This is the second and final part of a farewell discourse in May 1837 to Macdonald’s congregation in London, before he left to become a missionary in Calcutta. It is taken, slightly edited, from the little book of his sermons, A Pastor’s Memorial to His Former Flock. The first head showed who would constitute the preacher’s “crown of rejoicing”.
2. How shall those of whom we have spoken become a crown of rejoicing to us in the day of the Lord?
On that day the ministers of Christ shall partake of that joy which shall animate all the saints of God, in all the separate reasons of that unequalled joy.
They shall rejoice in the manifested glory of their Lord Jesus Christ, now reappearing after so long an absence in the body, with all His holy angels, and clothed with all the Father’s glory. They shall rejoice in the grand assembly of the whole Church of Christ from the beginning to the end of the world; not one shall be wanting. They shall rejoice in the consummation of the whole economy of grace, then completed and brought to a glorious and everlasting issue. They shall rejoice in the eternal separation between the good and the evil, then begun, and nevermore to cease. They shall rejoice in the opening glory of heaven, spread out before them in the first ripe fruits of eternity, now increasing every moment into an exceeding weight of glory. They too shall glory in their assurance of an individual interest for ever in all the blessings of heaven, together with all saints, through their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In all this joy, common to the saints of God, shall the ministers of Christ then participate. And theirs, according to their faith, shall be no small measure of this rejoicing in the Lord.
But, according to our text, the ministers of Jesus shall have other grounds of joy in immediate connection with the saving effects of the gospel on their fellow men. Those just mentioned they will have in common with all true Christians; but there is something special above all this. The pastor will rejoice as a pastor:
(1.) When he sees the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ perfected and glorified in those who were once his flock and to whom he was formerly the minister of that grace.
When the love of Christ in redeeming you with His blood, His continued grace in sanctifying you by his Spirit, His perfect righteousness which ever justified you, His unchanging faithfulness in ever preserving you, His immeasurable condescension in revealing the Father to you as your covenant God, His inconceivable mercy in conforming you to Himself, His unfathomable wisdom in making all things to work for your good, and His irresistible yet tenderly-exerted power in bringing you through death and the grave, out of sin, the curse and hell, to the gates of eternal light and bliss; when all this glory of Christ shall be seen in the saints, in the great day, shall we not rejoice and triumph for the Lord’s sake?
And if I shall be privileged to behold this sweet sight of Christ my Lord, so glorified and admired in any of you, so dear to me, shall I not be glad with exceeding great joy? Nothing shall ever be able to take my joy from me. No more temptation, no more backsliding, no more sinful world, no more sinful flesh shall there be. No, not for evermore! To behold Christ in you, and you in Christ, will be a sight for a pastor’s heart. Who would not live and die to see the blessed Son of God glorified and admired in any of this poor flock? Lord, suffer not such to fall away and dishonour Thy name, but do Thou cause them to be “unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ”.
(2.) One grand seal of the acceptance of our ministry will be when you are judicially accepted on the day of the Lord, and will not this also be a source of joy?
In our work among you we have often become weary, through inward faintness and sin. Often have we on our bended knees given way to sighs and tears and groans over the seeming hopelessness of our work; often have we mourned before God, if not before the world, that we saw nothing like the evidences of conversion, for a long time, among you. We felt the burden of having our ministry despised and rejected by some, and of having our weekly message disbelieved and disobeyed by others. It seemed to the eye of sense as if we had run unsent, and as if the straining of a minister’s heart was unnoticed by God and man. O sinful and unbelieving thought! “Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgement is passed over from my God?” Yet so it was.
But of late God has brought hidden things to light among us; yea, even before the great day He has revealed them. He has caused us to bear mutual testimony, one to the other, and I now know that I shall not be without a seal from you in the Lord. You are now, some of you by present testimony and some by the testimony which they gave before they entered into glory, my own children in the Lord; and shall I not entertain the hope that this ministry which was so dear to me shall be yet sealed by the signet of divine salvation? Yea, shall I not this day rejoice in the hope that, notwithstanding all my unbelief and fear, I shall yet receive from the Lord, the righteous Judge, a crown of rejoicing in the everlasting acceptance of the remnant of my flock? Yea, so will I wait and hope before my Lord until He comes.
(3.) Shall we not rejoice in sympathy or unison with your blessedness in the great day of the Lord?
When we shall see you standing on the right hand of the Judge, clothed in your resurrection bodies, when we hear pronounced upon you the sentence, “Come, ye blessed of My Father,” when we behold beaming from you the joy that is “unspeakable and full of glory”, when we shall hear bursting forth, in loved and sweet hallelujahs, the voices that sang here most willingly but weakly, when we shall see you, and feel ourselves with you, gradually transported into the glorious light of the risen and eternal Sun, and when we shall behold, in the presence of God and of the Lamb, those hearers whom we have so often addressed within these poor earthly walls, O how shall we rejoice in your gladness, how shall we triumph in your joy, how shall we glory in your salvation, and how shall we be blessed in your everlasting and incorruptible happiness! Such sympathy results from union to Christ and is the sure fruit of continuance in His love. And shall we not look for the full fruit of that tree which the Lord has planted? Shall we not expect the produce of what our “God manifest in the flesh” has sown? Yea, in this no man shall take from us our crown of rejoicing.
(4.) Shall not a minister rejoice in the prospect of renewed and everlasting fellowship with those spiritual children whom he has loved as himself?
After we have been separated for a time in this life, by one half of the earth’s circumference; after we have, one by one, gone to rest and our bodies have slept separately in our distant graves; then, after that, to meet in our visible persons, to recognize our spiritual relationship, to join in the same anthem of triumph: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Surely such fellowship will be joy, not in the way of sympathy only but of participation. Then shall we again serve the same Lord, again sing the same praises, again be found in the same employments, again obey the same will, again be joined in the upper sanctuary. Whether we shall for ever see each other or not, we shall be for ever assured of each other’s welfare and shall never entertain a doubt of our mutual bliss and glory. Whatever I may have felt of care or anxiety heretofore as to some of you, if I then meet you in glory, I shall nevermore be careful or anxious about you. Meeting you in Christ’s presence, as the rays meet each other in the centre of the circle, we shall have fellowship one with another in Him for evermore.
O how cheering is such a prospect as this in the hour of painful separation! Why should we mourn as they that have no hope? Why weep as those who can never hope to meet, or to meet only in hell? Nay, for my own part I do not weep; my blessed Lord has made my eyes tearless this day. Does He not show us things to come? And who shall weep in sight of bliss and glory, save for joy?
Beloved fellow-pilgrims, we have walked long together – a few of us, at least, for about seven years. This day we part. My path now turns from you, but our meeting-place is fixed. Behold yonder great white throne afar off, and Him that sits upon it! Before His face we meet. Till then, farewell!
3. Meanwhile, to help you, let me give a parting word of advice to such as would meet there in peace and joy.
Abide in the gospel of free grace. Ever abide in all its scriptural simplicity, in all its personal fitness. By no wisdom of words, by no excellency of speech, by no snare of popularity, be ever moved from this everlasting basis. Cleave in all things to the blessed Lord Jesus Christ. However painful your trials, however great your sacrifices, however heavy your reproach, however dark your day, however small your company, however unworthy you feel yourself to be, still cleave to Christ, even unto shame and death, yea, even to the very end of all.
Watch against the world and its evil. Let your eye ever be upon it; let your ear ever search its insidious sounds; let your hand be ready to repel its impudence and your foot to flee from its cruel subtlety. Remember, the world crucified your Lord and would debar you from heaven. Resist it therefore and retreat from its power; so shall we meet with joy. Devote yourselves to the pursuit of holiness. As others pursue after riches, so seek to be holy and righteous. Cherish the Holy Spirit’s work, and walk under His influence habitually. Die unto sin and live unto righteousness; so shall the Word of God abide in you, and you shall know that you are the children of God.
Be ever found in the Lord’s service. O remember His cause; live for it. What else have you to live for? Remember the world of sinners. Remember the church of saints. Do not forget that evangelistic cause whose claims now separate us. Remember those words, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature”. Do not forget them, until all the elect of God meet in glory. Do not neglect to pray for your former pastor as long as he remains on this side of the eternal home. He has loved you well, although he may ill have helped you. He has ever needed, and will ever need, your fervent prayers. Do this; and may the God of peace be with you all!
4. But what shall I say to those who cannot meet either their Lord or His unworthy minister with joy?
As a man, I have received kindness from you; but as the messenger of Christ I have not been entertained. You are still the servants of sin, the slaves of the world, the drudges of self-righteousness, the victims of Satan and of the flesh. One short word must I speak to you, before we part.
Have I not warned you of sin and its awful consequences? Say, have I not? Have I not endeavoured to explain what sin is and what hell is, and the awful road between them? Have I not in God’s name called on you to repent and to return unto your God? Have I not quoted to you the very chapter and verse of the divine threatenings and commandments as my authority for disturbing your sinful and ruinous repose? Have I not sometimes spoken until you were wearied of resisting where you could not overcome, and of listening where you could not contradict? Are you not my witnesses in this? You know that you are, and shall be for ever!
Have you not been invited to come to Christ, in Christ’s own words and in Christ’s own presence? Have you not been assured, in the express terms and words of the Spirit of God, of the Saviour’s readiness to save any one of you that would but yield himself unto Him? Has not the offer of His precious blood and perfect righteousness been made to every one of you? Was not the offer a true and sufficient one? Others relied and acted on it and they have found salvation. Was there any cause to exclude you? Was not the gospel this: whosoever? Have you not been besought in God’s name, in Christ’s stead? Have you not been reasoned with, and lamented over, many times? Are not these things so? Is there any exaggeration in this appeal? Are you not now some five or six years nearer to hell than you were when we first met? Has the preaching of the gospel been preparing you for deeper misery and for more intolerable suffering in eternity? How could I help it? May the Lord interpose! O how little can man accomplish! Yea, nothing.
Alas, alas, my poor hearers, who are still in this sinful, impenitent and miserable condition, is it so that we are not to meet again – never to meet? Is our parting to be eternal? Are we to stand on different sides of the Judge? Will you not, even now, come over to us? Will you not, even at this eleventh hour, join yourselves unto the Lord? Once more, this morning, let me as in God’s name, in Christ’s stead, beseech you: “Be ye reconciled to God!” What more can I say or do for you? Yet one thing: I leave with you this one testimony: the oath of my Lord against your impenitence and for your salvation. Hear and believe it: “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; for why will ye die?” Turn them, O Lord God, and they shall be turned, for Jesus’ sake, Amen.
The life, vigour and comfort of our spiritual life depend much on our mortification of sins.
Every unmortified sin will certainly do two things: (1) It will weaken the soul and deprive it of its vigour. (2) It will darken the soul and deprive it of its comfort and peace.
Learn to be contented with your lot. He is wise also who took a view of it and measured it and found it just commensurate to your good. Had He known that a foot’s breadth more had been needful, you would have had it.
John Owen