by Rev. Donald MacLean
(Utrecht 1st May, 1972)
Today is, I believe, a day to remember the birthday of the Queen of the Netherlands. It is a day in which you rejoice. She, herself, was born into the Royal Family and in due course came to the throne and now rules over you as your Queen. This should lead us to wonder at the marvellous love of the Everlasting King in choosing a bride for His beloved Son. He did not choose this bride out of a royal family but from among the lost and ruined children of men. He passed by the angels who had never sinned, and the eye of His everlasting love fell upon a number which no man can number of the children of men. The election of grace are to make up the bride of Christ.
“He that hath the bride is the bridegroom”, said John the Baptist. (John 3:29). The bridegroom of the Church is none other than the Son of God, Who loved His people with an everlasting love. In order that He might have the bride as His Own, He had to redeem her from the claims of God’s law and justice. The bride, as she was by nature, was composed of guilty sinners who were under the sentence of eternal death — who were the children of wrath even as others. It was necessary that the Bridegroom would die in her room and stead. To do this, the Son of God took a human nature into union with His divine Person. That human nature was provided for Him by the operation of the Holy Ghost in the womb of Mary and was a human nature, holy and without sin. In this nature, He drank the cup of death which His bride had filled up by her sins against God. “The cup which my Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it.” (John 18:11), was the language of the heavenly bridegroom, whose love never changed even when He drank the depths of that awful cup. “Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” (John 13:1). The waters of suffering and death which flooded His holy soul could not drown His love to His Bride. When He rose triumphantly on the third day on the other side of death and the grave, He did so as the bridegroom of the Church. As the Lamb of God, He had borne away the sins of His people and His bride is known as the “Lamb’s wife.” All power is given to Him in heaven and in earth so that every one who is a member of His bride shall be brought near to Him in this world by faith. The power by which He brings this to pass is the power of the Holy Ghost.
Where did Christ by the Holy Ghost find your soul, whether you are in Scotland, Holland or Rhodesia? The Psalmist gives the answer to which all his people will agree. “Hearken, O daughter and consider and incline thine ear: forget also thine own people and thy father’s house.” (Ps 45:10). They were in the house of their father, the devil: their companions were of the world which lieth in wickedness: their pleasures were the pleasures of sin. which are but for a season. They were without God and without hope in the world and would have perished there unless the Lord had called them to hearken to Him. “Incline your ear and come unto me: hear and your soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.” (Isaiah 55:3). This call is called a “heavenly” call because it comes from heaven. Man cannot give a call from heaven and much of the religion of the present day only comes from man, will go no further than man and eventually bring men to a lost eternity. But the heavenly calling comes through the Holy Ghost and by the Word of God. New and heavenly light enters the soul and the cry is heard, “My sin is ever before me.” (Ps 51:3). “I have sinned against heaven and before thee.” (Luke 15:18). This call is an “holy” call and when the holy Word of God enters the soul the sinner feels his own uncleanness and the cry is heard, “Woe is me! for I am undone: because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” (Is. 6:5). “But we are all as unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Is 64:6). The soul thus begins to leave the house and family of the devil and turns to the voice of the bridegroom of the Church. To such a soul, Christ makes Himself known. “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and entered into His glory” (Luke 24:26) He said to the two on the way to Emmaus. They, themselves, said, “Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way and while He opened to us the Scriptures.” (Luke 24: 32). Did Christ by the Holy Spirit so open the Scriptures to your sin-sick soul that you saw such love in His sufferings as to draw your soul to be united to Him for time and eternity. This was the day of espousals and of the gladness of that soul. “And I will betroth thee unto me for ever: yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and in judgment and in loving-kindness and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness and thou shalt know the Lord.” (Hosea 2: 19, 20).
United to Christ in time means being united to Christ for eternity. Being united to Christ means being united to God’s people everywhere. There are many of God’s people in Scotland, Holland and Rhodesia that we will never see: but we shall all be gathered at last in the palace of the King above. The Lord’s people had their new-birth-day in the day in which they were born again and, united to Christ. They became members of a more honourable family than the royal families of Holland or Britain. They became members of the bride of the King’s Son, and sons and daughters of the King Eternal. Their eternity shall be one of everlasting peace and joy. “With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought: they shall enter into the King’s palace.” (Ps 45:15).
This is the great work which the Lord carries on through the preaching of the gospel. Paul, himself, said to the Church in Corinth. “For I am indeed jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I have espoused you unto one husband, that I may present you a chaste virgin to Christ” (II Cor. 11:2). This is the work we are engaged in in the Mission in Rhodesia. It is our sincere desire and earnest prayer that the Holy Ghost would so bless His Word in that Land that many souls would be espoused to Christ and able to say from soul experience, “My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand . . . . His mouth is most sweet: yea, He is altogether lovely.” (Song. 5: 10,16).
The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland and our Committee send you once more our heart-felt thanks for your wonderful support of our Mission in Rhodesia. May the Lord bless you all.