At this point in the history of the Church, we should be conscious of its weakness and, in particular the weakness of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. And whenever another minister is taken away from the scene of his labours, we should feel the loss even more keenly, in the face of the cumulative effect of successive such losses.
In this instance, we lost Rev Donald A Ross on September 27, when he was taken away to, we fully believe, his eternal rest. He had spent several years as minister of our Bulawayo congregation in Zimbabwe; since then he laboured in the Laide congregation, in Wester Ross.
In these circumstances we should be specially conscious of the words of the Saviour, as He directed His disciples during His time on earth – and directs His followers in every generation – “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest” (Mt 9:37,38). If the harvest was plentiful when Jesus spoke, it is far more plentiful now, given the vast increase in the world’s population since then.
It is the Lord Himself who calls men to preach the gospel; no one else has authority to give that call. In applying the teachings of these verses, David Dickson states, “True labourers and faithful preachers are God’s special gift to a land, worthy to be sought from God by prayer”. Again he says, “God Himself must fit men for the work of the ministry and must thrust them forth and give them their commission, for no man can further the harvest who is not sent”. God sends men to act as His ambassadors, to speak on His behalf, and with His authority. They go out to make known what their King did when He bore the sins of many, so that He might reconcile sinners to God. His ambassadors are to be faithful to the One who sent them; the Lord tells them, as when He sent Jonah to Nineveh, to “preach . . . the preaching that I bid thee” (Jnh 3:2).
Jonah was not, and today’s preachers are not, to present their own ideas to the people they address; they are not to present any secular philosophy, or mere morality to them. Yet, sadly, far too often today, professed ambas-
sadors ignore the gospel. The content of preaching ought to be more serious than philosophy or morality. Certainly, moral teaching is required, but it must be secondary to the central message of the Bible: the gospel.
Hugh Martin, that outstanding Scottish preacher of the nineteenth century, once told his congregation when preaching on Jonah 3:2: “The gospel, then, that is stately preached to you . . . is the word of the unseen God – the thoughts and will of the King Eternal, Immortal, and Invisible. They come forth through His own Son as the original, the one and only authoritative, the perfect Prophet. They are now delivered – the message is handed on and handed round – from Him to the assemblies of His professing, worshipping people, by the lips of men, chosen from among themselves, and chosen by themselves. This is the singular and glorious treasure that is deposited in earthen vessels: the word of the only wise God. Unless unfaithful to our office, we preach the preaching that the living God hath bidden us.”
Then Martin warns: “But if this be true, mark the deplorable position in which unbelievers must find themselves placed; and everyone must be called an unbeliever who does not so embrace the message of alarm and of mercy as to flee from the wrath to come, repenting of his iniquity and turning to the Lord in newness of obedience”.1
When the risen Saviour was going to leave His disciples, He told them: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mk 16:15); they were to proclaim the good news that there is salvation for the chief of sinners. The good news can be summed up in the words of Scripture: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn 3:16). What a wonderful expression of the good news we have here! The eternal God sent His only-begotten Son to take human nature and to suffer and die in the place of sinners who have rebelled against Him.
These truths are to be proclaimed to sinners everywhere and they are to be called to believe on Him – to trust in Him as the One who died, rose again and ascended triumphantly to the right hand of God. From there He reigns, especially for the good of those for whom He died. And His activity as King includes the authoritative call of men to go out and preach the gospel. When He was in this world, He called men such as Peter, John and Matthew to be His disciples. Today He calls men to become preachers of the gospel, making them willing to do so and preparing them with the gifts that they need so that they may effectively discharge the duties of the ministry.
From His throne in heaven, Christ also makes continual intercession for those for whom He died. He intercedes for the conversion of those who are
1Hugh Martin, The Prophet Jonah, Banner of Truth Trust, 1966 reprint, p 254-5.
to be called to the ministry; He intercedes for the Word to be blessed to them, through the power of the Holy Spirit applying to their souls the truth about Jesus as a perfect Saviour, so that they trust in Him for their salvation. He intercedes also for their call to the ministry to be made effective, and His intercession for them continues while they are spared in this world and are carrying out the duties of their calling. He intercedes also for the Church to be protected from the evil one and to be preserved in existence.
We return now to the duty the Saviour laid on His disciples to pray for more labourers to be sent out to preach the gospel. It is a duty that God’s people should feel particularly pressing when ministers have been taken home to glory. Their prayer should be a cry for help; so David cried: “Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men” (Ps 12:1). This is a suitable prayer whenever any of the godly are removed from the Church in this world, but it is especially suitable when a minister is taken home. It is an acknowledgement that it is always God who must fill up the blank in the Church below. It is God alone who can bring sinners into His kingdom and continue the work of grace in their souls – till they are fit to be brought to the place prepared for them in heaven. Yet He uses human beings, especially ministers, as instruments in that great work. And, as already noticed, it is God alone who can prepare suitable labourers for the spiritual harvest field.
We should feel a time when the Church of God is weak – because the labourers are few – to be a time of trouble. So David prayed again: “Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man” (Ps 60:11). In any time of trouble, we are not – at least in the first instance – to look for human help but to cry to God, for the sake of Christ. And in a time when conversions are few and when few men are being sent out to preach the gospel, we should put our confidence, not on human power and effort, but on divine power, which is the only power that is truly and consistently effective.
Psalms 124 records David’s reaction to powerful enemies who came against him; they would have “overwhelmed” him if God had not protected him. So he concludes the Psalm with the words, “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth”. David trusted in the Lord to help him – speaking of Him as One who had revealed His tremendous power in the creation of the whole universe. And He has further revealed His Creatorship in the Bible – not only at the beginning of Genesis, but time and again throughout the Scriptures.
Let us remember that God does hear prayer, and let that fact encourage God’s children to pray earnestly and perseveringly for Him to send out many labourers into His harvest fields in the immediate future.