by the late Rev. D. N. MacLeod (May, 1944)
Before moving the adoption of the Financial Statement, Mr MacLeod said: We have just listened to the reading of the Treasurer’s Report for, not a whole year as before, but three-quarters of a year, but so far as I can see there is really no difference from former years. That is, regarding how we as a little Church is regarded by the Lord, and how that regard of His is shown to us in His bountiful goodness in giving us from year to year ever since we took up our position as a Church in 1893. As we heard on Tuesday night from our Retiring Moderator, there was great faithfulness to God and to His Church shown at that time by those who are now, we believe, at their eternal rest. That faithfulness has not been altogether lost, nor in my estimation anything near being lost, for the Church has had to contend with much — with years of trouble, indeed with fiery trials. They were years in which it was fulfilled to us: “In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” She met with so much, as you well know, that some thought she was really done for — her end had come at last and she could not survive now. But here we are this evening after being brought through it all — still living, and a living Church having survived and surmounted it all and as far away from being extinct as a Church as we were at the beginning, so far as I can see. That shows and proves that the faithfulness begun at the very beginning of the Church has not died and has not been lost, and that the Church continued to contend for the Word of God, and that with a view to His glory and to the prosperity of His Kingdom in the world and the extension of it world wide. Faithfulness is a wonderful grace. Every believer requires it for himself and herself. God expects all His people to be faithful, and He promises to be faithful to them. And here is where a wonder is seen, and that by themselves, that many times when they feel guilty of not being so faithful as they should have been, they know nothing of that on His side. He is as faithful to them as He ever was. That is a common experience of the Lord’s people, and it serves a very good purpose. It makes them feel ashamed before Him, and it humbles them. And whatever really humbles a believer is for His good, whatever it be that serves that purpose. “Be ye clothed with humility.” The believer is never so beautiful in the sight of the Lord as when He sees him walking in that robe of humility and the believer is never so like his Redeemer as he is when he is clothed with that robe — the robe of humility. I think that he is nearer what the Redeemer Himself was and would like him to be as resembling Him in the world as far as possibly can be, when clothed in that robe. He resembles his Saviour when he is really humbled — when he has true humility. But faithfulness requires this — a renewal of grace, an increase of grace, for without that no one can be kept faithful, and faithfulness always demands this, and courage as well. You remember how the Lord encouraged His servant Joshua when he was about to pass over Jordan. He encouraged him in battle with the strong nations of Canaan: “Be very courageous,” and that more than once. Well, faithfulness needs not only courage, but it also needs that there be no cowardice. That is what the believer must be on his guard against because it is entirely of the flesh and from the enemy. The enemy will do his best to make the believer a coward. A coward may go as far to deny his Lord, and that, at a time that calls for the utmost courage and bravery, at a time when it is necessary to own, acknowledge and confess our Saviour before all, at all cost, whatever it may be. At that moment the enemy endeavours, if at all possible, to make the believer a coward. The believer has to guard against that. Faithfulness and cowardice are not companions. The Lord has no love for a coward. Our Lord Himself assured us in the days of His flesh: “For whosoever denieth me before men, him will the Son of Man deny before His Father and His holy angels.”
This is a time when man must stand — not in his own strength, for we are told by the Psalmist that the Lord does not regard such as can stand on his own legs, but at the same time we must stand. There is no going back, my friends. There is no going back for the believer. There is no going back, my friends, for the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. So far as I understand things, it was not nearly so necessary in 1893 for the Church to make the stand she did, as it is now. Things have gone from bad to worse every day. This age, yes, and this land, are full of traitors to the Lord Jesus Christ, and there are many here who know more about that class of persons that I do. But I know this much, that they are persons who are never relied on and never trusted, and of whom others are always afraid, and we have every reason to be afraid of them, and this land is just swarming with traitors to the Lord Jesus Christ, whose names, sad to say, are on many Communion Rolls, for there is a great forsaking of the true faith in this land as well as throughout the world in this sad day of ours. It is indeed a cloudy and dark day — so dark and cloudy that whoever will get through safely and be accounted worthy of the Lord will have reason to praise God throughout eternity. I am now pretty much like what the late Rev. N. Cameron, Glasgow, said to me a few years before he died. He said, “I am beginning to feel lonely, not because I am without friends, as I have many friends. That is not the cause of my loneliness. It is this, those with whom I was associated in 1893, and some before 1893, men and women, are nearly all away. They have gone before us, and when I think of them I feel lonely.” And I must make that confession here tonight too. Those whom I knew in my young days, and to whom I was exceedingly attached, and in whom I had the greatest faith, men and women too, are all away. I hope I can, as Mr Cameron said, say that I have friends in this world, but I do feel lonely, and others may have the same feeling. But I say this to the rising generation, that they have been left a goodly heritage — a heritage of which they have every reason to be proud, and it is their duty to value that heritage, and leave it to those who will come after them, unimpaired as others left it to them. Let them make conscience of that before God, to be faithful to of men and women at all. It was the Lord’s work. Well, they are what was left by those who went before them. It was not the work duty bound to serve Him. If not, I pity them when they will meet the Lord on the last day. I pity them from the bottom of my heart who will be unfaithful and will not do their utmost to preserve that heritage for the generation coming after them. We have every reason to thank God this evening for His bounty to us in giving us so much in the past year and every preceding year. Let us give Him the thanks due to Him and let us not be satisfied with mere words. Let it come straight from our hearts. Also, let us thank our Treasurer* for his labours, and I am sure that it is a great pleasure for us all to see him so much restored after a serious illness, and that he is now able to attend to his work. We thank him for his work although he is not looking for thanks from us. We know that he is looking higher than that.
* The late Mr John Grant.