by Rev. Neil Cameron
(Preached on the Saturday of the Communion in Glasgow, 26th April, 1930)
This is part of the prayer of Moses when they were going forward into the wilderness. These were the words that he was always repeating — “Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered and let those that hate Him flee from His presence,” and we have here brought before us several things concerning those of the Church of God going through the wilderness of Sinai. Their experiences are typical of the spiritual experience of the Church in all ages. They have a wilderness to go through in this world and we shall notice in connection with this, two or three things — first concerning the heritage of God for he says here: “Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain whereby thou didst confirm thine heritage” and we shall notice in the second place a few things concerning the condition in which they were as brought before us in the preceding verse — they were in the wilderness. We shall notice in the third place some of the ways in which He dealt with them in the wilderness and in the fourth and last place, we shall notice the effect or effects that this has had upon the Church of God in all ages — God is still with them.
I. Now, the first thing I desire to notice is the heritage of God
and when we look to this, we find in the Scriptures that all creatures in heaven and in earth are all under the control of God. They are His creatures and you find that as regards this world, that God created Adam and put all creatures in the world under him. All was His inheritance — north, south, east and west was the inheritance of Adam and all that the world contained but immediately he sinned, he lost it — all his posterity lost it. He lost everything he had. He was the richest creature that God created until the moment he sinned and when he sinned, he lost everything he had and lost himself and his whole posterity for time and for eternity. There never was such a calamity and there never shall be the like again.
I read about a young man who was brought just to the gates of death through some affliction and at last he began to recover. He was a healthy, strong young man before this trouble came but there was nothing left of him now but a skeleton of skin and bones. The first time he put his feet on the floor in his own bedroom a looking glass was opposite him and he looked and lifted his two hands and said: “Oh! Adam, what hast thou done?” What has Adam done and what have I done! Lost in yourself for an endless eternity.
Then there is the Second Man, the Lord from Heaven, and He had got an inheritance. All things were made by Him and for Him and without Him was nothing made that was made. You see, that is not the inheritance that we have here at all. This was the inheritance that He got as a gift from God, the Father. In other words, the inheritance He got is the whole election of grace. Many a time a foolish father squandered an inheritance and left his son penniless but the Second Adam bought an inheritance for His people. “Ye are bought with a price. Ye are not your own.” He bought Heaven for them and He bought all the mercies that they will have in time; faith, repentance, eternal life. All these great blessings. He bought these and He bought themselves as well — bought them out of the hands of divine Justice by the price of His own precious blood. No other price, dear friend, will save you from being eternally in the hands of God’s Justice but the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He shed it for the remission of the sins of many, but as I am not going to dwell upon this, let us notice further under this head regarding the inheritance that they are scattered. Scattered, as we were singing — throughout the lands, north, south, east and west and no one knows who they are, or where they are but God alone. He knows them. God the Father knew them when He gave them to His Son. God the Son knew them and laid down His life as the price of their redemption and God knows them everyone of them without a mistake.
This is the inheritance and some of them are already in glory. Gathered by the Holy Ghost out of the lands from north, south, east and west. He gathered them and they are now in eternal glory and a few of them are in the world in our day. This inheritance which belongs to the Son of God, which He purchased with the blood of His heart and many, many of them, are not born into the world yet but they are His. They are His heritage and no man or devil can take them from Him. “Thine they were and thou gavest them to me.” I have kept them — none of them is lost.
Now, we shall have to notice this — when you look back upon the history of the world and especially as that history is infallibly given in God’s Book — the first thing I desire to notice is this: you find that God down from the very beginning — it was He who was taking the first step as to the gathering of every individual of them, not themselves or any creature, though creatures, we believe, were doing their duty — some of them. But alas! how few parents in our day are doing their duty towards their offspring. More cruel to them than the ostrich in the wilderness. When you look back you see right down from Abel one taken and another left; and who was doing it? God, the Holy Ghost gathering them into the kingdom of Christ in the world and to the kingdom of glory at death. You see, since the days of Abraham, and it is there that you can see how the election of grace was God’s purpose. How it was working in the world. There was one nation taken and the rest of mankind left in darkness. Why? Because God loved with an everlasting love but you will find although one after another was coming in of these Gentiles, that the time came after the Death and Resurrection of the Lord of Glory, when all the types right down the ages were removed and were never to be raised up again. Now, the Gentiles were put on the same platform as the Jews and there they will abide and we find now that the gospel went out north, south, east and west. Why? Ah! there was a new generation. They were men and women whom God loved with an everlasting love and now they were in the world and God sent His Word and Spirit and gathered them in. See, that is revealed very distinctly in the Word of God. There are many, many that never heard the Word of God yet. Why? Ah! they were not elected of God. The love of God cannot be frustrated and whenever the time comes that some of this inheritance given to the Son by the Father — whenever the time comes in which they will be saved — say in South America (many of these wild heathen of Roman Catholics), China and all these places, you will find that the Word and Spirit is sent forth to gather them in and this is very distinctly seen in all the history of the past and we are seeing it before our eyes today. People are acting today as if God were, as He says Himself “winking at their sins” but when the time will come that God purposes that sinners should be called and saved, they will come. There is nothing that can prevent Him. All the wickedness of this generation, blasphemy and immorality, will not stand between Him and any of those whom He loved with an everlasting love because it was not on account of any goodness in them or done by them. And those who were saved were seeing that it was of His own mercy He saved them by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. I am not going to enter further into that today. I am just pointing out that as a few remarks concerning the inheritance that the Son of God purchased in this world by His own blood and that is a description of how they have been saved in the past and will be saved in the future. None of them, my friend, will be allowed to go to Hell to be lost there.
II. Let us notice in the second place their condition in this world
You find that all the other nations of the world were at ease in their own cities and country while the seed of Abraham was living in tents in a howling wilderness without food or drink and it is the same thing still. Spiritually, men are quite at home in this world. If they will get the world — its pleasures, its riches and its honours, they are quite satisfied but there are others like the children of Israel who were going through a sandy desert while others were in their own houses in the comforts of the world. That is true spiritually concerning all who are saved. The rest of the world are quite at ease satisfying their desires with their riches — all these things that the world gives. If men will get that, there is no word about anything else. But all those who were called effectually, they were just among them like the rest — no difference between those who were called effectually and their neighbours until God the Holy Ghost began to deal with them and this is where the difference comes in. A form of godliness or none at all will all land in the same place at last but all those who are effectually dealt with by the Spirit of God, there is an extraordinary change takes place — a most extraordinary change which no other power can ever accomplish. As you see in the “Pilgrim’s Progress” — they saw that where they lived is “the City of Destruction.” They are just going to eternal ruin. All the world living in sin and themselves along with them going down to eternal woe.
Now, this work is the work of God, the Holy Ghost. The Lord Himself says: “The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh or whether it goeth; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit;” and when the Holy Ghost begins to deal with a sinner, he does not know whence it cometh or whither it goeth. He concludes that he is to be surely lost. You see, Christ came to seek and to save lost men but men do not realise that they are lost. They have to be awakened like a man in a house on fire — sure to be burned to death if he is not awakened so that he may flee. Well, God the Holy Ghost awakens the sinner. He brings him to see where he is and what he is — a lost sinner and that by practice. Ah! how many sins, dear friend, you committed in the world from infancy to this day. How many sins are you guilty of before God? How many sins am I guilty of? “If thou, O God, shouldst mark iniquity who could stand?” Even the youngest of us may say that. And the poor sinner that God, the Holy Ghost awakens, he realises this. Ah! what a sinner I was — like the prodigal son. He was deranged up to that moment — but he came to himself and began to consider his former ways and to try his life — his past life and to turn his feet to the way of God’s commandments and that is true of everyone. They may not all have to go through the same terrible experiences. That is absolutely in the hands of God and we see in the Scriptures — we have it in history — some that had to pass through terrible experiences and it is our belief that those whom God intends to make use of for the salvation of sinners, He will make them go down to the depth of misery — the misery to which man brought himself by sin.
They are all convinced and now they begin to forsake their ways. You never find this man any more since God the Holy Ghost converted him, at dances. Never! You will never find him any more transgressing God’s Holy Day. No! Nor at vain songs. For, we are told that when God took him out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay and set his feet upon a rock; Christ established his goings and put a new song in his mouth, even praise to our God. As Dr Kennedy put it in a leaflet that he wrote about this man. He said that he would sing from the day in which God put a new song in his mouth; and he would continue to sing the song until the day of his death except when he had a cold. You will be singing praises to your God except when you are afflicted with a cold heart; that causes you cannot sing. You see, my friends, those in the world who are called of God, they now forsake their companions. We were very pleased to hear from one of the brethren at the Fellowship Meeting last night that those who were called of God forsook immediately their former companions and did not wish to walk one step more with them and if we know anything that is a fact. You will say to your companions:— “Depart from me for I purpose to keep the commandments of my God.” See, my friends, the world now becomes a wilderness to them. They have a life in them now that cannot be satisfied with bread and drink.
The children of Israel were 40 years in the wilderness learning and they were learning these three lessons. They were learning first: That man lives not by bread only but that man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. They learned that for 40 years and then they were learning another lesson in the wilderness and that lesson was:— What was in their own hearts — whether they would obey God or not. For 40 years learning that lesson and oh! what fearful trials they had in learning it — leaving thousands there dead corpses in the wilderness. Why? Just on account of how disobedient they were; how they would not obey God. They were 40 years learning this — whether they would obey God or not and very few of them were able at the end to say they had learned this lesson. Joshua and Caleb certainly were there. They went through the whole of it and they had another lesson to learn in the wilderness — that it was a land which was full of snares and pits and scorpions and serpents. They were learning this in the wilderness for 40 years; my friends, if God the Holy Ghost has called you, you are learning just these very lessons that they were kept literally in the wilderness to learn. You are learning them. You are learning that man will not live by bread only. Should they give you all that the world can provide — that will not satisfy you. Why? Because you are two now. You were only one before. See, my friends, those who are called effectually, they are two. They have the flesh, the old man and the spirit of the new man and there never were yet in the history of time any two that cannot be at peace with one another more than these two. No!
There is an extraordinary peace in this generation and man is getting his own way in everything but you see, wherever the new man is and whenever he begins to curb the way of the old man, then a fight will get up. They cannot separate. If you have a bad neighbour, you can go to another place out of this man’s way but you cannot leave this bad neighbour. However, wretched and miserable he may be and however great the victory may be which the flesh would gain over the spirit, he cannot get rid of him. Well, they learn that in the wilderness and they are learning in the wilderness that which will feed the one will bring death to the other. It is a bad way, my friends, to crucify the flesh by giving it a meal on lusts. It must be starved to death as I heard a godly man say to another once who was contending about something. The one said:— “Man, it’s a very bad way for the flesh to give it a meal.” “Ah!” he said, “you are right, it is a very bad way to crucify the flesh to give it any flesh.” You will find, if you have grace, how strong the flesh will get and you are here it may be and you are finding in the wilderness, if you should be one of the inheritance of Christ, that what flesh desires to feed upon will bring death upon grace and what grace will feed upon, the Word of the Living God, flesh has no appetite for it at all. “Away with it!” it says. It is on the Word of God and Christ in the Word that this life is feeding in the wilderness and there is nothing the world over like the wilderness. You will see nothing in this world that will do the least good to your immortal soul. You must look to heaven. It must come from above what will feed the soul. There is another thing true about this wilderness. It is a land of great drought. You have to be learning in the wilderness whether you really can keep the commandments of God or not. But you are too strict, they are saying about us just now; we are far too strict. We are making laws that God never made because we make very feeble efforts to keep the Sabbath Day holy. My friend, it is a way of trial going through this wilderness. They find that they cannot keep the commandments of God as they would like. No! We never yet met one man or woman, young or old, in whom we thought there was the least spark of grace but was very, very sorry and grieved over this fact — how they could not keep the commandments of God. They loved the law of God but they were not able to obey it as they would like and you may be here who have been 40 years in the wilderness and the Spiritual wilderness in this world, learning that you cannot live without some portion of God’s Word to uphold your faith or hope or love; and you may be 40 years learning that, instead of being too strict about God’s law, you never can keep God’s law as you would like and that your desire is, as it is in the prayer, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven” and you would give the whole world if you are in this heritage that you could keep God’s law as it is kept in heaven without one transgression. Those, my friends, that we are speaking of here are not of the mind of the people of our day at all. God writes His law in their hearts, puts it in their minds and they can say at times like David: “Oh! how love I thy law, it is my study all the day.” But then you have another lesson to learn in the wilderness and that is that it is a wilderness since the day you were separated by the grace of God from the world, its fellowship and ways, it is a wilderness to you that is full of snares on the right hand and on the left — serpents ready to sting you; full of scorpions, a land of great drought, and instead of getting easier and getting better — don’t look for it, my friends — it is only getting worse every day and, especially, in days of backsliding in the world and we have a good illustration of that in Scotland. Ah! what men and women had to endure in the wilderness of the world in Scotland even to death. Why? Just on account of this, that they were God’s heritage. They were learning these lessons in the wilderness. There were many other things that were meeting them there — troubles they were having from causes within themselves. Idolatry — leaving thousands on Mount Sinai on account of idolatry. Grumbling, also against God and His truth and Moses and you find right up till they reach the land of Canaan there were men that died in the wilderness. Why? Because of unbelief. You see, he says, that they could not enter in because of unbelief. They were an extraordinary trial to Moses and to Joshua and Caleb and the unbelievers did not understand in the world why it was that they left over 2000 here and 2000 in the next encampment until at last they had only a few of those that were there at Mount Sinai. They could not see it at all but we are told in the New Testament that they fell in the wilderness. Why? Because of their unbelief. They would not believe God and the same thing, my friend, is taking place in our day. There is nothing new under the sun — whatever harasses you and it may be nothing is taking place but just what God, my friends, in His purpose is carrying out and which will be seen when we are in the grave.
But let us notice this also and then we must leave this head. In this wilderness in which they were and, in which you are, if you be one of them and if I be one of them — we are spiritually in a wilderness in this world. This is true that you may not trace the footsteps of those who went through the wilderness before you. The sand of the desert although an army would go through it, if the slightest breeze of wind got it, in less than an hour, the whole of the tracks would be filled up with sand and you would be ready to say: “No man ever walked this way before — I am surely on the wrong way.” You cannot trace the footsteps of the flock. You find in this Psalm that the Holy Ghost takes notice of that. He says: He gathered them out of the lands, from north, south, east and west; they strayed in the desert’s pathless way and found no city to dwell in. Did you find any? Do you feel at home in Glasgow? Do you? Would you like to be in it for ever? Are you looking for a city which hath foundations whose Builder and Maker is God? Well, that was the way with them but time will not allow me to enlarge.
III. Let us notice in the third place, how they were upheld in this condition
Manna rained from Heaven every morning. A miracle straight from Heaven. There was a man up in Caithness belonging to Ross-shire called Alexander Gair and the minister of the parish was passing him one day when he was digging potatoes. “What are you seeing today, Sandy?” asked the minister. “Miracles, no less than miracles. It’s split potatoes I put here in the Spring and here I am lifting whole potatoes.” The world is full of miracles but men are so blind they do not see them but I will say this that God provided natural food for these people from heaven miraculously every day and never failed them and water out of the rock which followed them in the wilderness like a river. Now, my friend, if you be in this wilderness this is true of you too. It is from heaven you get all that you have spiritually. All the philosophy or the learning of men is just like the east wind so far as satisfying your soul is concerned. It must come from heaven and it comes through the Word; the Word of God, read or preached. You get something to satisfy all your soul, your reason, your intellect, conscience and your affections from the Word of God — Christ, the true bread which came down from heaven which, if any man eat, he shall never die.
And you are also supported by the water which flows from the Rock. The blessings of Christ flow from the throne of God and of the Lamb of that is what sustains you — the Word. The Holy Ghost in the gospel. Some people can swallow things that others cannot but this is not true of everyone — you cannot swallow that which is dry without getting a mouthful of water or something to wash it down and you cannot, my friends, swallow God’s precious Word unless the Holy Ghost will come and enable you to wash it down, like a mouthful of water and then you can swallow it. You can say that you feel stronger, more comfortable. Like a man that got a good diet, you would see how strong he would get; that is the way with this person making a child of God strong in the grace that is in Christ; but it is not the fruit of the wilderness — or the world. It comes from above and he knows it. I am going to mention this in passing. We were very much struck sometime ago on thinking on that precious portion of God’s Word — “And thus He shall come down like rain on mown grass and like the rain that waters the earth.” Mown grass is cut; nothing left but stumps, dry stumps and without rain they would just wither and decay but when rain comes on it, it begins to show a tendency to grow again and what comes upon the soul of man through the Word, it refreshes him. He was weary — fainting in the wilderness. He felt refreshed from the Word of God and he felt that the things which were just withering — his faith, his hope, his love, were beginning to revive on account of this — Christ coming down like rain on mown grass and like rain that waters the earth. He comes down like rain on mown grass and like the rain that waters the earth, that is the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. Ah! how sound the Holy Ghost will make a poor sinner in his mind when He comes; how strong he causes the love of God to be revived so that he wishes in his heart he could say: “I love the Lord.” He will come down like rain on mown grass. I am going to give just two or three instances of this from the Word of God and the first thing I desire to bring before you and I am just choosing these from many hundreds of others — the Feast of Unleavened Bread they had in the days of Hezekiah. They had eight days and when the eight days came to an end, they sent a petition to the King for other eight days. Why? Ah! Christ came down upon their souls like rain on mown grass and they could not leave the place. If it would come down upon us, poor, withered, dry sinners, all other things are of no effect, but if the Holy Ghost were to come down upon us, we would be like the people in Hezekiah’s day. We would feel it difficult to leave God’s service, to leave His house and His worship.
You find the same thing in Scotland as in Judah’s land. We are told — “In Judah’s land God is well known.” Well, He was well known in Scotland as surely as He was in Judah’s land and they had a shower of rain — Christ in the gospel and you would know it by the fruit. Those my friends, who purposed that they would not wait at the Kirk of Shotts an hour waited for three and a half hours, and returning they never had a word to say but, “Did you ever hear a sermon like that?” It was the rain — the Holy Ghost watering the earth. My friends, there is something in godliness something in the gospel that the professors of our day are absolutely ignorant of.
I read, and you probably read it too, a story the late Dr. Kennedy relates concerning his own father, John Kennedy of Redcastle; how at Kinlochbervie on the Monday of a Communion, when he went away, the whole congregation went after him and he could not get rid of them and he was after all but a vessel out of which God, the Holy Ghost poured a shower of the blessed gospel of God’s grace into the hearts of these poor sinners. What effect has this upon them or what effect would it have upon yourself to have such an experience as we have been endeavouring to mention in a very feeble way but as well as we could. It would have this effect upon you. It would confirm you that this is our God. We will call upon Him and joy and rejoice in His salvation. It would confirm you though you would be saying this morning — “I am afraid I never had anything at all that will stand me for an endless eternity and I am afraid that whatever it was, it is withered away and nothing is left for eternity.” My friend, if this blessed Holy Spirit, the Spirit of grace, were to come on your soul, you would then be able to feel confirmed that it was God’s work — no delusion in it. You could go away rejoicing that it was His work. You see they know Him; His people know Christ. Their hearts know Him although their eyes would not know Him at all nor even their ears. Their hearts were in Him and He was in their hearts and we are not saying this at all in order to make an impression. We are speaking what we believe as to God’s sovereign way of dealing with His own people — not with hypocrites. Hypocrites may have plenty of words but they know nothing about the real experience of God’s child when the Holy Ghost is poured upon him — “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground” and may He do it in our midst at this time. May He bless His Word.