By Rev. Neil Cameron, St Jude’s Glasgow
“Other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours” — John iv. Verse 38.
At the beginning of this chapter, the envy of that inveterate class of men — the Pharisees — appears against the Lord Jesus. The causes of it were that our Lord exposed their hypocrisy, and that they were losing the popularity which they enjoyed hitherto among the people. These causes, fanned to white heat by the growing popularity of Christ impelled those men from bad to worse until we find them exulting over our Lord upon the cross of Calvary. The successors of the Pharisees have not failed in any generation since, and in all probability they will continue in the visible Church till the last day.
But Satan and his servants have been the means of driving the Gospel away from places and peoples then and since, only to spread it more widely in other places to their own confusion and the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. So we read our Lord Jesus left Judea and departed again into Galilee. Samaria lay between Judea and Galilee, and on His journey He came to Sychar, being weary, thirsty and hungry, after a long journey. He sat at the well from which the inhabitants got water. Jesus asked a drink of her. From this sprang a conversation, the blessed results of which will last throughout the ages of eternity both to this sinful woman and to many of the inhabitants of Sychar.
The reason why our Lord came into the world was to call sinners to repentance or to seek and save that which was lost. To accomplish this was His meat and drink. To see poor sinners coming to hear the Gospel, drawn to Him by the Father, caused Him to forget His hunger and thirst and weariness. This was the meat He had to eat that the disciples knew not of. To see the fields between Sychar and Jacob’s well bestrewn with people coming to Himself was the joy of His heart. This is true still; for Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. But, alas! the fields of our cities and towns are often covered over with their inhabitants going, not to Christ, but to vain plays, causing grief to all the Lord’s true people and bringing God’s eternal wrath upon their own souls. The last day will come and then every one will receive according to the deeds done in the body whether they were good or bad. The people of Sychar will, on that day, rise with the men of this poor generation and will condemn them, for they came to Christ to be saved by Him while they had the opportunity. Oh, what fools sin and Satan have made of men as regards the things that
pertain to their everlasting peace.
Let us now consider our text under two heads:—
- 1 The labours into which we have entered;
- 2 Our duty in consequence thereof.
1 The nature of the labour referred to by our Lord is that in connection with the Gospel, and not the labour that men had in connection with the material affairs of this world. It was a labour of faith connected with the doctrine, form of worship, form of government, and discipline of the church of God in the world. Since God gave the first promise of a Saviour to Adam in Eden, we conclude, from circumstantial evidence, that He instituted a form of worship through a bloody sacrifice by which sinful men were privileged to approach His mercy seat by faith. We conclude this from the historical fact that: “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them.” Now skins must have been taken off animals; very probably off the firstlings of sheep, as future sacrifices manifest, or at least of animals considered sacrificially clean.
Adam must have been instructed by God to offer the two animals — the skins of which God made coats to cover them, and which were a beautiful type of Christ’s righteousness in which God justifies and covers the guilty sinner — otherwise we have not warrant from God’s word that sacrifices were to be offered until the time of Abraham. But we find that Abel offered a sacrifice to God by faith. Now faith there means more than the grace of faith in the heart of that young man; it means that he had the rule or warrant of faith, which is God’s word. Abel is the first labourer brought to our view in God’s word. We can picture him in our imagination as he appeared as far up as you can see on the sky-line of time, faithfully labouring in connection with the upholding of God’s instituted worship. Cain was a worshipper of the Lord, but had neither the grace of faith in his heart nor the warrant of faith, God’s word, in his worship; and consequently God had no respect to Cain nor his offering. And because God showed respect to Abel and his offering, Cain endeavoured to wipe out such worship either by prevailing upon Abel to join him in his way of worship, or by putting him to death. When he failed in his endeavours to accomplish the former, he took the latter course. This is how we understand the words, taking them as they are connected with their context. “And Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and slew him,” So we see that Abel kept the faith, and finished his course as a faithful labourer, in spite of the platitudes or wrath of his monstrous brother Cain. He counted not his life too great a price to secure God’s
worship in purity for himself and those that would come after him. The labour of all who succeeded him and the opposition with which they had to contend — some of them even to death — are set forth in miniature form in this case of Cain and Abel.
Let us consider Enoch as the second labourer. It seems that ungodliness rose to a great height in his day. When we consider carefully the Epistle of Jude in connection with the following quotation, we can see as in a glass the enormity to which sin advanced then: “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” So poor Enoch had to bear witness against the ungodly actions and hard speeches against God of the men of his time. He pleased the Lord as a labourer so well, on account of his faith and the faithfulness of his witnessing for God against sin in the professing church — or sons of God who had married the daughters of men — the atheistic daughters of Cain’s posterity — that He took him away to heaven soul and body together.
Let us consider Noah as a third labourer. He lived at a time in which the professing Church was exceedingly corrupt. The effect of marriages contracted between the sons of God — the professors of religion — and the atheistical daughters of men — the offspring of Cain — was such that God saw that the imaginations of the hearts of men were only evil continually, so that he was pained by their ungodliness to such an extent that it repented Him that He had made man. He told Noah that he alone was righteous before Him in that generation, and that at the end of one hundred and twenty years, He would destroy with a flood the whole of them except Noah and his family. The Lord commanded Noah to build an ark for the saving of his house. Noah began to build this ark, and to preach righteousness — law and Gospel — to these men; but because they had grieved the Holy Spirit so that He forsook them, not one of them repented or believed. But Noah continued to build and preach as commanded, with the result that when the flood came, he and his family were saved from being drowned, while all the rest perished. We find Noah immediately the flood was over worshipping God in accordance with God’s institution. He did not change the order of worship although he was alone in that godless generation, and on that account God promised him that He would not destroy the world any more with a flood of water, and gave him the rainbow as a sign of that covenant.
Let us consider Abraham as the fourth labourer. God called him from among the idolaters in Ur of the Chaldees. He obeyed the call and went forth not knowing whither he went. We find him setting up an altar and worshipping God in every place he came to. He did not swerve in the least after the heathen idolatry with which he was surrounded, but continued faithfully to worship God by sacrificing lambs etc.; as types of the great sacrifice of the promised Messiah. He was called the friend of God and the father of the faithful on account of his strict adherence to God’s instituted form of worship, and the pains he took to teach his children to continue the same after he would be taken away. We read that he did all this by faith on God’s promise in which Christ was set forth, and the way he was to worship by faith in Christ. Abraham was put to a great trial of his faith and obedience when God commanded him to offer as a sacrifice his son Isaac. He got in that great trial the clearest view of the day of Christ, and the one offering by which He forever perfected all them who are sanctified. “Abraham saw my day and rejoiced,” our Lord told the unbelieving Jews.
Let us now consider Moses as the fifth labourer. Moses was instructed of God to set up a place of worship, and all the details of it were shown him in Mount Sinai, also all the ministry and sacrifices which were to be used in that worship. He made all things in all their smallest details in strict conformity to the pattern shown him, and kept to the worship so ordered, all his days, not without some opposition. So the Lord gave him the character of being a faithful servant in all His house. We have all the details of the tabernacle he built, and the order of worship ordained by God, in the inspired writings of Moses. The children of Israel prospered while they kept strictly to this order of worship, and when they departed from it they were punished with sword, famine, and pestilence down till the end of that dispensation. Why was this strictness manifested by God in connection with the worship of the Old Testament Church? Because by it Christ was typically preached to the people. “For unto us was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them; but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.”
All the holy prophets laboured to keep the people from the idolatrous worship of the surrounding heathen nations, and to warn them of the consequences which would follow departures from the order of doctrine, worship, and government set up by God under the hand of Moses. In the days of Elijah the false prophets who supported idolatry were nine hundred, while Elijah stood alone as a true and faithful prophet of Jehovah the God of Israel. The same thing happened on several occasions,
as the Word of God reveals — Satan had many prophets to lead the people astray, and the true prophets of God were few in number. Still, the people had no excuse, seeing they had the written Word of God to guide them in everything pertaining to faith, worship and practice. They had also the providence of God, which made it quite manifest that while they kept to the instituted worship of God they had peace and prosperity, but when they departed from the same, they had dispeace and sore adversity. But the people could not be kept from following Satan’s messengers. At last the Lord after visiting them with many judgments for their repeated relapses into idolatory, brought the King of Babylon against them by whom they were annihilated, and the few who were left alive were carried away to captivity. The Holy Ghost recorded the reason why all this fearful vengeance overtook them: “Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much, after all the abominations of the heathen, and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by His messengers, rising up betimes, and sending: because He had compassion on His people, and on His dwelling-place. But they mocked the messengers of God and despised His words, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age; he gave them all into His hand” (2nd Chron. xxxvi 14-17). Surely the above should teach men in every future generation of mankind the awful consequences of following the ways of the heathen, or idolatrous nations, and of mocking God’s messengers, and despising His word. But no; for we in this nation are guilty before God of the very sins for which God’s wrath was so fearfully manifested against Israel and Judah in those days. But God cannot be mocked; for that which a man soweth, the same shall he also reap. He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. All these laboured by faith.
Christ, now that He was going to leave His disciples in a sinful and God-hating world drew the attention of them who were to serve God in the Gospel of His Son to the labours of all His true and faithful servants in the past. These Old Testament labourers were set before the Apostles as their example, and their duty and privilege in having had such faithful predecessors was brought home to them by our Lord’s words, “Other men laboured and ye are entered into their labours.” The New Testament shows how faithfully, even unto death, did the Apostles prove that they were the worthy successors of former labourers in the church of God which
He purchased by His own blood. All these labourers were inspired by the Holy Ghost to reveal God’s whole counsel to men, but since the revelation was finished, the duty of labourers now is to hold fast the form of sound words, i.e., to preach the word, and to rule in the church according to the precepts of that written word. There is a very solemn warning given against any interference on the part of man with the whole contents of God’s Book: “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book: If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city and from the things that are written in this book” (Rev. xxii, 18, 19). This scripture should cause infidels, who tear God’s book to pieces, to tremble for fear at God’s threatening which will certainly be executed; and it was from the above truth that we concluded many years since that these men have committed the unpardonable sin: May the Lord, of His infinite mercy, keep us and all our fellow-men from committing this awful sin.
These infidels may have high places in Churches now, but that will not save them and their adherents from the righteous judgment of God on the day of final reckoning. So let men beware.
Let us now consider the labours of faithful men in the church of God since the Apostolic age, as that is recorded in the history of the Church. In doing so, we can only mention a few of the outstanding labourers, because our time will not allow us to do more on the present occasion.
In the year 315 A.D., a presbyter of Alexandria, called Arius maintained that Jesus Christ was not God, along with other heretical views. A great controversy arose in the church on account of these views. Athanasius entered into this controversy with his whole heart, and, notwithstanding that he was deposed (for he was the Overseer or Bishop of the church of Alexandria) and banished and persecuted by all the ministers of the whole Church backed by the Roman Emperor, he would not yield to such soul-destroying and God-dishonouring doctrines. He was so absolutely forsaken by men in contending for orthodox doctrines against the views of the Arians that the well known phrase came into being “Athanasius against the whole world.” After being banished from his people sixteen times — each time he advised them to stand firm, which to their honour be it said, they faithfully did — he gained the victory for the truth of God, and for the fundamental doctrines vilified by his opponents. The doctrines of Arius were condemned and the Biblical doctrines concerning the Godhead of Christ and of the Holy Ghost were vindicated in the Church
throughout the whole of the Roman Empire. This man proved that he was a faithful labourer who would not compromise the doctrines of God’s truth in order to obtain a sinful peace with his fellow-men.
Let us take Augustine as the second labourer. He was born at Tagaste in the North of Africa, in the year 345. In his day Pelagius promulgated doctrines which denied the effects of the fall of Adam on mankind also many other pernicious doctrines. This Pelagius was one of the brightest ministers of the church at his beginning. The Rev. James Durham wrote in his lectures on the book of Revelation that, if he were asked who the bright star was that fell into the fountains of water, turning them to wormwood, which caused many to die on account of the bitterness of the waters, he would say it was Pelagius. Augustine took a very wise course in dealing with this enemy of God’s truth. He wrote at large on the doctrine of predestination, the depravity of human nature, and the operation of divine grace. When these works of Augustine were published and read, men saw that they were the very doctrines of the Bible, and that the doctrines of Pelagius on original sin and the freedom of man’s will were subversive of the scriptures. So Pelagius lost the day, not before he had done great harm in the church. Augustine’s works are held in high esteem by all sound divines till this day. Calvin gave him a high place in all his works. He was truly a labourer that needed not to be ashamed, dividing the word of God aright, and was a true successor of the labourers who preceeded him.
As the third labourer let us take Luther. He was awakened to a real sense of his guilt and natural depravity by the Holy Ghost in a monastery in Germany. He tried to attain to peace of conscience by going through all the penances prescribed by the Papacy; but the more he tried them the deeper his misery became. The words came twice to him, “The just shall live by faith,” but he, like Samuel of old, did not know God’s voice. While he was on his knees going up the stair falsely called “Pilate’s Stair” in Rome, the scripture, “The just shall live by faith,” came to his mind with such light and power that he rose off his knees. From that day Luther began to teach that sinners are saved by faith in Jesus Christ, and not by any works of merit of theirs. The light went forth along with the truths which he divulged by his teaching and writings, so that the false and superstitious doctrines of the Papacy appeared to men in their true colours. The power of the Papacy was shaken to its foundations. Every effort was put forth to destroy Luther and his doctrines but truth is strong and will prevail. After all efforts of the Papacy to crush him — its power was universal at the time — he came off victorious by the grace of God, and ultimately died in peace in his bed. He had a great work to do and he
was immortal until he finished it. He was another of the faithful labourers in God’s house, who did a great work by faith.
Let us consider Calvin as the fourth. He did more to establish the doctrines of the scriptures, and to expound their true meaning, than any other man did before him or since. His “Institutes of the Christian Religion” reveals a mind of the highest order and enlightened by the Holy Spirit. This work alone did much to advance the Reformation in the sixteenth century, and to close the mouths of the Papacy in their efforts to prejudice the minds of men in high and humble positions against it. In our opinion, no student should be allowed to pass through a Divinity course without studying this work of Calvin. It would be a tower of strength to ministers of the Gospel in meeting with errors in doctrines, etc.; while serving the Church of God in their generation.
Calvin endured a great deal of persecution and trials both from enemies and friends; but he held uncompromisingly to God’s word in everything to the very last. He truly earned the character of being a faithful labourer both by doctrine and example.
John Knox may be considered as the fifth labourer. None of our reformers had more courage than he had. He faced boldly and dignifiedly those in civil authority in Scotland in defence of God’s truth and the rights of the Church of Christ. Some men endeavour to revile his character as being harsh and uncivil to Queen Mary; but they either forget or willingly conceal that that unfortunate woman boldly endeavoured to undo the whole work of Reformation in Scotland by setting up the Papacy, which had been overthrown by Acts of the Scottish Parliament. She was a traitor to the constitution of the Church of the Reformation which was more dear to John Knox than his life, and, further, he had the law of Scotland and the authority of the Lord behind him in so doing. A more intrepid servant of Christ than John Knox can hardly be found in any country. His name will always remain fragrant to all lovers of civil and religious liberty, not only in Scotland, but also wherever faithfulness and integrity towards the truth of God and the salvation of lost sinners are admired.
I regret that through want of space, I can only offer a passing remark about other very faithful labourers, who endured much in order that the truth of the Gospel would remain with us.
John Welsh, of Ayr, who suffered the greatest hardship because he would not compromise nor surrender any of the claims of the Lord Jesus or the civil and ecclesiastical liberties of His Church in Scotland. For this he was imprisoned, then condemned to death; but, instead of being put to death, he was banished to France. Notwithstanding of all these great trials
he continued faithful unto death.
Andrew Melville was another faithful labourer. He also endured imprisonment and was banished on account of his constant adherence to, and his defence of, the Creed and Constitution of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
Robert Bruce of Edinburgh, had to endure banishment to Inverness for the same causes three times. But he could not be prevailed with to lower the truth for king or council. He certainly deserves a very high place in the estimation of all true lovers of freedom and honesty in his dealings about the affairs of God’s house.
Samuel Rutherford was as faithful as any man this country has ever produced. He suffered banishment to Aberdeen for his adherence to God’s truth, and would have suffered death for his faithfulness to Christ’s Crown and Covenant had the Lord left him a few days longer in the world. He and Alexander Henderson, and George Gillespie, will have a warm place in the hearts of all the Lord’s faithful people in Scotland to the end of time, for the large share they had in framing the subordinate standards of the Church of Scotland, and for their faithful adherence to the same to the end.
Donald Cargill, Richard Cameron, Hugh Mackail, and James Renwick, these were men “who jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the field.” They forsook all for Christ. They lived for years in dens and caves of the earth; suffering from cold, hunger, nakedness, and sword, until they were one by one caught and put to death. Were it not for these men, and the unconquerable grace of God given to them, the gospel of the grace of God had not come down to us.
Scotland will not know till the day of final judgment how much its people owe to these mighty men of God. The benefits of their faithful labours in the cause of Christ will be held in everlasting remembrance as long as godliness will be continued in our beloved country. All those noble men both of the first and second Reformation periods, did contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered unto the saints.
Let us come nearer our own time. We can see how Dr Chalmers and many other faithful men laboured to deliver the Church of Scotland from the incubus of Patronage, and when they found it impossible to move the British Government to repeal the Patronage Act, they set the Church free by separating from the thralldom imposed by unrighteous law, while maintaining the principle of Establishment and Endowment of the Church by the State. Thus the Church of Scotland became free.
In the past generation, Dr Begg and Dr Kennedy, also the Rev.
Alexander MacColl, faithfully contended against innovations in doctrine, worship, and infidelity then lifting its monstrous head in Free Church of Scotland.
These men continued to warn the people of the dangers to which they and their children were exposed by these heretical and infidel doctrines tolerated in the Free Church by the majorities in her ecclesiastical courts. But, notwithstanding all they did to oppose the floods of Satan coming in to the Free Church, they were not successful in saving it from being overwhelmed. They surely did what they could. Their memory as faithful labourers should not, and will not be forgotten by such as love God’s truth. They were not men that loved contention, but being men of faith, they felt bound to oppose everything that destroyed the pure gospel of Christ, and the order of worship revealed in the Word of God. They served their generation well and slept.
At last the enemy of God and the souls of men thought that he might take a bold step, seeing that these faithful men had gone to their everlasting rest. So an Act was passed by an overwhelming majority in the General Assembly of the Free Church by which her doctrine and principles, as set forth in her subordinate standards, were completely undermined. When the enemies of God’s Word thought they had won the day, and that the Free Church, as formerly constituted, had for ever passed away, the Rev. Donald MacFarlane rose in the Assembly of 1893, and tabled a protest by which he, in his own name and in the name of those who would follow him, refused to submit to the courts of that church as constituted under the Declaratory Acts and declared that steps would be immediately taken to revive the Free Church of Scotland as constituted in 1843. This step was actually taken as recorded in our Deed of Separation adopted in August of that year.
We have now given an outline of the labourers into whose labours we have entered. Beginning with Abel, we have traced briefly throughout the inspired and uninspired history of the Church of God, the labours of men (possessed of the faith of the Gospel) to keep pure and entire the faith and scriptural form of worship set up by God in His Church. It will appear to all who are not prejudiced in their minds that the father of our Church — the Rev. Donald MacFarlane — falls into line with the faithful labourers of the past. We have entered into the labours of these faithful men, and consequently our responsibility to God and men is great and far reaching. Therefore let us consider very briefly our duty.