himself is nigh,
Bringing the day of doom and dread.
Then like the Great King’s chamber door,
The parting clouds before Him yield,
And clothed with glory evermore,
The mighty Judge shall be revealed.
A rainbow round His head on high,
His voice like mountain torrents loud,
And keen as lightning flash His eye,
That pierces thickest thunder cloud.
* * *
While all things thus dissolve and die
Amid creation’s final throes,
The Judge Himself is drawing nigh
To bring each case to fitting close.
He shall descend from Heaven’s height,
His Majesty with power displayed,
Upon His throne of glory bright,
In all His Deity arrayed.
A thousand thunders in His hand,
To blast His foes before his face,
Wait quivering for His least command,
Like hounds in leash in time of chase.”
(The Day of Judgment—MacBean’s Translation.)
Sermon.
By Rev. JAMES A. TALLACH, Kames.
“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews xii., 2).
IN the first verse of this chapter the life of faith is compared to a race. The instant a sinner believes in Jesus unto salvation he enters on this race; although in no two cases is the same course prescribed. The race set before Enoch was not the same
as that of Abraham, and Abraham’s differed again from that of Moses; nevertheless they all obtained a good report through faith. The comparison implies progress — “Let us run.” Faith begins at a definite point — the moment we receive the Gospel unto salvation — but that is only the starting point: it is not the finishing post. But the progress must be in the right direction — hence, “The race that is set before us.” The Word of God supplies us with the rules and regulations, while Providence gives us the opportunity of putting these into practice, and defines the course to be run.
As an experienced runner himself, and a keen observer of others, the Apostle recommends “the laying aside of every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us.” Surely this is what common sense would suggest. He who would enter on a race laden with weights and entangled in loose garments has made sure his defeat before he has well begun. It matters little of what material the weight is made; a bag of gold is just as cumbersome to a runner as a common stone. Both the love of riches and the lust of the flesh sink men in perdition.
The Apostle has also proved the value of patience. Patience lightens the severest trial, and shortens the longest course — “Let us run with patience.” Patience rooted in God is unconquerable. “Even the youths shall faint and be weary . . . But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.”
But the most important requirement of all, one that must of necessity be observed by every Christian who would so run as to obtain, is this, “Looking unto Jesus.” This is what gives direction, supplies motive, and ensures success.
In considering our text let us notice: — I. Jesus — the great Object of Faith. II. The Conduct of Jesus, the Pattern of Faith. III. Jesus exalted, the Encouragement of Faith.
I. Jesus, the Object of Faith. — “Looking into Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith.” This is the mark on which the eyes of all who would press forward for the prize of the high calling of God, are to be fixed. Through the observance of this
injunction the Apostle could say at last: “I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge shall give me at that day.” The eyes of all who shall obtain the crown at that day have been opened to see the supreme importance of Jesus in the life of faith. It is in the face of Jesus Christ that they have beheld the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. In Him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead bodily—grace infinite in variety and inexhaustible in degree—, a fulness freely available for the needs of the whole Church on earth and in heaven. Look, O believer, weary it may be, with the toil and labour of running, bowed down under a burden of depression which threatens to sink you in despair. Lift up your eyes yet again to this, the fountain of all grace. Let your weakness be but another occasion for the display of His strength. Can there possibly be any want in you, which His fulness cannot supply? As well might the tiny shell on the beach complain that there was not enough water in the vast ocean to fill it! Was the Apostle speaking at random when he says: — “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus?” Look unto Jesus, exclusively unto Him. Is He not looking at you, and perfectly cognisant of every detail of your circumstances? He is touched with a feeling of your infirmity, because He was tempted (without sin), in all points like as you are. That feeling touches, and sets in sympathetic motion, an infinite resource of tenderest compassion in His bosom. He puts your tears into His bottle and fully understands the unutterable sighs of your spirit.
Look unto Him with fixed, steady gaze. The idea expresses the intense attention of a competitor looking away across the course, to the distant post which marks the end of the race he is to run. It is his sole concern, as a runner, to reach that post by the shortest possible route. Now, the shortest distance between a competitor and the goal he aims at, is the line of sight, the line between his eye and the finishing post. When he keeps his eye
fixed intently on that mark and his feet follow in the line of vision, he travels in a straight line which eliminates all unnecessary wandering. But if he takes his eye off the mark, he is sure to wander, with consequent loss of energy and loss of time, which other and wiser rivals will not be slow to take advantage of, to his certain defeat at last. If Christian and Hopeful had but kept their eyes on Jesus instead of on the allurements of By-path Meadow, they would not have made such painful acquaintance with Giant Despair and his cudgel, and they would have saved themselves many a tear.
Look, my beloved friend, up and away, with the steady gaze of an unwavering faith, which by the very glory of Jesus may blind you to every counter attraction, and thus looking, let us so run that every step brings us nearer to Him.
(b.) But further, Jesus is “the Author and Finisher of our faith.” He is the Alpha and Omega of what we are to believe in order to be saved. The promises — are they not all Yea and Amen in Him, to the glory of God? The prophecies—is it not of Jesus that Moses and the prophets did write? Who is the great anti-type in whom all the Old Testament types find their meaning and fulfilment and by whom they are for ever superseded, but Jesus, the Author and Finisher of the faith, once delivered to the saints?
The great work of Redemption wrought out by Him on earth is a finished work. Beginning at His wonderful birth in Bethlehem’s stable, and including the glory of His Person, as God-man, the divine perfection of His life, the words He uttered, the miracles He performed, the infinite merits of His atoning blood; that work leaves nothing to be desired, no doubt to be expressed, no question to be raised, on the score of Law, Justice or Conscience. He is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth! Here, in Jesus, the guiltiest of sinners may find perfection, infinite, and eternal. The dying thief is an illustration of the practical value of such perfection, even at the eleventh hour, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom”
— the prayer of a guilty wretch on the very confines of everlasting woe. “To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise” — the brand plucked from the burning by an almighty power that defies interference. So certain and secure is the final blessedness of the soul who believes in Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith. Take Jesus away, and we are left to flounder in a confusion which has neither beginning nor end. Life, death, and eternity become shrouded in the deepest gloom, and the only gleam left is the will-o’-the-wisp of a distorted fancy, which allures us to our doom, only to mock us when we sink, never to arise. Oh! sinner, look to Jesus, who is able to save to the uttermost — from beginning to end — all who come unto God by Him.
(c.) But Jesus is also the Author and Finisher of faith in us. That which has been wrought in us in the way of religious experience is all of the Spirit concerning whom Jesus says; “When He is come . . . He shall not speak of Himself . . . He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.” The hope of glory from first to last is Jesus formed in us. He is the Author of those first, faint rays of divine light which penetrated the thick darkness of our guilty souls. The first true views a lost sinner has of his state before God, the guilty fears arising from those views, the first pangs of conscience, awakened to realise the awfulness of that eternal hell, to which by sin he has exposed himself — all have their rise in Jesus; He is the Author of them. No true view of sin is obtained, until it is seen in the light that a crucified Jesus casts upon it. Then it is felt to be what it really is, an infinitely evil and bitter thing, the just wages of which is death. That inward sense of guilt drove you away from one false refuge after another, until there was none left, and you were cast out into the open field in your own blood, to the loathing of your person — and there was none so weary of your sins as yourself. Not till then did you really understand what was meant by the call of the Gospel. You may often have heard the phrase, but never till now had you heard the Call. Oh! how sweetly did that “Come unto me” of Jesus
in the Gospel, sound in your ears now. The Gospel invitation to sinners was all that stood between your guilty soul and black despair.
Then, can you not recall the time of your first-love, when that invitation became really effectual? You heard it, you understood its meaning, and, best of all, you were graciously enabled to respond to it. The Holy Spirit in your heart enabled you to close in willingly with Jesus, held out to you in the Gospel; so that Jesus formed in your heart, spiritually, and savingly, became to you the Author of your eternal salvation.
But He who is the Author is also the Finisher. Doubtless there is much still to be done, much progress to be made in knowledge, grace, and sanctification. The warfare between the flesh and the Spirit rages; the body of sin causes much wretchedness. Faith may have been begun, but it is by no means complete. But even so, Jesus is the pledge of your salvation, and as the Author and Finisher of your faith, this promise is sure in Him — “He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Look unto Him, and leave all to Him.
(d.) In Jesus — the Author and Finisher of his faith — the believer has a sure and certain guide to the Better Country. And who, that is acquainted with the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of his own heart, can dispense with such a Guide? Unnumbered thousands, seduced by the subtle power of pride, passion, self-righteousness, worldliness, unbelief, idolatry, etc., — are led astray until they stumble on the Dark Mountains, never to arise. But the man who runs with his eyes lifted up and fixed resolutely on Jesus is provided with a counteractive, which effectually checks any evil tendency arising within, to wander from the way that leads to peace, to God, to Glory.
Again, in this world we constantly come into contact with false systems of religion, each purporting to be The Way, and followed by countless devotees who are intolerant of the spirituality and
holiness of the true faith. In our day, such systems are multiplied to an alarming extent, and large numbers of souls are led aside from the right way by the charming voice, the novel doctrines and modern methods of some popular idol or other. Against the danger arising from such sources there is no preservative, but Jesus. Oh! my beloved fellow-sinner, let us make a covenant with our eyes, in the strength of God’s grace, never to look to any hireling for what can only be found in the Good Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep, who ‘is able to keep them from falling,’ and who will yet present each one of them “faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.”
II. We come now to consider the Conduct of Jesus as the Pattern which Faith is to follow. “Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, and despised the shame.” His conduct leaves us an example which it is the desire of every true believer to follow. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” This quality of patient endurance in present trial because of future reward, is essential to the very nature of faith. “No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”
Even in the case of those Old Testament heroes who are passed in review before us in Heb. xi., this principle of faith is clearly exemplified. Abraham, believing in the promise of a future seed as numerous as the stars of the sky, offered up (at God’s command), his only son: Moses, having respect to the recompense of the reward, forsook Egypt and chose to suffer affliction with the people of God for a season. There can be no crown without the cross; the cross a thing of the present, the crown of the future: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
(a). But here we have a greater than Abraham or Moses. Let us consider Him, who, for the joy set before Him endured the cross, and looking to Him, let us run in His footsteps. Joy was
set before Him — the joy doubtless, assigned to Him in the counsels of eternal love, and made known to us in prophecy in such instances as, “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied,” “He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand,” “His name shall endure for ever: His name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in Him: all nations shall call Him blessed,” etc. Such was the joy set before Him as Head of the covenant of grace in a past eternity — a prospect which embraced the whole Gospel dispensation with all its gracious provisions and blessings; a seed, gathered out of every nation under heaven, regenerated in His own image by the power of the Holy Ghost, called effectually by the Word and Spirit, justified, sanctified and ultimately glorified. His was the joy of the prospective Bridegroom, looking forward to everlasting union with a redeemed Bride, prepared and adorned for her Husband.
(b). This joy, let it be noticed, was set before Him. There was no part of it actually present with Him during His sojourn on earth. He was then emphatically “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” “His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men.” It was set before Him in prospect. In between Him and the realisation of it there stretched a gulf of infinite woe. The sword of divine justice awakened to smite the Shepherd, the shame and spitting, the agony of the cross, the powers of the Kingdom of darkness, were all between Him and the joy set before Him, barring the way. Neither was He ignorant of what that really meant. It was no fanatical zeal, blinded by the passion of the moment, that carried Him on and rendered Him immune to pain. There is a stark reality about Gethsemane, the Judgment Hall, and Calvary. The terrible loneliness of the Garden, the dark foreboding giving rise to that prayer — “Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me,” all leave a solemn awe upon the mind of the devout reader. And He was heard in that He
feared by Him who was able to save Him from death, His humanity receiving the necessary strength to suffer all that was demanded by inflexible justice, from the surety-substitute of sinners; suffering which came to an awful climax and found expression in the agony of that bitter cry: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” And for you, my believing friend, as part of the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the cross and despised the shame. Let us stand in awe, and reverently worship.
(c). All that suffering was present in His apprehension as He set His face as a flint to go up to Jerusalem. But the dark shadow of the cross, which lay across His way was cast by the brightness of the joy on the other side. Fixing His eyes on the joy—an elect world redeemed—He endured the cross and despised the shame, confident that God would not leave His soul in Hell, nor suffer His Holy One to see corruption. They taunted Him with this: “He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him,” and “If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.” Why, it was because He trusted in God for the joy that was set before Him that He would not come down from the cross. The cross was the supreme trial of His trust in God. By reason of it, He endured the cross and despised the shame.
The cross, the shame — that was the course set for Him, ordained by Justice, Law, Righteousness, inflexible and eternal as God. But on the other side of the cross there is the glory that was to follow. Keeping His eye persistently fixed on the glory, He set His face, confident that although all the world condemned, He was near who justified Him, and that consequently He would not be put to shame. He locked the Word of the Lord up in His heart and kept a firm grip of the promises of a covenant-keeping God, and even the cross did not discourage Him. “Lo, I come.” Judas betrayed Him, Peter denied Him, they all forsook Him and fled dismayed. Legions of angels awaited His least command, but no command was
given, He remained silent and alone. He fixed His mind on the cross, for the joy that was immediately to follow.
(d). And is there not joy set before you believer? Promises great and precious, victory over all enemies, glory everlasting; the gladness of the resurrection morning, when mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death; where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” And what is the sum and substance of that joy? All that, and a great deal that we cannot at present receive is summed up in this one name, Jesus. That, my beloved friend, is the joy set before you. Look unto Him. He is the joy set before you. Keep your eye fixed on Him. If, across the line of your vision Mount Moriah casts its dark shadow, what of that? If between you and the object of your desire, there stretches the wilderness, where loneliness, weariness, painfulness are your daily companions; if between you and your reward there come the demands of duty — “Occupy till I come” — What then? Look unto Jesus, Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.
III. Jesus Exalted is the Encouragement of Faith.
(a). He is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. This is the Lord’s doing, the Father’s answer to the prayer of Jesus, in John xvii.: “I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” It is the action of God, publicly acknowledging His satisfaction with, and acceptance of the finished work of Christ. And there is no attribute of God which more fully concurs with the divine enactment than does justice. “Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.” The joy of Jesus exalted is built up and established for ever upon principles of justice, truth and righteousness.
The sorrow, the cross, the shame are all of them past, for ever past. The sword of Justice now bars the entrance of sorrow into the heart of Jesus. The joy which had been set before Him is now a thing of the present — eternally present, and justice secures that nothing but joy shall ever have its dwelling where Jesus is. But the joy of Jesus is the joy of His people, and what justice secures for Christ, is equally secure to each believer in Jesus. Shall justice crown the Head, and suffer the members, or even one of the least of them to perish? Even to think such a thought would be blasphemy!
All the blessedness of the Gospel dispensation has its rise in Jesus and the effectual application of that blessedness to the Church on earth and in heaven is made absolutely certain by His enthronement. All power in heaven and in earth is given unto Him. In virtue of that power the success of the Gospel, the ingathering of the elect, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the forgiveness of sins, the blessedness of the saints — grace and glory — in a word, the joy set before Christ, as it affects and embraces each believer, — are all placed on a footing of security which the justice, no less than the love of God has made inviolable. Well might the Apostle, having such a view of his exalted Redeemer say “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” My beloved friend, when all else would discourage you, when the whole course of the way which is set before you seems to be against you — fightings without and fears within — look up again on high. Jesus encourages you, beckons you onward, for what is your crown, but part of His joy?
(b). But the fact that He is set down at the right hand of the throne of God means that He has triumphed over all His enemies, and the enemies of His people, and the joy into which He has entered partakes largely of the joy of victory. He ascended on high, leading captivity captive. The enthronement of Jesus was opposed by the utmost powers of hell and earth
in evil confederation. On behalf of all who believe in Jesus, the cross exhausted the bottomless pit of all its fiendish cruelty. The armies of hell shot the arrows of their rage into the blessed body of our Redeemer, until every quiver was empty.
“This is the hour and the power of darkness.” There was no expedient known to the Adversary of which he did not make full use, and there was no reserve of power upon which he did not draw, and yet, after it all, it was Jesus Himself, who voluntarily yielded up the ghost, not a moment before He had finished His great work. There was no point throughout the terrible ordeal, at which Jesus was not in absolute command of the whole situation, and that only because He trusted in the Word and purpose of Jehovah, who had set the joy before Him. In virtue of that glorious victory He is set down at the right hand of God and “Who now is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God.” The really decisive battle in the war of light against darkness has been fought, and the crowning of Jesus is our evidence of the triumph of the cross. “Sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.”
Before your race is run your faith and patience will be subjected to many and severe tests. There is many a Hill Difficulty to be ascended; there are Valleys of the Shadow of Death to be trodden; there are battles with Apollyon to be fought, temptation to be resisted and chastisements to be endured, but with our eyes fixed on a triumphant Jesus, what enemy can triumph, what temptation prevail, what trial can overcome? “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”
The late Captain Kenneth K. Macleod.
THE Lord has been removing His true witnesses in recent years from all over our Church in Scotland, but no part of the vineyard has been thus visited to the same degree as
Lewis. In Ness, they mourn the blanks left by Norman Macleod, one who stood by the truth he professed when our Church maintained the testimony of the Free Church in 1893, and Norman Macphail and Norman Morrison, all office-bearers. North Tolsta has lost eminent men in the persons of Donald Nicolson, elder, and Angus Mackenzie, member, also lately, Angus Macleod, a worthy man who adorned his profession. The Stornoway congregation misses the presence and prayers of Mrs. Angus Maciver who drank in the gospel under the preaching of such a man as the Rev. Peter MacRitchie; Alexander Macaulay, elder, and Alexander Maciver, deacon; and on the 19th day of May, Captain Kenneth K. Macleod, who though not an office-bearer with our congregation, laboured for the last six years of his life to further the cause of Christ in his native island.
Kenneth K. Macleod was born in Kershader, Lochs, Lewis, in the year 1873. His mother was an eminently pious woman who, having been left early with the cares of a young family and finding that the Lord is indeed the Father of the fatherless and the Husband of the widow, sought to foster in the minds of her children to reverence and fear His great and holy name. He came to Stornoway in his early teens and apprenticed himself to a leading carpenter where he learned so much of that craft as to be able to make good use of it, on his retirement, not only on a small, but on a large scale.
But it was not the will of Him who over-rules all things for His own glory that Kenneth Kennedy Macleod should pass his life as an artisan in Stornoway. While yet a young lad, he joined the Seaforths and spent about 30 years of his life, serving his King and Country, in many lands, both in peace and in war. By sheer integrity of character, superior intelligence, and by putting his whole heart into it, he rose rapidly from the ranks to the Captaincy, and he was due to attain higher rank, when he received the wound, at the Battle of Loos, which incapacitated him for further active service. Captain Macleod’s recovery from his wound is one of the marvels of that awful time. That
a bullet should have passed through one of his temples and out through the other, without causing instant death can only be accounted for by the over-ruling hand of God who numbers the very hairs of our heads. The effects of his severe injury were that he was left almost totally blind and deaf though both his sight and hearing were partially restored after treatment in hospital. No one, however, heard him complain; his scar, received on one of Britain’s bitterest days of carnage, was to him the most valuable of all his many decorations.
Captain Macleod, on his return from India about the year 1900, spent some years in Stornoway as a recruiting officer. Lewis, like many other places was at that time in the throes of ecclesiastical contention. The Free Church had, in his absence, been broken up into fragments. He could not recognise the Church to which his mother used to lead him by the hand among all the separate sections which claimed to be that same Free Church. Kenneth Macleod who had been accustomed to another kind of warfare, was at a loss where to find the gospel of peace amid the din of wordy conflict. He thought for a time, as the Established Church seemed to be the only sanctuary for non-combatants, that he would worship within her pale. But, one day, hearing the officiating minister giving expression to a flippant, unseemly and irreverent phrase, Captain Macleod rose and walked out of the church and never crossed her threshold again.
There is no doubt that the Lord directed him to our Stornoway Congregation of which Rev. Neil Macintyre was then minister. No sooner did he understand the reasons for our separate position as a Church, than he cast in his lot with us wholeheartedly, and there was none among us who held more firmly than he, that we represented in the fullest sense the Church of the Reformation in Scotland. It was during this period of his residence in Stornoway, and of his connection with our Church there, that Captain Macleod passed through the change of which the Saviour so solemnly speaks. “Ye must be born again,” became the all-absorbing matter which harassed his soul
for weeks and months on end. There is a house in Bayhead Street, Stornoway, which was the arena where he was confronted with God’s Word which seemed to be to him his spiritual death warrant: “And the door was shut.” But it was no death warrant; it was the truth applied by the Holy Spirit to bring our friend to a true sense of his utterly ruined and lost condition and his need of Christ, the One Name given under heaven and among men whereby we must be saved. He used to tell how the peace of God took possession of all his faculties, in the very place where the sorrows of death had compassed him about. The passage through which Kenneth Macleod entered by faith to the grace wherein he stood was:—”Let not your heart be troubled; in my Father’s house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place for you.” Though he had his temptations and trials, the peace which entered his heart that morning in Stornoway, enabled him to possess his soul in patience to the end of his life.
When hit, ere he became unconscious, these words cheered him: “Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me” (Micah, vii. 8). There was another Scripture among many which indicated to Captain Macleod that he would recover in measure from his severe injury. This was Isaiah, xxxviii. 5—”I will add to thy days fifteen years.” He would sometimes ask: “Is the number fifteen to be taken as an exact or as a round number?” It pleased the Lord to give him fifteen years and a little more, which he spent in doing as much as he possibly could to advance the Kingdom of Christ. He resided some years in Inverness and was a great help there. He delighted in preaching the Word both in Inverness and in the districts around. Afterwards he removed to Edinburgh, where he remained till the bustle of that great city came to be too much for him to move about with a sense of safety.
After frequent long visits to Lewis, he took up his residence in the Achmore Mission House, and at once set about to get a church built there. He himself acted as architect, managing
contractor and general collector for the necessary funds. Our people and some outside our church responded nobly to his request for help, and when the church, which is a monument to the Captain’s zeal, as well as a credit to the builders, was opened, it was practically free of debt. We had no anxiety for the supply of Achmore while he was spared. He kept the services there for about five years on Sabbath and week day, and at the same time, took a private and practical interest in all our congregations in the island.
Wherever Kenneth K. Macleod went in Lewis as elsewhere, he was always the Captain, who always led, and was respectfully obeyed by old and young. He, especially after the death of Malcolm Macleod, Ness, and Angus Maciver, Tolsta, was the one to break the way for the others on the “Question.” His illustrations from his army life on such occasions would fill many pages of the Magazine. One must suffice here: “When we were in the Soudan we had no end of trouble with camels and mules. The mules, especially, made our lives miserable. You could not get them to stand still a moment. They would dash from one side of the road to the other to snatch at every tuft of grass they could see. The only way to subdue them was to load them with a big box of ammunition on one side and a great box of biscuits on the other. The mule would then understand that there was no getting rid of his burden till he would reach the end of the road, and that would make him walk so as to make the journey as short as possible.” The Captain was very fond of telling about a crofter in Lewis called Donald who took the greatest pride in having every thing about the croft in the neatest and best condition possible. His sister, Chirsty, who kept house for Donald persisted in hatching brood after brood of chickens every spring, and when these grew to vigour, they worked havoc among Donald’s corn and potatoes. Donald who would do nothing openly to hurt Chirsty’s feelings, found a way to rid himself of the chickens whose ravages were a trouble to him. Chirsty had set a number of eggs under a hen, and as soon as Donald got her
off the premises, he put the eggs into the kettle and gave them a thorough boiling, and then put them back under the hen. To make absolutely sure of the extinction of life he gave them another boiling when he got her out again. He continued this process till there was not a chicken on the croft to cause annoyance to him. The Captain’s comment on this was that the Lord’s people will never get rid of the vain and sinful thoughts that rise from the carnal mind till they can get them over the fire of the love of Christ in the gospel.
Captain Macleod bore very conspicuously the mark that he had passed from death to life, in that he loved the brethren. He was in his element when he had one or two choice spirits with him. His mind, always exercised in the truth, was never without a topic so that he was the heart and soul of the company in maintaining a lively spiritual conversation. His health was a matter of anxiety to himself and his family right through these years, but that did not mar his usefulness nor damp his spirit. He had many turns of painful illness but he was always on his watch tower and the Messenger of Death did not come upon him unawares. On Friday, 18th May, he paid a visit to Stornoway, and seemed to be in better health than he had been for years. He became ill about 4 o’clock next morning, and passed away to his eternal rest at 5.30 a.m. He left word not to hasten to inform the War Office. He desired to be laid to rest in the family plot without any of the honours due to his rank. There was a large company from all over the Island at the funeral on Tuesday; over 20 cars followed the remains to Crossbost Cemetery where they lie awaiting the trumpet of the Great Day. The Church of Christ in the world has lost in Captain Macleod one who was in his own sphere a true watchman. We feel weak in Lewis, being deprived of those who bore our burdens, as well as their own. May the Lord bless his widow and family and give them the like precious faith. May He raise up in our midst and elsewhere those who would fill the breaches in the walls of Zion.—M. G.