(Notes of marks of grace given by Mr F. Beaton, at the Fellowship Meeting at Beauly Communion, July, 1969).
Question: Isaiah 6: 1, 2.
We think that it is a mark of this man that he knows that our God is a consuming fire and because of this, and knowing also that he is a sinner having an evil heart, he would like to get a mark that he has a new heart as well as an evil heart. It is a mark of this man that he cannot give over trembling at the Word of God and searching the word of God in the hope that God will meet with him in His own word. The world never does that. The psalmist was calling upon God to search his heart, and try his reins which the world will not dare to do. He has a poor and contrite heart which the world knows nothing about. Sometimes in the midst of trial and difficulty they will be afraid they do not have a new heart at all. They know their need of a mediator and that God says to them “Be ye holy even as I am holy”. He is a consuming fire and yet a reconciled God in Christ. They are conscious of sin but they know the Lord Jesus Christ in His three offices as prophet, priest and king. They come to Him as their High Priest, the one and only atonement for sin. They will not be satisfied with a mere building — even the temple which Solomon built. We are glad to be inside this building, but it is the desire of this people that the Lord Jesus Christ would dwell in their hearts. They desire that they would have what a certain godly man said when he heard the late Rev. Lachlan Mackenzie, Lochcarron, preach a sermon on the wise men from the east seeking the babe. They searched many places and at last they came to the stable where they found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes in the manger, which he compared to the preaching of the gospel where the child of God found Christ in the manger of his own heart wrapped up in the swaddling clothes of the promise. This people desire to know that Christ is formed in them the hope of glory. They are painfully conscious of sin, and they cry out to their High Priest — “Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.” It is with the God-man this poor man has to do. The world knows nothing at all about this. This people describe themselves as the chief of sinners. It is their hearts this people are concerned about — their religion is a heart religion. Their minds go to eternity with God in Christ as a reconciled God, and they have a good hope through grace because God must have glory of the work in the hearts of his people. They cry to the Lord that He would have mercy upon them and, like David, their prayer will many a time be for a new heart and a right spirit and desire to be washed in the blood of atonement. Christ is a risen and living Saviour and His people are concerned that Christ would speak to their souls. They will be reading the Word and hearing the gospel preached but many a time the Bible will be a blank Word to them. At other times they will say that they are a little better of reading it.
This people desire to be conformed to His Word and they seek to be prepared for the heavenly country to which they are going. They fear they will grieve the Holy Spirit, and wonder that He would dwell in such creatures as they. Too often their prayers are only empty words, but at other times when He manifests himself to them in the graces of the Spirit they rise up with wings as eagles and they desire to ascribe praise and glory to Him who sat upon the Throne of God and of the Lamb.