Rev J MacLeod
It must never be lost sight of that our principal aim in sustaining our mission work in Africa is the propagation of the gospel of God’s grace – the enlightening of the minds of sinners in the knowledge of Christ. Since 1904, we have been sowing the good seed, planting and watering it, in the hope that God would give the increase. We believe that the great day will confirm that the labour expended was not in vain and that not a few shall be on the King’s right hand in confirmation of this.
The John Tallach High School and other primary schools, together with the Mbuma Hospital and the Thembisio Children’s Home, continue – with the generous help of our Dutch friends – to serve as useful handmaids to the gospel. They bring such people as are not normally within our “catchment area” into contact with the Word of God, perhaps for the first time. Divine worship is daily conducted at these institutions, even at the remote Rural Health Clinic at Lutsha, and those who come for medical attention have death and life set before them in the spiritual sense. The same arrangement will be set in place at Vovo, where the second Rural Health Clinic is now under construction.
Due to a poor harvest and subsequent shortage of maize, it was agreed to send out £1,500 (of which £500 was a private donation) to alleviate the sufferings of such as were facing famine conditions. Rev A B MacLean has
commented that the drought in 2016 was the most severe experienced by him during his 11 years on the Mission. There is now a shortage of US dollars in Zimbabwe, and this is having its own baneful effect on those who are on the poverty line. Solar panels have now been installed at Ingwenya and this is a great boon in view of the frequency with which the national grid electricity supply is cut off, and without warning. Assessment of the Mbuma solar requirement has been undertaken and it is hoped that problems with regard to the electricity supply there will also be resolved. Rev A B MacLean is presently home on furlough.
On December 26, a storm which lasted about half an hour passed through Ingwenya Mission and left a trail of destruction. An e-mail from Mr B Ncube, the Headmaster there, described it as follows: “We are indeed grateful that no one was injured, especially that it was the school holiday, and also that it was a public holiday with no workers around. It was also providential that Miss MacLean was at her own house because otherwise she would have been in the very office which was the worst hit. The damage is huge. My Headmaster’s office had its roof completely ripped off with a huge tree falling on the roof as well. Everything inside was soaked, and it is the main office, within which were most documents etc. The dining hall had its roof blown off; so was that of the Form 1’s dormitory and the Matron’s house too. Trees were uprooted and all over the whole compound there are fallen trees. Electricity poles also fell down and, as it is, Miss MacLean has no e-mail facility, as it has been cut off from the communication lines. With schools opening on January 10 we are anxious to try and have the situation attended to. We commit everything to the Almighty.”
Repair work has already begun and it is expected that the school will be open on the appointed date. In general the Mission continues to function and the emphasis continues to be on Biblical instruction. The five primary schools now have their own appointed Bible Knowledge teachers and pupils all have the opportunity of answering the Scripture and Catechism questions printed in The Young People’s Magazine.
The Thembisio Home continues to provide shelter for rejected and orphaned children. We are grateful to Miss Margaret MacAskill and Miss Petra Beukers for their visits, over the course of which they give further training to the housemothers. Dr J Bezemer has now completed his two-year contract period and has returned to Holland. Also missing from Mbuma is Miss G van Wijngaarden, who, after serving the Mission faithfully for many years, has now retired and returned home to Holland. We are grateful to both of them and wish them the Lord’s blessing.
In regard to our work in Israel, we are glad to report that the translating
and the printing of The Westminster Confession of Faith in Hebrew has now been completed. This work was initiated by Rev John Goldby in 2005. It was difficult for him to find suitable and sympathetic translators, but, after much searching, he was successful in doing so. Further difficulties arose only to be surmounted, and the determination and perseverance with which he pursued his objective is to be commended. Never before, to our knowledge, was this work attempted and completed; so we have in this Hebrew Westminster Confession of Faith a genuine first edition. Two lots of 300 copies have gone through the press, and we hope many more will follow. Two copies are to be lodged in the National Library of Israel.
Book Reviews1
The Lord’s Day, by Thomas Boston, James Fisher and John Kennedy, published by Reformation Press, paperback, 126 pages, £6.90.
The Lord’s Day is a compilation from the works of Thomas Boston, James Fisher and John Kennedy, on the Sabbath. As the publisher states in his foreword, “this book contains material on the subject of the Lord’s Day from men who had a clear grasp of the Scriptural basis for observing the Sabbath Day – Thomas Boston of Ettrick, James Fisher of Glasgow and John Kennedy of Dingwall”. From the Scottish Lowlands in the eighteenth century to the Highlands in the nineteenth, the same love and reverence for the Sabbath may be traced in these writings. The republication of this work is welcome as we in the twenty-first century continue to contend for the same Sabbath as these men observed.
The material by Boston and Fisher is in the form of a thorough exposition of the Shorter Catechism questions and answers on the Fourth Commandment. Kennedy’s piece is a lecture. There is a harmony of opinion throughout. The perpetuity of the Sabbath is well defended on the grounds that it is a moral obligation that men put aside set times to worship their Creator. Kennedy explains the change of the weekly Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. His reasoning is that if God set aside the seventh day to commemorate His entering into His rest from the wonderful work of creation, how much more appropriate that there be a memorial of the day on which Christ entered into His rest from the even more glorious work of redemption. With his usual perceptiveness, Kennedy also shows that those who argue against the perpetuity of the Sabbath do so because of their spiritual aversion to the holy duties and delights of that day.
1All the books reviewed here may be obtained from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom.
Much practical advice is given on how to keep the Sabbath. There is the danger of remaining too long in worldly activities on the Saturday night and of “entertaining a carnal, worldly frame of spirit” on that night. Parents are reminded that children “must not have their liberty to profane the Sabbath by playing any more than they would by working”. Boston and Fisher agree that our conversation “ought to turn wholly upon spiritual and heavenly subjects” as far as possible, and the people are warned to “beware of common discourse between sermons”.
A spiritual love to the Sabbath shines out, and it is clear that these men often enjoyed rich blessings from heaven in their soul on that day. Their experience showed that the Sabbath morning was a special time for wrestling with God for a blessing. Boston says, “It is God’s day for dealing with the soul, wherein His people may expect to be furnished for all the week”. Many think Sabbath-keeping is a gloomy thing, but Kennedy advises us to ask the godly what they think. “They will tell you that it is a delight. They would not exchange one moment’s gladness, such as they have enjoyed on the Lord’s Day in His fellowship and service, for all that the world could bestow of its dissipating pleasures.”
This publication is very timely given the increasing laxity in Sabbath-keeping in church and state, and the deplorable decline of vital godliness which always accompanies it.
(Rev) I D MacDonald
From the Mouth of God, Trusting, Reading, and Applying the Bible, by Sinclair B Ferguson, published by the Banner of Truth Trust, paperback, 221 pages, £7.50.
This is a book on the Scriptures intended for “ordinary Christians”. The title comes from the Saviour’s reply to the first of the devil’s temptations (Mt 4:4).
The first chapter stresses the importance of the words, “It is written”, as used repeatedly in the New Testament. The author comments on their significance: “If Scripture said it, then God said it”. He goes on to explain the doctrine of inspiration and points out that, in using the word, Paul “was not thinking about its effect on us (inspiring) but about its source in Him”.
Another chapter discusses such topics as the inerrancy of the Bible (it is without error) and its authority and sufficiency. The author writes, “Everything I need to learn in order to live to the glory of God and enjoy Him for ever I will find in the application of Scripture”. A great part of the book gives advice on how to understand what God is saying to us through the Bible.
Altogether the book provides good teaching on the vital doctrine of Scripture, a doctrine which is so basic to our attitude to the glorious revelation that God has given to a lost world. We do not, however, agree with the author’s recommendations for Bible versions.
Preparation for Ministry, by Allan Harman, published by the Banner of Truth Trust, paperback, 125 pages, £5.25.
This small book gives advice to those considering if they have a call to the ministry, to those already studying and to those who have finished their studies and taken up a charge. It contains helpful counsel for men in these various categories (but the use of the ESV for Bible quotations is a pity).
Almost half of the book is taken up by two useful appendices: one by C H Spurgeon, entitled “The Minister’s Self-Watch,” the other by B B Warfield, on “The Religious Life of Theological Students.” Warfield emphasises that “every man who aspires to be a religious man must begin by doing his duty, his obvious duty, his daily task, the particular work which lies before him to do at this particular time and place. If this work happens to be studying, then his religious life depends on nothing more fundamentally than on just studying.” He does, of course, emphasise also to the student that “there are other religious exercises demanding your punctual attention which cannot be neglected without the gravest damage to your religious life.”