“And the same day, when the even come, he saith unto them. Let us pass over unto the other side. And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat unto the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?”
In this precious portion of God’s Word we have much for our instruction and encouragement. In the first place we have the disciples setting out from the place where Christ was teaching, and as it was at His command that they sent out it can be said that they were in the path of duty. We can see that this narrative is in many respects applicable to the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland in its origin as a separate body and in its subsequent history. It has encountered many a storm and many a billow went over it, but it has survived so far, a wonder to those who are most interested in it, and perhaps a wonder to the world, but the secret of its survival is that Christ is on board.
I.
We have noted that the disciples were in the path of duty when they set out at the command of Christ. There were things which, if they had considered them, might have caused them to swerve from the path of duty. There was, first of all, the lateness of the time of day. It was “when the even was come.” The darkness had set in already, and it was not safe to venture out. Many dangers, which they might avoid in the daylight, were before them and they had no means of seeing these beforehand. There were many who were ready to say that it would all end in their ship becoming a wreck, but they could not think of these things when it meant swerving from the path of duty. It was a dark night on which the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland set out on its separate existence. Darkness had covered the earth and gross darkness the people, for those who had been doughty champions in the Cause of Truth were called home to their reward, and as each of them were taken away so much light had departed from this world, and so much darkness had crept in, so that men began to call “evil good, and good evil,” and to put darkness for light, and light for darkness. They attacked the Confession of Faith and began to call it evil as they had previously done with the Bible. That was to be expected, for the doctrines in the Confession of Faith were the doctrines of the Bible. It was in the midst of this felt darkness that Christ commanded some to set out. Those who received this command were insignificant in the eyes of the world, and in comparison with those who were recognised as church leaders, were nowhere, and if they got lost on the troubled sea on which they embarked no one would miss them, and, in fact, some heaved a sigh of relief when they got rid of those whom they were pleased to call “the impracticable element.” So it was with the disciples; they were considered insignificant as religious leaders and teachers, and if they would be drowned, who would mourn for them? More noise would be made over the drowning of one Pharisee than though Christ and all His disciples would be drowned.
Those who formed the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland did not expect to escape trouble any more than the disciples, but, like them, the expectation of trouble was not to deter them from duty. The disciples could judge the face of the skies. This was no sin. The sin of the Pharisees was that they could do so but could not discern the signs of the times. Their knowledge and experience as fishermen taught them to expect trouble. Those who steered the frail bark of what remained of the Disruption Church in 1893 did so in the full knowledge that they were to expect trouble. In fact, Christ Himself in His Word had forewarned them of it, when He said, “In this world ye shall have tribulation.” The Holy Spirit told them, through the Apostle Paul, that “all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” They, however, had this consolation, that He who overcame the world said unto His own, “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.” They had faced storms before, but they knew that this one was to be a greater storm than any that they had formerly experienced, but all would be well for Christ was on board.
They did not embark without meeting men who advocated a worldly wise policy of shunning the storm and embarking when matters would be more favourable. In the eyes of the world it was nothing short of madness for the disciples to set forth on that dark and threatening evening. It would, no doubt, be pointed out that their ship was their only means for earning their livelihood, and if they lost it and the gear, even if they were saved themselves, there would be nothing but starvation for themselves and their families. There are many who, by their actions if not by their words, said that one should not risk too much for Christ and His Cause. “By embarking at this unpropitious hour you will lose the property. Those who have begun to say that the Confession of Faith is evil have done nothing yet to cause alarm. Wait till they do something which they have not done yet, and which we expect that they will do, and we can then refuse to follow them, and secure the funds and property.” The conscience of Christ’s true disciples, however, spoke louder than this carnal reasoning. Being illuminated by God’s Word, it showed them where men stood as regards the Bible and the Confession of Faith; it spoke pointedly concerning ordination vows, and caused them to obey the voice of Christ which spake louder than thunder, saying, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.”
The narrative shows us the disciples obeying the Master’s command. They never questioned the wisdom of it, and in all their experience of Him they could say that He never commanded them to do what was wrong. His commands may often have caused them a good deal of trouble, but they found this to be, in the long run, for the best, and one kind word from His gracious lips more than made up for them all the discomforts and troubles which they passed through. Those who stood faithful to His testimony did so in obedience to His own command. They could say with the Apostle, “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of any man’s judgment.” They were not commanded to look after property and funds when they could not retain a witness for Christ along with them, for that witness was of infinitely greater value than any amount of material wealth, and they knew that He who gave the command left it written in His Word for their encouragement. “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts.” Haggai 2:8. Yea, further, He assures those who suffer loss for His sake, that it shall be more than made up to them. “And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall inherit everlasting life.” Matthew 19:29.
He was not going to allow them to go out alone to face all these dangers, for He said, “Let us pass over unto the other side.” He Himself was to accompany them. If it were otherwise they had reason to fear, and might be ready to say with Moses, “If thy presence go not with me, carry us up not hence.” He has, however, said, “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.” He has long ago trodden the weary path of their afflictions so that it is true that “in all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them.” Looking into the future, Christ’s witnesses may not be able to see much but darkness and storms. They may expect oftener to encounter a Euroclydon than a favourable breeze; they feel that they have no strength or skill to weather the storm. But for the promise of His holy presence they would have given up before they had hardly begun, yet while they are meditating on these things, he sweetly and seasonably whispers in their ear, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”
II.
The second thing that we may consider is that they had Christ on board. “They took him even as he was in the ship.” We may notice first, that they took Christ Himself as he was. When men take up a separate position in order to conserve the truth, it is not a Christ who is shaped and dressed to suit the world, that they take with them, and for whom they suffer persecution and tribulation. The world will be satisfied with a Christ who is merely human, and set up for an example, but it was not in order to take with them such a Christ that the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland launched out on the troubled seas of this world. When men denied His eternal Godhead, His sinless humanity, His miraculous conception, His discriminating love, His atoning death, and His resurrection and ascension, along with all the other fundamental doctrines of God’s Word, it was time to obey the Apostolic injunction, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” He had commanded them to go forth, but as He had previously, by His Spirit, taught them that “without me ye can do nothing,” they cannot take this weighty step without taking Him with them — a whole Christ — co-equal with the Father in all His attributes, and having a fellow-feeling with them in all their infirmities.
“They took Him as He was in the ship.” It was not in another ship that the disciples assayed to cross to the other side with Christ, but in the very ship from which He taught. The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland has been referred to in a most unfriendly manner as “a new creation,” but in spite of that it is the very Church in which Christ was found, down through the centuries in Scotland. It is Presbyterian, and it is Free, and rests four-square on the Word of God as it did at the Reformation. It exists today, as it did then, for the preaching of the Gospel and for the ingathering of such as were ordained to eternal life; it does not aspire after worldly aggrandisement, and it gets its full share of the hatred of the world, and in token of that it is spoken of as narrow, exclusive, and ante-diluvian, but through the grace of God none of these things move it. False prophets have often prophesied its utter extinction, but instead of their prophecies being fulfilled, it grows, and spreads its branches to the furthest away corners of the globe, and if it continues having Christ on board it will exist to the Millennium. “And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord. As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, for henceforth and forever.”
III.
In the third place we may notice that the disciples encountered a storm, and with it a great deal of trouble. They would, no doubt, have been expecting it before they began their voyage, for the appearance of the sky would indicate that such a thing was about to take place, and so Christ’s witnesses in Scotland have encountered many a storm, and the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland has its own share of that experience. Before they ever set forth as a separate body they had reason to expect it, for in common with the rest of His witnesses, Christ Himself forewarns them of it. They had hardly separated from those who altered the Constitution of the Church by accepting views which were subversive to the glorious truths contained in the Confession of Faith, when that storm descended. Manses, Churches and meeting-houses, which were erected for the purpose of propagating the gospel, and for the use of such adhered to the Constitution of the Free Church of 1843 were confiscated by those who embraced the erroneous views contained in the Declaratory Act, taking advantage of the fact that they were in the majority, and those to whom they rightly belonged were turned out. Not only so, but the spirit of persecution was so vehement, that, where these men had power, they endeavoured to deny any spot of God’s earth to those who renounced that infamous Act, in order to worship God according to his Word. It is well-known that men who laid claim to a high standard of orthodoxy, meanly used their influence as members of School Boards to deny the use of local schools to Free Presbyterian Congregations, their only crime being that they adhered to the Constitution of the Church and to their ordination vows.
Where the law of the land would not permit further acts of open persecution, unsparing use was made of the tongue, as was the case with the enemies of Jeremiah. “Come, let us smite him with the tongue.” The movement was characterised as “a storm in a teapot,” by one who previously said in public that if the Declaratory Act was passed anyone who wished could pronounce the funeral oration of the once-glorious Free Church of Scotland. Another oracularly proclaimed that in a year or two the Free Presbyterian Church would come to nothing for lack of funds, forgetting that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.” In this they were emulating the indignation and mockery of Sanballat who said, “What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?” or the no less biting sarcasm of Tobiah the Ammonite, when he said, “Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall.”
Stormy, though it was, it was tolerably comfortable for the disciples until “the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.” Outside influences began to be felt in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Men who swallowed the Declaratory Act with all its pernicious teaching, but who hesitated to join a voluntary church because it meant relinquishing the Establishment Principle, began to pose as the real Free Church, and to make overtures for union to the Free Presbyterian Church. Unhappily, when these waves beat upon the Church there were empty spaces ready to receive them, and that caused us more trouble and weakness than persecution or sarcasm. Men began to claim to be what they were not, and office-bearers who vowed faithfulness to the position of the Church, began to admit these claims. The ship of the Church was “now full” of disorder. Some began to cry one thing and some another, betraying a manifest lack of harmony which caused much anxiety to those who loved the truth, so that it became very apparent that no human ingenuity could extricate the Church. Under these circumstances there were not wanting those who cried to the Lord, but for a time He did not answer.
IV.
This brings us to consider, Fourthly, Christ’s apparent unconcern. “And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow.” He appeared to have left them alone to battle with the storm. Their case seemed desperate but He made no move to help them. He has thus dealt with His own Cause many a time. Men of integrity, when harassed by the storm and the waves which beat upon the Church, have cried to Him but have received no immediate deliverance, thus causing them to cry with others of old, “Verily thou are a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.” This has often brought them to their wits end, and as the disciples, when they saw their ship filled with water, could not say how much more it could stand, so these did not know what damage might have been done secretly throughout the Church by endeavours to spoil the minds of the people. They themselves were but men, and they were powerless to save the Church, and the One in whom they had confidence appeared altogether unconcerned about their plight.
He was “asleep on a pillow.” It was a well-earned rest for He had spent the day in preaching salvation to perishing sinners. This brings before us, both His love to poor sinners and His real humanity, for he needed rest after His labours, and thus He could have a fellow-feeling with His disciples in their weakness and weariness. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and as long as the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland has Him on board, and looks to Him, all shall be well with it. There is a vast difference between His silence and His utterly forsaking us. His silence is often in order to try the faith of His people, and to cause them the more vehemently to seek Him. This was the case more than once in the history of our Church. When troubles arose, the Lord’s people frequented the Throne of Grace oftener than usual, and the end of it was that on each occasion when the Church was in a storm, He delivered it.
V.
Fifthly, we note the concern of His disciples. “Master, carest thou not that we perish?”
His apparent unconcern might be misconstrued and give a handle to the enemy to injure the Cause of Christ. There was a Judas among his disciples who had no real love for the Saviour in his heart, and doubtless, when he missed his own comfort, he cast many a malevolent glance towards the place where he knew the Master to be resting, and he might sometimes utter some half-audible insinuations, which were calculated to breed suspicion and discontent in the minds of the other disciples. The church in all ages has been in similar circumstances, and our own church in particular knows something of this. It has been first insinuated and afterwards plainly said, by some among ourselves, that we were schismatics because we refused to unite with a Church which appeared outwardly to be one with us, but which tolerated within her pale men of known heterodox views, and whose practice in some respects was more than questionable. We have been accused of being too strict, or too lax, according to the self-invented standard of the one who chose to criticise us, and all this was aimed at Christ, who commanded us to go forth. This is bound to awaken concern in the minds of all who truly love the Lord Jesus and His Cause.
When He was not appearing for their help and deliverance it might well cause the disciples to question if He was really on board. Did He really come on board? or if He did, did He leave the ship in some mysterious way unobserved by them? When the Church is in trouble and apparently getting the worst of it, those who hold it dear are ready to yield to unbelief. They will be ready to question if things were right with them at the beginning, or, if Christ was actually with them then, did He continue with them. Did He leave without notifying them that He was doing so? They have to acknowledge that He would be just in leaving them in that manner, and that their sins deserved it. They however, discover that this is their infirmity. They forget His promise, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,” or His assurance that “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.”
Their concern causes them to pray. It is with amazement that they behold Him fast asleep in the hour of their danger. They are ready to put the question to him with another of old, “Why shouldst thou be as a man astonished, as a mighty man that cannot save?” They have no time, however, to question Him about His unconcern, beyond in their perplexity to say, “Master, carest thou not that we perish?” The matter is too pressing for that. Neither have they time to put petitions in an orderly manner. Ritualists may go to their prayer-books and read off an orderly composition, but the prayer of the heart consists often of broken ejaculations, arising from the present distress of the one who prays, and are, as someone put it, “like bolts shot into heaven before Satan gets time to go after them.” As it was with the disciples in this case, so it is with the Lord’s people in all ages; they are out with their petitions as they come out of their hearts. At first sight, one might be ready to view the language of the disciples to Christ, as most irreverent, “Master carest thou not that we perish,” as if it was a matter that might be questioned whether He cared or not. This is a rather hasty conclusion to come to, for it is not the language of irreverence but the language of familiarity. Others might not take upon them to thus waken Him hastily, but the disciples knew Him in a different manner from how He was known to outsiders, and so it is with the Lord’s people in their time of trouble. They are welcome to use freedom with Him for He has said to them, “And call upon me in the day of trouble: I shall deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me,” Thus you shall find them praying to Him to appear for their deliverance. “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?”
VI.
In the sixth place, we see a revelation of His mighty power. “And He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still, and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” Lying asleep on the pillow in the hinder part of the ship He appeared the picture of weakness. He needed sleep in order to recruit His strength after His toil. He appeared to His disciples to be one of themselves. But Oh! when He awoke from His sleep, even the natural elements must obey His command and spend their force at His feet, showing Him to be the very One who gave them their existence. To the sea He says, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” How often has this been seen in the history of our beloved Church that the Lord Jesus reigns and is Lord of all. Without entering into particulars, as one might easily do, many a storm the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland has weathered, and instead of being overcome by these storms, Christ, who is on board, has delivered it, so that it can sing with others of old, “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us: then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us.” All this redounds to His glory. “Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.”
No trouble is so great as to be beyond His power to still. He it is who can say, after delivering in six troubles, “yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee.” Alas! that we are at times so ready to forget this. We see every trouble that appears so much greater than the previous one and we come to the conclusion that this is going to finish us. We forget the mighty power of Him who delivered us already with His outstretched arm, and that all power is given Him in Heaven and on earth, and, therefore, that all must obey Him, for He has said, “unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.” The greatest potentates who ever lived, who boasted of their great strength and power, and who held many lesser powers in fear, must yield to Him who is the mighty God of Jacob. “And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth.”
“There was a great calm.” When the Lord rebukes the winds and waves of persecutions and afflictions those who are true lovers of Zion will have a great calm. When He appears, unbelief will be put to flight, and no matter what troubles it caused during the storm, there is now the great calm of a good conscience. When there are troubles in the Church, unbelief is an expert at putting things in a wrong light, but when he is put to flight at the appearance of Christ, things are seen in their proper light, and a conscience, illuminated by the Word of God, testifies that everything is right, and thus a calm settles on their spirits. The Lord sometimes, not only favours them with an inward calm, but, on occasions, gives them, for a season, to enjoy an outward calm, for “when a man’s ways please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
VII.
We now see that He expostulates with them. “Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?” This is a very seasonable expostulation to those whose hearts, like that of Eli, “trembled for the ark of God.” They look at the weakness of the creature and at the power of the enemy, and do not seem to be able to look further. They are full of fear, and their faith cannot be seen. Like the prophet’s servant in Dothan they are ready to say, Alas, my master! how shall we do? Christ says, “Why are ye so fearful?” There is no reason to fear, for greater is He that is with His Church than all that are against it. When, by faith, another laid hold on His strength, he was enabled to say, “I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about.” He it is who cut Rahab and wounded the dragon, and at the end of the day can say, “Where is the fury of the oppressor?”
“How is it that ye have no faith?” Think of His mighty works already done. The Church of God was in many a tight corner in other days. Let not His people forget what He did at the Red Sea in delivering them and drowning Pharaoh and his host. Let them remember the many deliverances afforded His people in Old Testament times, and bear in mind that these deliverances were only an earnest of that great deliverance which He wrought on Calvary’s accursed tree when He destroyed him “that had the power of death, that is, devil,” and “having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly.” O! trembling lover of Zion, remember that what transpired on Calvary shows what God is prepared to do for you as an individual believer, and for His Church as a whole. “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Rom. 8:32.
Think of His great and precious promises to His Church, all of which are yea, and Amen, in Christ Jesus. He has told His Church, “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.” Isaiah 54:17. Not only has He promised to protect His Church, but He has confirmed His promises by His oath. “For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.” Isaiah 54:9. “That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.” Heb. 6:18. These promises can never alter for they are the promises of the unchangeable God, who would as soon cease to exist as that any of His promises should fail. Thus you can settle it in your mind, dear believer, that it shall be well with the Church of Christ in general, and with the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland in particular, if it continues adhering to the Word of God. We have been recklessly charged with having altered our relationship to the Constitution of the Church, but our enemies have not been able to bring forward one iota of proof to support these charges, thus laying these charges open to being branded as utter falsehoods. It is true that they have been able to beguile unstable souls, and draw them after themselves like the ox to the slaughter, but the blood of those whom they have thus beguiled shall be required at their hands at the Great Day, although that will not make it easier for those who suffered themselves to be beguiled. May the Lord open their eyes in a day of mercy, and may He keep us faithful to that which was committed to our trust. Amen.