Rev. Donald Beaton*
* The Rev. Donald Beaton (1872-1953), was born in Stirlingshire, and studied at Glasgow University, and the Assembly’s College, Belfast, where he was the Getty Prizeman in Systematic Theology, Sacred Rhetoric and Catechetics. He was ordained and inducted to the pastorate of the Wick Free Presbyterian congregation in 1901, and was minister of the Oban congregation from 1930 to 1949. He was Theological Tutor from 1899 until 1952, and Clerk of Synod for 14 years. A scholar of repute, he authored several books and numerous articles. He was the Editor of The Free Presbyterian Magazine from 1921, and The Young People’s Magazine* from its inception in 1936, and resigned both editorships in 1949.
An editorial reprinted from The Free Presbyterian Magazine, January 1941
Part 1 – What it is, and what it cost
AS a Church we are small in numbers compared with others. Many in the religious life of the world have never heard of us, and of those who know of our existence there are few who understand our position. We have been misrepresented and misunderstood so that to many we are but “the offscouring of all things” and not worth taking notice of except in order to ridicule us. In view of this we have not a very bright prospect from the point of view of worldly favour, but we have a priceless heritage; a heritage which we ought to do our utmost to hand down undefiled to coming generations. There are four things in particular which we ought always to have before our minds with regard to this heritage. I. What it is. II. What it cost. III. How it is endangered. IV. Our duty towards it.
I. In our Free Presbyterian heritage there is an open Bible and a whole Bible at that. The creed of our Church is that the Bible is the inspired, infallible and unerring Word of the living God, and that it is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify God and enjoy Him. We have no place for the mutilated Bible of the so-called Higher Critics, and have never accepted them as guides to tell us what is the Word of God and what is not. It is inconsistent with our heritage to teach for doctrines the commandments of men, or to make our people follow slavishly that which is built on the sandy foundation of speculation.
It is our heritage to have a full-orbed gospel, which emphasises man’s ruin by the fall of Adam, redemption through the blood of Christ and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. In the preaching of that gospel there is a declaration of the whole counsel of God in respect of the misery of all who reject the glorious remedy provided to meet with man’s lost and ruined condition, and in respect of the unspeakable glory of all who accept that remedy. Where such preaching is faithfully done there is a single eye to the glory of God and the good of immortal souls. There is no pandering to the desires of the flesh, and no suppressing of facts for fear of displeasing men and women who may be important in their own estimation. The preacher realises full well that he is under the all-seeing eye of that God to whom he must render an account, and to give that account with joy he must quit himself as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Together with an eye to the glory of God there is zeal for the souls of his hearers and this should cause a preacher to preach each time as if it was the last time on earth he was to do so. It is not a small part of our heritage as a church to have such preachers.
In our heritage there is a separating of the precious from the vile as regards a profession of religion. Kirk-sessions throughout the whole Church exercise their functions in examining those who seek to partake of the sacraments. It is well that this should be so, for otherwise many with a boldness which is not from grace would presume to make a public profession. Not only do the Kirk-sessions perform their duty in this respect but each minister before dispensing the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper does it in what is popularly called “fencing the table.” This has been done in the Church in Scotland in its best days. In the Directory for Public Worship agreed upon by the Westminster Assembly of Divines and ratified in 1645 both by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and by the Scottish Parliament, we read in connection with this duty: “Next, he (the minister) is, in the name of Christ, on the one part, to warn all such as are ignorant, scandalous, profane, or that live in any sin or offence against their knowledge or conscience, that they presume not to come to that holy table; showing them, that he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself: and, on the other part, he is in an especial manner to invite and encourage all that labour under the sense of the burden of their sins, and fear of wrath, and desire to reach out unto a greater progress in grace than yet they can attain unto, to come to the Lord’s table; assuring them, in the same name, of ease, refreshing, and strength to their weak and wearied souls.” It is no small part of the preciousness of our heritage, in these days of indiscriminate admission to the Lord’s Table, that this duty is yet faithfully carried out among us.
II. This priceless heritage is not ours without great cost. It was handed to us at the expense of much labour, sweat and blood. To see the truth of this we do not need to go beyond our native land. Who has not heard of John Knox, George Wishart, Andrew Melville, and Alexander Henderson and a host of others too numerous to be mentioned? Their life and their struggles on behalf of true religion is bound up with the history of Scotland in such a way that no one can read the history of our native land without realising the important part they played in handing us our religious heritage. This is why Romanists and pro-Romanists are doing their utmost to falsify Scottish history, and cast a slur on the memory of those God-honoured witnesses for the truth. It is ordinarily looked upon among men as a despicable thing for one to traduce the memory of any one who is no longer in a position to defend himself but evidently it is quite allowable to deal thus with our Reformers and Covenanters. Was it for personal gain that these Reformers and Covenanters suffered all the trials which they endured during their lifetime and ran the risk of being execrated after their death? One glance at their lives should be sufficient to enable one to answer that question in the negative, for their actions clearly proved that they were actuated by zeal for the glory of God, and a holy desire to hand the pure Word of God to coming generations. Through much labour, sweat and blood they were able to hand us a priceless heritage, and in doing so shook the very foundations of the Church of Rome. Hence the assiduity of the emissaries of that apostate church in their endeavours to cast aspersions on our Reformers.
Not only did our heritage cost much at the First and Second Reformation, but it also cost a great deal at the Disruption. The duty of the civil magistrate is to protect the Church of God and not to arrogate to himself any of the powers which belong to the Church. The history of the Church of Scotland may be said to be one long series of conflicts on this very point. The civil magistrate time and again encroached on the sphere which properly belonged to the Church till at last these conflicts culminated in the Disruption. Was this step, taken to vindicate the Crown Rights of the Redeemer, without cost to those who took part in it? The annals of that time will bear ample testimony to what it cost, and how cheerfully the cost was faced. The Most High, however, made up for His witnesses all the loss they endured by giving them much of His presence in the midst of their trials. Not only was it made up for them in spiritual matters but He who has for His possession the earth “and the fullness thereof” supplied all their temporal needs, so that they had churches and manses in place of those they had to leave for conscience sake, and proved to them also that the silver and gold of the earth are His. What God gave that generation of His temporal mercies they left to the generations that followed.
To the generations that followed the men of the Disruption the words of Christ might be applied, “Other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours,” and they gave one of the clearest possible proofs of how ruined man, when left to himself, will abuse God’s gifts. The funds which God gave for the support of His Cause were used for the dissemination of infidel views in her colleges and among her ministers so that they forgot God and rebelled against Him. “Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.” It was not, however, God’s purpose to leave Himself without a witness in Scotland, and when the once glorious Free Church of Scotland, by an Act of her Assembly constitutionally passed through the Barrier Act, cut herself adrift from a belief in an infallible Bible and adherence to the subordinate standards based on it, and refused by a large majority to rescind that God-dishonouring and wrath-provoking Act, one voice, and one voice only, was heard in her Assembly raising a testimony for God and His Word, and purposing, in the strength of grace, to bequeath the heritage of the First and Second Reformations, and of the Disruption, to generations to come. The raising of that solitary voice in the Assembly of 1893 started an exodus from the Declaratory Act Free Church, which though not accompanied by outward pomp, and of which the world took no notice but to deride, was the means of preserving the Church of Christ in Scotland to this day.
What was the cost? The one who raised that voice and all who supported him were turned out of churches and manses which they and their forefathers helped to build, and had to worship God on the hillside, where the local schools were not convenient to hold them, and even in the latter case, their former friends who used to be loud in their denunciations of the Declaratory Act, often used their position as members of School Boards in order to deprive them of any protection against the elements when engaged in the solemn act of worshipping God. With the vast majority the movement was unpopular and all who supported it were reckoned as fit objects of scoffing and persecution. Not the least part of the trial was separation from former friends. There were those whom one learned to look to as men who would stand for the Cause of Christ when a crisis would come, and whose warnings to their fellow-creatures gave enough ground for such expectations, but who proved to be men of words more than men of actions. Those who bequeathed our heritage to us had to look away from such men, and God fulfilled His promise 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 hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.”
To be concluded
Synod Sermon
by the Rev James R. Tallach, Retiring Moderator
Preached at the opening of the meeting of Synod on Tuesday, 20th May, 1997
Isaiah 27:12, “… and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel.”
AS enabled I would like to draw your attention to these words, coming as they do from the great Head of the Church to His people in this world. There are three main parts in this chapter. The first six verses speak of the Lord’s work in establishing and caring for His church. “In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it.” Verses 7 to 11 speak of the Lord cleansing His Church by chastisements. “He stayeth His rough wind in the day of the east wind. By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged.” Verses 12 and 13 speak of the Lord’s determination to gather His people to Himself. “And ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel”
There are three matters I should like to bring before you: first, the Person speaking, and who gathers; secondly, the people who are gathered; and thirdly, the great end and purpose of that gathering.
First, we shall consider the Person who is speaking, and who gathers. It is the LORD.
An all-powerful God
Note, first, that He is an all-powerful God. His “great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.” The “serpent” was a term for Egypt. It was there that the Lord’s people were in slavery and bondage to Pharaoh. It was from there that the Lord brought His people out, and it was by successive displays of His strength in the ten plagues culminating in the sword in the hand of the angel of death that His people were delivered. His “great and strong sword” punished Egypt that day and brought its might to nothing.
Great though that victory over Egypt was, it was but a picture of the victory that Jesus Christ gained over Satan. Satan had gained the victory over Adam in the Garden of Eden, and all of Adam’s race became slaves to sin, were led about by Satan at his will, and made subject to him “that had the power of death, that is, the devil,” (Hebrews 2:14). That power of Satan was broken by the death of Christ, as the Paschal Lamb slain for His people outside the gates of Jerusalem. Notice that it was as the Surety for His people that He wrought this victory on the cross. The Second Person of the Godhead had already defeated Satan and all his hosts and cast them out of heaven, and a bottomless pit had already been prepared for them. It was for His people, and in order that they might bruise Satan under their heel shortly, that He passed through the darkness of that dark night of Calvary: the very hour and power of darkness. “For this purpose was the Son of God manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). He is an all-powerful Lord.
A merciful God
This God is a merciful God. The Israelites were frequently like sheep going astray from God. They murmured against Him in the wilderness and rebelled against Moses and Aaron. In the Promised Land they learned the ways of the heathen and worshipped their gods so that the Lord at last drove them into exile for 70 years. But with all those provocations the prophet asks, “Hath he smitten him as he smote those that smote him?” Did God deal with Israel as He dealt with the Egyptian army, all of whom drowned in the Red Sea? No. “But in measure”; by way of chastisement, not judgment. “He stayeth his rough wind in the day of his east wind.” He will punish them by sending them into exile but he will gather them from thence, and His purpose in all of this is a purpose of mercy. “By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged.”
“I’ll visit then their faults with rods,
their sins with chastisements,
Yet I’ll not take my love from Him
nor false my promise make,” (Psalm 89:32-33).
And His promise concerning them is a promise of mercy. He is a merciful God.
A covenant God
This God is a covenant God. When the Lord brought the Children of Israel out of Egypt, He brought them to Mount Sinai and taught them His law. Sacrifices were offered and the blood of the sacrifices was sprinkled on the book of the law and on the people. The Lord thus brought Israel into a covenantal, redeemed relationship with Himself. He deals with His people by way of a covenant still. We read in Jeremiah 31:31 and 33, “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel: and with the house of Judah…. I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” The human race, all of Adam’s natural children, were lost and ruined by the Fall, and death passed upon all men for all had sinned. But the Father, in infinite mercy, gave a number that no man can number of our fallen race to His Son; and the Son, delighting to do the will of the Father and loving His people with an everlasting love, entered into a covenant with His Father to do the part of a Redeemer and Surety for them. This is the God who brings His people, in time, into the bond of that eternal covenant.
This is the covenant which Jesus speaks of in John 17:6, “Thine they were and thou gavest them me.” He sealed this covenant with His own blood which was represented by the sacramental wine in the upper room on the night on which He was betrayed. “For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins,” Matthew 26:28. This is the basis of the certainty which Jesus goes on to express concerning His disciples being in heaven with Him at last. “I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom,” Matthew 28:29. The unfailing certainty of their being gathered, expressed in these words, “when I drink it with you,” rests upon an unfailing covenant, “ordered in all things and sure”, because it is sealed with the blood of Christ. This blood alone and entirely meets all the awful demands of the covenant engagement of Jesus.
So it is clear that God speaks as a covenant God when He says, “and ye shall be gathered one by one; O ye children of Israel.”
In the second place, then, what do we learn here of the people addressed and who are gathered?
They were a people “ready to perish in the land of Assyria”. Their national sin and rebellion led to their being in captivity in Babylon. The fear of God was not in Babylon, but idolatry and the fear of man.
They are also described as “the outcasts in the land of Egypt.” Some of the people had remained in Israel after the beginning of the Captivity. They had been told by the Lord through His prophets to remain where they were. But they, fearing for their safety and consulting their own wisdom, went down to Egypt for protection. They were there quite contrary to God’s plain command.
We have in these two phrases, “outcasts” and “ready to perish”, a lively description of the situation in which the Gospel finds the sinner. Paul says of the Ephesians (2:12), “That at that time ye were without Christ,… having no hope, and without God in the world.” And Jesus speaks of the lost coin, the lost sheep ready to stumble on the dark mountains, and the Prodigal Son who was “ready to perish” in the far country. All the elect of God were by nature the children of wrath, even as others, and far off from God by wicked works, and outcasts by reason of their own lawlessness.
Again, they are separated “one by one”. The figure at the beginning of the verse is of a threshing floor and the word translated “beat” may also be translated “thresh” or “separate”. As was the custom in those lands, the wheat would be brought in from the fields and a heap formed on the threshing floor. The heap would then be repeatedly beaten in order to separate the kernel from the husk. It is this corn of wheat that was valuable to the farmer, and useful for bread and for seed corn for a coming year. Applying this figure of the threshing floor and the corn of wheat to the Israelites in captivity, there were those among them who grieved over the loss of spiritual privileges and had to say,
“If thee Jerusalem I forget,
skill part from my right hand,” (Psalm 137:5).
Or, like Daniel, they opened their windows three times a day as they prayed towards Jerusalem. And when the time of return came they arose and returned from their captivity, while others were content to remain where they were.
There was a separation made between the corn of wheat and the husk, and so it is still where the Word is blessed. The Lord gathers a sinner to Himself by His Word, for “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God,” (Romans 10:17). Notice the gracious term used: “Ye shall be gathered.” When the Lord was praying for His disciples, as we read in John 14, He said, “Other sheep I have,… them also I must bring.” At that very time Saul of Tarsus was building up the fires of pride and persecution yet the Lord would gather him with that rebuke, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” The sinners in Corinth were at that very time sunk in immorality, idolatry and sin; yet the Lord would gather them with the gracious invitations of the Gospel, so that it could be said, “…and such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified,” (1 Corinthians 6:11). And all who are called by His grace can look back and say with David, “Thy kindness made me grow,” (Psalm 18:35).
Notice the individual and sovereign nature of this call: “Ye shall be gathered one by one.” This is not the result of well-tried psychological methods affecting a crowd. This is not the result of the ebb and flow of political opinion. Moses says of Israel (in Deuteronomy 7:7), “The Lord did not set his love upon you because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved you.” They were to be a special people to Him above all people on the face of the earth. And the Lord says to His disciples, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” (John 15:16). There were many people in Ur of the Chaldees but God called only Abraham to be a stranger and a pilgrim on the earth and to be an inheritor of the “city which hath foundations”. Joshua, standing before the Lord, is a brand plucked from the burning: the hand of the Lord is upon him personally, (Zechariah 3:2). There were many around Jesus on the day that He passed through Jericho, but it was Zacchaeus to whom He spoke; He came to the foot of the sycamore tree and said, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for today I must abide at thy house,” (Luke 19:5). There were others with Saul when he was travelling down to Damascus; they heard a sound but no distinguishing voice such as came to Saul: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 9:4). “Ye shall be gathered one by one.” This is distinguishing and sovereign grace.
Notice the means by which they shall be gathered: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come that were ready to perish in the land of Assyria…” As far as the captives in Assyria were concerned, “that day” was the day that Cyrus declared that they were free to return to Israel. And as far as the round of the ceremonial law was concerned it was the day when the sound of the jubilee trumpet announced the beginning of the year of release for slaves and debtors. And when Jesus began to preach He took as His text, Isaiah 61:1, which speaks of “liberty to the captives” and preaching “the acceptable year of the Lord”. The sound of the great trumpet is the preaching of the everlasting Gospel sent down from heaven. Jesus, before His ascension, charged His disciples with this mission, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned,” (Mark 16:15, 16). This trumpet sound is good news because it tells of the Son of God taking our nature to Himself and in that nature dying for the ungodly. When the Greeks came to the feast saying to Philip, “Sir, we would see Jesus,” (John 12:21), Jesus used the same figure of Himself as He uses of His people here: “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” The Children of Israel were taught the necessity of the death and the shedding of the blood of the paschal lamb. They escaped out of Egypt and came to God in Mount Sinai under the blood of the paschal lamb. There, they were taught that without the shedding of blood there was no remission of sins. They needed this every day, as they were sinners daily in thought, word and deed; this is why the institution of the sacrifice of the morning and the evening lamb was set up. They needed that death and that blood as they, in the person of their high priest, could only draw near to God by the blood of the sacrifice being taken into the holy of holies and sprinkled upon the mercy seat. And now Jesus, as the Lamb of God, had come, and His blood was shed upon the cross, He suffered and died, “the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God,” (1 Peter 3:18). And the good news preached was ever of this nature, whether in the wilderness by Moses when he proclaimed, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life,” (Deut. 30:19); or by Paul at Antioch, when he said that God “raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus”, and that “through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins,” (Acts 13:38). Now this is the great trumpet by which the Lord has ordained that His people, “ready to perish in the land of Assyria”, and “outcasts in the land of Egypt”, shall be gathered and shall be blessed. “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ,” (Ephesians 2:13).
It is a great and an amazing truth that Christ draws nigh to sinners in the preaching of the Word. What great condescension it was in Christ that He walked in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, those churches in Asia where His gospel was preached, and said, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in unto him, and will sup with him, and he with me,” (Revelation 3:20).
But this also is revealed: that by the preaching of the gospel Christ searches out His own in this world. He is like the householder, in the parable of the lost coin, who searched the house until she found what she had lost. He is the good Shepherd who Himself passes through the wilderness till He finds the sheep that was lost and he puts it on His shoulder and returns rejoicing. Christ looks out, by way of the Word, for the returning prodigal and it is in His embrace that the returning penitent finds rest. “All that the Father hath given me shall come to me; and him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out,” (John 6:37). I think it was Lachlan Mackenzie who made the supposition that if the Lord saw that one of His own was missing at last, He would sieve the universe to find that one. “They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in the day that I make up my jewels; and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him,” (Malachi 3:17). “Ye shall be gathered one by one.”
Finally, the great end and purpose of this gathering is this: “and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem”, (verse 13).
One of the basic meanings of the word “worship” is abasement before the Lord. This is expressed in Psalm 95, verse 6,
“O come, and let us worship him,
let us bow down withal,
And on our knees before the Lord
our Maker let us fall.”
The returning Israelites came all that long and dangerous journey from Assyria and abased themselves before the Lord at Jerusalem. This was evidence of the “right spirit” that David was praying for in Psalm 51, verse 10,
“Create a clean heart, Lord, renew
a right spirit me within.”
Pride is the mark of fallen man. At the Fall we imbibed something of the pride of Satan himself. No mere outward privileges from God will change that spirit of pride apart from a work of grace in the soul. The proud Pharisee spoken of in Luke 18:10-12, had received the Word of God, and in the temple was surrounded by evidences of the mercy of God by way of a sacrifice. Yet he stands by himself; he does not abase himself, but prays, “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, . . .” Such a proud Pharisee was Saul of Tarsus, but he obtained mercy and became a new creation in Christ Jesus. By saving faith in his heart he was looking to Christ and saying, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief,” (1 Timothy 1:15).
So the worship of the freed captives in the holy mount at Jerusalem was in the spirit of abasing themselves before the Lord in godly sorrow for sin, with reverence and godly fear, and thankfulness to God for His goodness and mercy to them. Their sins had carried them away, as Isaiah said, “like the wind”. And now that they had been brought back to the Lord they came in the spirit of the Prodigal Son, “Father I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight,” (Luke 15:18). They appear before God in the manner of the publican in the temple who stood afar off, not lifting so much as his eyes to heaven, but smiting on his breast and saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” (Luke 18:13). They abased themselves in the spirit of penitence. Solomon abased himself before God in reverence and godly fear at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem. Peter had something of that same spirit when he saw a little of the Lord’s power and glory in the miracle of the fishes, and he fell at Jesus’ knees saying, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord,” (Luke 5:8).
With what thankfulness also the gathered outcasts worshipped before the Lord in Jerusalem, and all the reasons for that thankfulness were to be found in God alone. It was He who had heard their prayer and recalled their bondage. He had fulfilled His promises after all these long years of exile. He had turned the heart of Cyrus to open the door for their return. And in their thankfulness there was self-abasement; they took a low place, saying:
“Not unto us, Lord, not to us,
but do thou glory take
Unto thy name, even for thy truth,
and for thy mercy’s sake,” (Psalm 115:1).
And when Paul has considered the great matter of justification by faith, whereby God is just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus, he goes on to say, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded,” (Romans 3:27). They are gathered, one by one, to worship the Lord.
Two points of application by way of conclusion: what an unspeakably great blessing is that blessing which is promised to God’s children: that they shall be gathered in order to worship Him in the beauty of holiness, upon His holy mountain, and to sing, for example, Psalm 45 in truth,
“My heart brings forth a goodly thing
my words that I indite
Concern the king…”
What a blessing it is to be brought to sing what the angels in heaven cannot sing:
“He took me from a fearful pit,
and from the miry clay,
And on a rock he set my feet,
establishing my way,” (Psalm 40:2).
How great the blessing when enabled to engage in prayer as David did:
“Lord, thou shalt early hear my voice:
I early will direct
My prayer to thee; and, looking up,
an answer will expect,” (Psalm 5:3).
And what a blessing it is to receive the Word of God, in public or in private, “not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God,” (1 Thes. 2:13).
This is the inheritance that the Lord has chosen for His people. Let us seek after it, pray for it, and wait for it. “Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence,” (Isaiah 62:6).
Secondly, we have a basis here for the free offer of the gospel to sinners. This is an occasion when the concerns of the church at large are particularly before us; and this is right and proper, as everything has its own time and place. But the time for the free offer of the gospel is ever with us. The Lord Jesus Christ joined the covenant and the free offer in His preaching: “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,” (John 6:37).
It is plain from the words of our text that the Lord does all. He covenants; He calls; He brings His people from Assyria and Egypt, and He does not leave off or give over this work until they are worshipping in His “holy mount in Jerusalem.” “Ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel.”
The immediate application of this to you, my unconverted friend, is this: if you had to pay one penny of the ransom required by divine justice then there could be no offer of salvation for you. If you had to bring money or price to the table of the gospel to secure the milk and wine of the gospel then this would be no gospel to you; but God has done all. Therefore you have to come and shelter under the blood of the covenant. You are invited to take of the water of life freely. It is all there, upon the table of the gospel: grace and glory; goodness and mercy here all the days of your life, and a place in the house of the Lord forever hereafter: and it is all free. “Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.”
May the Lord add His blessing.