Last month we considered a few of God’s wonderful works on the basis of David’s words in Psalm 40: “Many, O Lord my God, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts which are to usward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto Thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered” (v 5). We noticed God’s wonderful working in creation, in redemption and in applying redemption. Now we will try to highlight His wonderful activity in preserving and advancing spiritual life in a soul that has been made able and willing to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, has been justified, adopted into God’s family, and set on the way to everlasting glory.
We may note the power of the opposition to spiritual life in every soul where the Lord has begun to work. We may particularly point to the malignant trio: the world, the flesh and the devil. Each of them has, in itself, great power to weaken that life and even to extinguish it altogether. But to speak in that way is to ignore the teaching of Scripture that, although real spiritual life may for a time be weakened, it can never be entirely extinguished. And the work of grace will continue in the soul of believers until they are brought into the glory of heaven. God’s promise to them is sure: “He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” – the Day of judgement (Phil 1:6). God will never break His word; so, if the good work of salvation has begun, that work will continue until the soul is brought into a state of perfection at the time of death.
But there is a further aspect to this work: the whole person – body and soul – will be reunited at the end of the world in a state of complete perfection. In spite of all their enemies, and in spite of their strength, God will bring all His children safely to heaven at last. How wonderful is the continuing work of grace in the hearts and lives of God’s children, for, unworthy though they still are, none of them will be lost; they will all be made fit for heaven at last. Let us consider the opposition:
First, the world. Believers have been taken “out of the world” (Jn 17:6); accordingly the world, in this sense, includes all who do not believe in the
Saviour, who do not submit to Him as the King who rules over everything, who are still in a state of rebellion against God. In our time and throughout almost the whole of the earth’s history, the followers of Christ have been few, and the vast majority of people belong to the world. Their sheer number gives them considerable power, and so does the fact that they are used by the devil against the people of God. Some of God’s children may be in greater danger than others, and at some stages in their lives more than at others. Those who belong to the world are a source of temptation and a bad example to God’s children, as well as a source of persecution.
In some ages and in some situations, that persecution may be more overt, in others less so. It is easy to recognise God’s wonderful working when, for example, He sent His angel to deliver Peter from prison and from Herod’s persecution. But it may be less easy to recognise that God is working wonderfully when His saints are protected from danger by what we may call His ordinary providence, or when they are not delivered from persecution but are given grace to withstand it and remain faithful to their Master. And if, like Paul and other disciples and a great multitude of martyrs in later generations, they are strengthened to endure great suffering, we are to conclude that, in each case, God was demonstrating His power in a wonderful way. It was God’s wonderful grace that enabled Hugh Latimer to encourage his fellow sufferer, Nicholas Ridley, when they were tied to the same stake in Oxford in 1555, to be burnt to death. Latimer said, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”
Second, the flesh – that is, remaining corruption in the believer. Commenting on Romans 7:25, where Paul describes the effects of his remaining corruption, Charles Hodge states, “Paul served the law of God, in so far as he assented to the law that it is good, as he delighted in it, and strove to be conformed to it. He served the law of sin, that is, sin considered as a law or inward power, so far as, in despite of all his efforts, he was still under its influence, and was thereby hindered from living in that constant fellowship with God, and conformity to His will, that he earnestly desired.” Hodge remarks further: “The strength and extent of the corruption of our nature are seen from its influence over the best of men, and from its retaining more or less of its power, under all circumstances, to the end of life”.1
In spite of all this, the wonderful work of sanctification goes on in the souls of believers. We may think of the intercession of the Great High Priest on earth: “Sanctify them through Thy truth” (Jn 17:17). Christ’s intercession
1Hodge, A Commentary on Romans, Banner of Truth reprint, 1983, p 246. The previous quotation is on p 239.
continues in heaven for every one of God’s people, and sanctification takes place through the Holy Spirit, in His wonderful work, strengthening the spiritual life which He brought into their souls – and doing so in connection with Scripture, God’s truth.
When the time comes for a child of God to leave this world, there is a final sanctifying act of the Spirit, when He brings that soul into a state of perfect holiness. Then all remaining corruption is removed, and the “flesh” will never be a trouble to the Lord’s people in heaven. W S Plumer has pointed out that “not one among the ranks of the sinless [in heaven] has a single thought or a single desire at variance with the mind of Jehovah”. What a prospect that is for the people of God!
Third, the devil. In this world, he “as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 5:8). Yet Satan is under restraint; he will never be able to devour any of God’s people. He is permitted to tempt them, but by God’s gracious activity in both restraining the evil one and in strengthening the one who is tempted, Satan’s ability to cause spiritual harm is limited. Yet it is one of the wonders of God’s gracious providence that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom 8:28). We cannot say that David’s adultery was good for him; it caused him great harm. But his repentance, working together with everything else that preceded it, was for his spiritual good – as evidenced by Psalms 32 and 51, which he wrote following that repentance. Let us remember that the devil is a conquered enemy; Christ has had the victory over him, and that victory will never be reversed. Let us also remember the petition given to us, as preserved in the Word of God so that we may use it: “Lead us not into temptation” (Mt 6:13).
In conclusion, we may return to David. In his last days, as he contemplated his household, he knew that it was far from what it should have been. But he took comfort in the wonderful fact that the Lord had made with him “an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure”; and in a further exercise of faith he added, “This is all my salvation, and all my desire” (2 Sam 23:5). All his needs were provided for in that covenant; all his gracious desires would be answered; and the wonderful work of salvation that God had begun in him would most certainly be completed.
His soul is now in heaven, where he does not have “a single thought or a single desire at variance with the mind of Jehovah”. But in eternal glory he praises God that all things in his life did work together for good, in God’s wonderful and gracious providence – in spite of the world, the flesh and the devil. His confidence in the everlasting covenant was most certainly not misplaced. Let today’s believers seek, by grace, the same blessed confidence.
“The Lord Gave the Word”1
Synod Sermon by Rev D A Ross
Psalms 68:11. The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it.
I want to say a few words on these two statements in the verse: first, “The Lord gave the word”, and, second, what followed from the Lord giving the word: “Great was the company of those that published it”.
Introduction. The Psalm was written by David, under the direction of God, for it is part of the inspired Word of God, as all the psalms are. David here covers a wide field. He comes to different situations in which the Church is confronted by the wicked and he shows that God is against them. You can see from the Psalm that God will fulfil His word in a very solemn way against the wicked. Then David speaks of the righteous, how God highly esteems them and how He deals with them in a very gracious, glorious and wonderful way, ever supplying their needs and speaking to them by His Word.
Part of the Psalm can be applied to the Saviour, for example verse 18: “Thou hast ascended on high, Thou hast led captivity captive: Thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them”. There we have the exaltation of Christ as Redeemer. He brings poor, hell-deserving sinners into His own domain. Wonderful Saviour indeed!
1. “The Lord gave the word.” The One who gave the word is the Lord – that is, our God. This is the God we know, who wonderfully came to us with His word. He speaks to the heathen by His providence: “The heavens God’s glory do declare, the skies his hand-works preach” – but He speaks in a much fuller way by His Word. There are certain things we cannot know or understand and appreciate about God apart from His word.
When we read, “The Lord gave the word,” we cannot but think of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost all being involved in this wonderful matter of giving the word – and giving the word for sinners like us. Christ is the Person through whom the Father speaks what He has to say to the sons of men. Christ is the faithful Prophet of the Church, who speaks what the Father requires, as He indicated time and time again in His ministry when He was on this earth. The gospel is the word of God; the promise of life is the word of God; the truth about the damnation of the wicked is the word of God. The Lord gave the word, the word of salvation for poor, lost, hell-deserving sinners.
What a great loss Adam and Eve suffered by forsaking God’s word when
1Preached by the retiring Moderator at opening of the 2023 Synod.
they were under the covenant of works! Whatever they might have tried to do to make up that loss, they remained under the fulfilment of the word, “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen 2:17). They could not get away from it. But God also spoke to them to deliver them from the calamity they brought on themselves and all mankind. “The Lord gave the word.” So, the Lord who gave the word is God Himself, who says, “I am God, and there is none else” (Is 45:22). He is the very person who in the beginning created this world, and Adam and Eve – and He spoke to them.
When we think of the Lord giving the word, we are to go right back to the beginning of time. It seems that the Psalmist is going back to the beginning when he says, “The Lord gave the word”. The word had a beginning in this world. It is God who was saying, “Let there be light: and there was light” (Gen 1:3). It is God who was saying all that there is in Genesis about the beginning. If we are of the people of God, we realise this and we also see it was a great wonder that God spoke to Adam and Eve. A greater wonder is that He continued speaking to them after they rebelled against Him; this is really the wonder of all wonders.
What a wonderful thing it is that the Lord gave the word! We should try to meditate more and more on the fact that God is really speaking to us. Yes, of course, He speaks loudly to us in providence, but higher than this is the fact that God is speaking to us by His Word, from Genesis to Revelation. He is speaking to us of what He would have us to know about ourselves and our wicked hearts, and what He would have us to know about the way to be delivered from an evil heart and our rebellion.
When God gave the Word, He did not leave it to man to preserve it; He Himself preserves it. Man, of course, has a duty to preserve it and this is what we seek to do as a branch of the visible Church (as is the duty of every branch of the Church). Think of all the opposition to the Word, but consider too that, by His wonderful power, God has kept His Word in existence to this present time. That is a miracle! Many attempts to destroy the Word are found in Scripture history itself, in particular in the history of the Saviour. How intent the Church of that time was, in its sad and deplorable state, to destroy Christ’s words. But God is keeping His Word generation after generation, so that to the end of time, we are persuaded, His Word will be in the world, for He has a word to speak to the sons of men. God is the preserver of His Word not only in our wonderful translation, the Authorised Version, but in other languages too; it does not belong to only one language; the Word is spread abroad and many are blessed with this privilege of having it. The Lord gave His Word and the Lord preserves His Word.
We are to be responsive to this Word; that is, it is a Word to be obeyed.
God showed Adam and Eve a wonderful way to eternal life by their obedience under the covenant of works. We are given the Word to obey it. It is not merely the Church who is to obey it; the world also is under the obligation to obey it. When God has given His Word to our nation, His whole purpose is that we should benefit from it. It is for our good, our moral and spiritual good, our temporal and eternal good. He is giving it to kings and queens to be obeyed; He is giving it to us as a Church, and to every branch of the Church, to be obeyed. He gave it to Pharaoh to be obeyed, but he disobeyed; he said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice?” Let men say what they like, they are bound by God to obey His Word. To obey His Word is a privilege because it is for our benefit, for our spiritual health, for our spiritual prosperity, and to deliver us from the path wherein destroyers go. What a kindness that is!
The Lord gave a word to Adam and Eve so that they would have eternal life, but when they disobeyed and fell into sin, He came over the mountain of their rebellion and disobedience to give another word: that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. This is something for the whole world to hear. “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” So the Word is for this poor fallen world, for the down-and-outs, for all kinds of sinners. Paul said, “I am the chief of sinners”, but the Word was even for him, the fierce persecutor of Christ and the Church of God. The Lord gave the Word for sinners to obey, to walk in the way revealed in it.
These are wonderful dealings on the part of God towards sinners. You, and myself with you, are wonderfully blessed by God; He is so kind to us in giving us His Word. It is also gracious on the part of God to give a particular word from the Bible to a particular person. For example, after David sinned, he got a personal word from God: “Thou art the man”. It is wonderful when God by His word, and by the power of His Spirit, brings that very word home to the heart of a sinner so that he cries out, I am lost; I am undone; I am on my way to hell! Christ spoke about the publican in the temple, who could not so much as lift his eyes to heaven under a sense of his sin. He was obviously a man who knew the Word of God, who knew what a sinner he was. It was the Word that brought him to cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner!” Have you ever had the Word speak to you, friend? The poor Pharisee at the temple had the Word, but he was not listening to it. His fellow Pharisees had the Word, but they too were deaf to it. If we are deaf to the Word, we will do our own thing. But if we are listening to the Word we will do what God says – with the prayer, So help me, God.
You can see there are many wonderful things in connection with the Lord giving His word. We see in this psalm that King David, the Psalmist, in
trying times, went to God for direction and the Lord gave His word. The result was, as in verse 12, “kings of armies did flee”. It was not just that God spoke to him and left the matter there; no, He was active in fulfilling the promise of His word, to help David against his enemies. It was God who won the war: “The Lord gave the word . . . Kings of armies did flee apace”. We ourselves are to look to God: in our own private situations, in our public lives, in our Church life and in the visible Church worldwide, we are to wait on God to fulfil His word.
What are ministers of Christ doing when they are praying to God to save a particular sinner? They are asking God to bring His word with power into the soul of that poor sinner, so that he will cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner”. God’s people know something about these things; they know the wonderful fact that they can come humbly before God and plead with Him to speak a word in season to them, through the written Word accompanied by the Holy Spirit. This has been an ongoing wonder: that sinners are brought to the feet of Christ by the Word, like the poor demoniac of Gadara. He did not want to leave the feet of Christ, he wanted to go with Him, but Christ was of another mind: that the delivered man would publish the Word. This still happens – we hear of people being converted and becoming witnesses to Christ.
Another aspect of God giving His word is this – God’s people are fed. Pastors think about their flock; they realise that those who know Christ need to be fed. Christ said to Peter, “Feed My lambs. . . . Feed My sheep” (Jn 21:15,16), and, “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Lk 22:32). What was Peter to use for feeding the flock and strengthening the brethren? It was the Word! When feeding the flock, he was to present them with the great and glorious truths that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” and that He looks after them as His flock. He has given them a new disposition, whereby they love the Word and drink it in. “The Lord gave the word!” What a wonderful thing!
See poor Adam and Eve, with their heads hanging down, at a loss under condemnation; but then we are told that the seed of the woman will destroy the one who destroyed man. That is the word and it is precious! It ought to be precious to everyone, because it is from God, because it endures, because it works and because God fulfills it. It is precious to the child of God because, when they are low (and they can be brought very, very low), the Word can lift them up and strengthen them. Do you know anything of this? The children of God do!
The Word is a dead letter to the dead soul, but it is a living letter to the living soul. Are you alive, or are you dead in trespasses and in sins? Are you
alive through the Word? Have you been revived by the Word? If so, it was God Himself speaking and reviving your poor soul, so that you can stand up on your feet, lift your head, and be enabled to say, I am a child of God; I am on my way to glory; I can oppose the ungodly in a gracious way; I can no longer walk with them but will walk with the people of God, because the Lord gave His Word and made it sweet to my taste!
Well, these are wonderful things about the Word of God! Words may destroy people – not words from God but from their own carnal minds and from the devil himself – and they drink in these words to their destruction in this world. Ah, but another destruction will follow that, for those who refuse the Word of God! Those who will have nothing to do with the Word, but reject it, will have that word rise against them: “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt 25:41). These are solemn, solemn, solemn things!
So the Word of God is not dead, although the dead sinner thinks it is; it is not dead for the believer who is tempted to believe it is dead. God is good in giving us a peep into His glory, His majesty and His excellent works for sinners, so that once again we get a view of Christ in the Word. How important it is that the Word is preached, that it is shown to be permanent. It is for time, for the day of judgement, and for eternity. What does the Word mean to you? Do you prize it? I hope you do.
2. “Great was the company [or army] of those that published it.” This was the result of the Lord giving the word. We may think that the company mentioned is a limited number among the people of God. That is not true; “the company” includes all the people of God in the Church. When someone comes to discover that “Thy word is truth”, and when he sees his own awful lostness and the excellent work of Christ which can save his soul, he belongs to this blessed company of God’s people. Nobody can be one of God’s people unless he discovers the power of the Word to convince of sin, so that he sees his need of believing in Christ and his need of the righteousness of Christ.
That is true of every one of God’s people. Having made such an extraordinary discovery, they are bound to speak about it – some more, some less. Surely the fact that Christ has redeemed a soul and brought him to admire Christ as the altogether lovely One will make him a witness. Ruth’s response to her mother-in-law was, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God” (Ruth 1:16). She had been a poor heathen woman; she has come a long way; she is now testifying on the side of Christ.
As that was true of Ruth, so it is true of every person who is regenerate and has been given a saving interest in Christ – true of everyone who values the Word of God, even little children. We have read about such little children
who could not but speak about the Saviour and about the Word. So this is something special to all the people of God, both individually and collectively. They are heralds of the Word of God. Does that take away from those who are called to preach the gospel? It does not! The call to preach the gospel and expound the Word of God is a particular calling. As the Saviour said to His disciples, so He says to those He calls to preach the gospel: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature”. But every person who is united to Christ is also to be involved in this duty. Indeed, if we were as engaged as we should be in declaring this, “The Lord gave the word”, and witnessing to the God whom we serve, who knows what wonders would come from it?
The word was so powerful in the life of Rahab the harlot, that she could stand against her whole nation and also bring her family out with her. That was extraordinary! She believed what she had heard about the wonderful things God had done for the Children of Israel and against the enemies of the Lord. Those in her great city who had heard the same thing did not believe and they lost their souls. Here then is a woman who heard the word, believed it, received it and lived by it. The same is true of the woman of Samaria. The same is true of us, more or less, if we are born again and are united to Christ. If you have had a view of the glory of Christ and of the wonder of His coming into the world to save sinners, you cannot but speak about it; it may be difficult, but you must. It is too glorious a matter to be silent about. “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord” (Is 43:10).
That great company, we see, is made up of all God’s people. Yes, of course, they can be backslidden and therefore keep their mouths shut when they should have them open in witnessing, but that becomes a grief to them, as it was a grief to Peter. He wept bitterly because he did not speak up for his Saviour, who communicated His word to him. So this is a duty for all the children of God in every age. If some of them are of the fearing type and do not speak with their mouths as much as they ought (sadly, we all have to confess this), they speak with their godly walk. It is good to speak with our walk; it is the first essential in witnessing. And when we speak with our walk, it is more easy to speak with our talk. So there are these ways of speaking the Word, or spreading the Word.
To spread the Word is an important matter in the lives of the people of God and in the life of the Church of God. They say as it were, The Word saved my soul; it is only the Word that can save my family, the Word that can save my enemies, the Word that can save my King.” We therefore endeavour to spread the Word. And, dear friends, if we were really as active as we ought to be, it would be a better world. You know, just as much as I
do, how we have to hang our heads in shame that we are not as active as we should be in spreading the Word. However, there is still the endeavour made by the weakest of the children of God to speak the Word.
I remember hearing about a Christian lady who was in hospital and was very downcast. There was another lady in the bed opposite her who never said much but she used to go on her knees by her bedside. This made the Christian lady think that, although the woman opposite did not speak much, she said much by going on her knees. She was in fact a child of God and one of that great company. “Great was the company of those that published it.”
It is the duty of every child of God to speak about our King, about our Lord, and to tell the world, “God speaks in His Word”. Do not be shy to tell it; tell it in the most gracious, humble, becoming way, because poor sinners are by nature the enemies of Christ. Speak to them kindly; do not speak arrogantly; do not speak pharisaically but speak as a person who is saved, as a humble believer endeavouring to bring to the attention of a poor lost sinner the fact that “the Lord gave the word”. They must be told that the seed of the woman did in fact bruise the head of the serpent; that poor sinners, even the worst of sinners, came during the ministry of Christ and sat at His feet, and they are now in glory.
So what a privilege it is to belong to this company, this army! What a wonderful company to belong to! An army is made up of all sorts of people, but everybody in the army is active. There are generals and other officers in the highest positions; then there are those lower down, sergeants for example, then right down to the privates – all sorts of people in the army making up a massive number, and they are all engaged in one duty or another. So it is with the great company in our text – it is a huge army, and they are all doing something. There are those in the Church who preach, who teach and those who exhort, and many others carrying out various duties, including prayer – all working for the spreading of the Word.
Everybody who has a saving interest in Christ wants to do something for spreading the Word. There is no army like this army! It is an army that will never be conquered; it is the army that Satan trembles before! Why? Because Christ is our Captain. He has given us His Word and He will have us speak His Word. He will accompany that Word with the power of His Spirit to bring down one of the enemy and add that enemy to the Church and thus bring him into the great company. This is the company that will be wonderfully and gloriously acknowledged in time – and in eternity at last.
What a wonderful position those are in who are united to Christ and are part of this army. It has existed down through the centuries to the present time and will exist to the end of time. “Great was the company of those that
published it,” that is, that spread the word. So help us, God, to do so, prays His Church. Forgive us, O God, when we fail to do so, His Church prays also. We should never despair, friend, that because we live in dark times, the Word is not going to work. I may leave this world and may not see much fruit to the gospel, but I know, as you know, the Word will work. When the Spirit of God is sent with it, what a Word it is! Giants in the kingdom of darkness will fall at the feet of Christ! Keep preaching the Word, teaching the Word, spreading the Word, lifting up Christ and the doctrines of Christ! Wait for the God of eternity. Never turn back. Plead with Him.