"O God, the proud are risen against me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul, and have not set thee before them" (Psalm 86:14). The present condition and state of this our time lets us see what need we have to understand the meaning of these words, for our instruction and comfort. For as the Prophet, David, when he penned this Psalm, was persecuted by powerful and malicious enemies, from whose rage and fury he prays to God for deliverance, so we being threatened by the like hostile invasion, have need to crave by humble supplication the Lord’s gracious and favourable protection.
The existence of the Free Church of Scotland is a testimony to the kingship of Christ. The Free Church is a part, and only a small part, of the glorious kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ in this world. The Free Church declares that Christ is King, seeks to submit to him as King, and trusts in his kingship for the eternity to come. Insofar as the members of the Free Church are consistent with that profession, they are his kingdom.
There is a vast difference to be put betwixt a time wherein the church is advancing in a course of reformation, and a time wherein she is declining and sliding back from that degree of reformation unto which she had already attained.
We ought never to forget the great work which early Christian missionaries did to promote the Gospel in different parts of the world and in different languages. One of these eminent missionaries was John Eliot, who has been called “The Apostle to the Indians,” because he was among the first to dedicate his life to the strenuous task of taking the Gospel to the American Indians in the seventeenth century.
Of all the catastrophes known to man, few evoke scenes of greater horror in the hearts of God’s people than the prospects of a famine of the Word. Preaching holds an indispensable place in God’s economy. Believers know that their spiritual vitality depends on the food delivered from the pulpit by God. In Christ’s words: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4b).
The church of Jesus Christ appears in scripture under many images and descriptions. Among other things, we find it likened to a temple, an olive tree, a bride, and a kingdom. Each image paints a different, but complementary perspective or emphasis regarding the church’s nature, work, and calling. Though there are nuances and shades of meaning unique to each of these images and descriptions, none of them implies an idea of independence. The temple has a foundation, the olive tree has a stock and roots, the bride has a husband, and the kingdom has a king.
Before the Lord himself spoke to afflicted Job from the tempest, declaring his own righteousness and majesty, he sent a messenger to prepare the way for himself. This messenger was Elihu, and what he said stood fast. Elihu invited a reply from Job (Job 33:5), but none ever came. Importantly, the Lord had nothing to say by way of rebuking Elihu, as he did with Eliphaz and his two friends (Job 42:7). Rather, Elihu anticipated what the Lord himself was about to say, as may be seen by comparing chapters 37 and 38. Elihu then was a reliable witness who showed sound speech that cannot be condemned (Titus 2:7).
Records of revival and reformation are precious to the believer. Themes that gladden the heart fill every page: the glory of God, the holy law of God, sinners crying out for salvation, and gospel freely offered to sinners. These accounts of history fill the heart with holy longings. The names associated with these outpourings awaken the desire for such days to return. Among those names, we find John Knox.
Such is the state of our modern world that we long for God to send revival of religion upon us all. The greatness of societal decline, allied with spiritual weakness of so many churches in the Western world, burdens the soul and constrains us to cry in our hearts to God to visit us again with an outpouring of His divine and heavenly grace.
In Brown of Wamphray’s ministrations, we have not obtruded on our famishing souls that oily sentimentalism, or that iced intellectualism, which so abound in this epicurean age of the Church; but we have the true bread, just as it has been gathered—wholesome and nutritious. O that, amidst the multitude of our popular and evangelical preachers and writers, we had but a phalanx of godly and spiritual men like him—men of heart, men of business—who would in right earnest negotiate between the Prince of life and dying men, and not merely transact between a dead doctrine and a blind intellect—men who will not ever be substituting the vague idea of ‘religion’ for the living person of the Son of God, or ‘moral influence’ for the personal operation of the Holy Ghost.
