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  WRITINGS OF MURDOCK CAMPBELL
  by Murdock Campbell
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A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by Murdock Campbell,
compiled for study and devotional reading.

  Chapters: 12

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. S. Gilead's Balm
    2. S. God of Bethel
    3. S. God's Everlasting Love
    4. S. Let us not Sleep
    5. S. The Bride's Prayer
    6. S. The Heavenly Foretaste
    7. S. The Joyful Sound
    8. S. The Lord around His People
    9. S. The Shepherd and His Flock
   10. S. The Soul's Compassion
   11. S. Till the End Be
   12. S. We Shall be Like Him

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  CHAPTER 1: S. GILEAD'S BALM
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Gilead’s Balm by Murdoch Campbell, M.A.

“Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? Why then is not the
health of the daughter of my people recovered?” (Jer 8:22).

Although these words were primarily addressed to Israel when they were in a
state of spiritual decline, they must be given a much wider application than
what they have in their original context. Since the gospel, the good news of
God’s Salvation, is by Christ’s command to be preached to all men, and since all
men are in the fatal grip of sin, this solemn question is, therefore, addressed
to all. And although the question is addressed to all who come within the joyful
sound of the gospel it is, on the other hand, personal to each one of us. In our
relationship with God we stand accountable and alone, as if no creature existed
within the universe but ourselves. Each of us shall at last have to stand before
God to give an account of our deeds in this life whether they be good or evil.
And the greatest sin which we can commit in this life is to neglect the great
salvation and to ignore the Great Physician who alone can heal our souls. Let us
look, briefly, at these words. We notice, first:

I. The Disease of Sin

Let us hear, first of all, what God Himself has to say about this disease. When
we are stricken with sickness, it is not for us to say what the nature of our
trouble is. It is for the physician to diagnose our sickness and, if that is
possible, to prescribe a cure. Men may have their own views of sin, but if these
deny or contradict what God says about it in His Word, they are to be rejected
as false and spurious and of no importance at all. He who is our Creator is the
One who knows all things. He has made a diagnosis of this disease, and if we are
wise it is to His voice we listen. This subject, however, is so vast, so deep
and terrible that we can only mention a few aspects of it. The first thing that
God says about this disease is that it is a universal condition. “All have
sinned.” “There is none righteous, no not one.’ Adam was the federal head of
mankind, so that when he felt away from God we all fell and sinned in him and
with him. And the loathsome disease which took possession of his nature extends
to all men. None of those who enter this world by ordinary generation has
escaped this deadly plague. Its destructive power works in the hearts and lives
of all men.

It is a disease which is also co-extensive with the whole of our being. There
are those who say that although man has fallen a prey to sin he is still capable
of doing good, and that there is still much in his nature which God accepts and
recognises as good. While by human categories we classify men as “good” and
“bad”, God, who knows the heart, pronounces us all without soundness or health.
Before His eyes the heart of man is “desperately wicked” and, in the depth of
its depravity, it is known only to Him. And when God speaks of the “heart” He
means the whole of our nature and the whole bent and bias of our minds, our
wills and of all our inward desires. We were “born in sin and shapen in
iniquity”, and to our original sin we add actual transgressions which greatly
aggravate our state and plight. The world in which we live is, for example, a
pale reflection of the heart of man. From whence come the wars, the confusions,
the lawlessness, the indescribable abominations which threaten our destruction
in these days? They have their source in the human heart, and if the present
process of degeneration continues one wonders how long can the Lord bear with
us. The contaminating plague which as in other days — is in danger of destroying
our world has its source in man’s sinful nature. And those to whom God has given
a true insight into their own heart can only bow their heads in shame and
helplessness and say, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” They say with another:
“In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.”

“For a disease that loathsome is So fills my loins with pain.”

There was a law in Israel which demanded that the leper should be excluded from
society, and from all access to God’s house. Wherever this contagion was
discovered he immediately became an outcast, till such a time as he found
healing. And the greatest loss that man has suffered from sin is that it has
broken off his communion with God. If, then, we are not delivered from this
disease we shall be eternally separated from God and excluded from the bliss of
Heaven. The moment this evil thing touched the beings of those angels “who kept
not their first estate” they were banished into the outer darkness. The moment
the devil’s breath touched the soul of man, and man, “left to the freedom of his
own will”, yielded to Satan’s lie, he lost communion with God and was banished
from paradise. On the great day which awaits us all the Judge on the Throne
shall banish from His presence all who are undelivered from this plague. “Depart
from me.” To use an illustration, if a person came to your door whom you knew to
be carrying a deadly contagion you would not say to him: “Come in. You are
welcome here. Sit down with my children. My home is yours.” No, you would wisely
shun such a person and exclude such a danger from your home. And into God’s Home
above nothing shall enter that “defileth or worketh abomination or maketh a
lie.” The imperatives of Heaven cannot be by-passed. We must be renewed or
healed in the inner man: washed in the blood of the Lamb, clothed in Emmanuel’s
righteousness, and made sweet and pure through the sanctification of the Holy
Spirit. Heaven is not for the ungodly or for those who remain in the grip of
this plague. And for this disease there is no cure on earth. In the days of the
prophet there were false preachers who minimised the evil of sin and who healed
the wound of the daughter of Zion lightly, saying: “Peace, peace.” And are we
not familiar in these times with those who put soft deceptive pillows under the
head of perishing sinners. Instead of exposing the evil of sin, they cover it up
by making vague statements that all is well. There are also on the scene those
who speak of sin as something which has its source in our external environment
or in the example of our fellow men. But such superficial explanations are far
removed from reality. All the evils which surface today before our eyes have, as
we have said, their source in the human heart, and till the heart is changed by
the Holy Spirit there is no hope for man. This is a disease therefore which,
without the help and power of God, must end in total and eternal death. “For the
wages of sin is death.” God warned man as to the consequence of sin. “In the day
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” This was not the threat of mere
physical death. When man sinned, and God withdrew His presence from his soul,
his soul pined away in utter death. “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” And
eternal death follows in the wake of spiritual death. Not very long ago I met a
man who was led to seek the Lord through the words which a minister used in one
of his public prayers. “Lord,” he said, “there are millions with Thee in glory
who were born in sin and who lived in sin; but not one who died in sin.” The
words arrested this mans mind and brought him under spiritual concern which
resulted in his conversion. O! that these words would arrest us all and lead us
to seek the great salvation which Christ alone can give.

Perhaps the most terrible thing one could say about this disease is that it may
be working within our beings without our having any awareness of it. The soul,
while dead in trespass and sin, may lie on the lap of a fond delusion that all
is well when all is ill. There are instances in the Bible of men and people who
were moving toward eternal death while, at the same time, they thought their
lives and works were perfect before God. The Pharisee who stood before God in
the temple to pray had no awareness of his spiritual sickness. The Church at
Laodicea looked upon herself as whole — with no need of the Physician. Sin is a
drug. In the coma or dream of spiritual death, we think favourably of ourselves.
In this state we think we are whole and that we therefore need not a physician.
The man or woman who has no awareness of the plague of his or her own heart is,
indeed, in a state of great danger. There is hope for those who know themselves
to be sick, for they may be led to seek healing through Christ and His balm. Our
prayer should be that God would awaken us out of the sleep of death lest we find
ourselves at last in the dread place where sleep is unknown, and where sin shall
rage for ever and ever within our beings. But for all who believe what God says
in His Word of our state by nature, and who have, in some measure, felt the
plague of their own heart, there is:

II. A Physician and a Balm The Physician of the soul is God Himself. “I am the
Lord that healeth thee.” He who created us in His own image, and who knows
perfectly the nature and extent of our “hurt” is our Healer. He alone could
provide “a balm”, the healing virtues of which can never fail: “Who healeth all
thy diseases”. Whatever destructive inroads sin has made in our hearts and lives
God can still restore us to full spiritual health. If, in the words of another,
all the people of God are in this life in His hospital none ever dies there — or
ever shall. They are all in His hand, each and all blessed with His loving and
personal care. “The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: “Thou
wilt make all his bed in his sickness.”

O! how we ought to admire and wonder at the condescension of God in all this.
Are we not amazed that He who counts the numbers of the stars, and who gives
them all their names, the Creator and the Sustainer of the great universe in
which we live, should, in unspeakable love and tenderness, bind up alt the
wounds of His ailing people. He is ever beside all who are broken in their
hearts and whose cry is, “Heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee.” The
pity of an earthly father toward his child is but a pale illustration of the
pity which flows from the very heart of God towards poor ailing sinners who seek
salvation at His hand.

It was this that constrained Him to enter our world in our nature. “He came to
bind up the broken hearted.” He took “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh”.
He took our sins and our sorrows, and although He is now exalted at God’s right
Hand He is still the true Physician of souls. The Gospels are full of instances
of His mercy, power, and grace as these were exercised in the salvation of those
who had no help of man, and who in looking to their left hand and their right
saw none who could save them. The bowed-down and broken woman who had spent her
all on other physicians found, when in an act of faith she touched the hem of
His garment, her terrible disease removed. She was made whole. Healing power had
flowed from the Great Physician which consciously surged through her whole
being. She was but one of many. She was but one of the great multitude which no
man can number whom Christ shall present to Himself “without spot or wrinkle or
any such thing”. His healing is perfect healing. It is not something which gives
temporary relief only to return again. No. It is radical. It is permanent. It is
not the old creature patched up for a while. The man whom God heals is for ever
a new creature in Christ. He is renewed in all his faculties and, in the moment
of his regeneration, put in possession of eternal health. The Spirit of God, who
is the author of regeneration, shall, by a work of sanctification, bring all the
people of God to perfection. “They shall stand without fault before the Throne.”
But how and where does the sinner particularly find healing? What is the balm
which the Lord applies to his wounds? There are many opinions as to what,
literally and exactly, the balm of Gilead was. In the opinion of many who have
studied the historical setting of this verse “the balm of Gilead” was the
substance of a tree which grew in this region. The healing balsam flowed out of
the tree after it was cut, and had virtues peculiar to itself. There were also
physicians in Gilead skilled in the application of this balm. We know that these
words are proverbial. They are also typical of the healing power of Christ both
in His death and life.

There is no healing or salvation for the soul of man apart from the death of
Christ. He is “the Tree of Life” who was, at the same time, “wounded for our
transgressions and bruised for our iniquities.” “By His stripes we are healed.”
Before healing or life could come to man, Christ must endure the stroke of
Divine Justice. When man sinned that sword stood between him and the tree of
life, but now we are reconciled to God by the death of His Son. It is in
beholding the Lamb of God — Christ crucified

— that the soul is saved and that we are given access to all the blessings of
redemption. Those who were dying in the camp of Israel, through the sting of the
fiery serpents which raged among them, found instant healing in looking to the
serpent on the pole. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so
must the Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in Him should not
perish, but have everlasting life.” Where do you, dear friend, find healing for
a wounded spirit and a guilty conscience? How did you enter into peace with God?
Where did the oppressive burden of sin fall from your soul? Where, but at the
Cross of Calvary and through the blood of sprinkling. His death is our balm. It
is from the wounds of Christ, who is the Tree of Life, that the balsam of
salvation flows.

It is through His death also that free and saving grace is bestowed on us. “By
grace we are saved.” And the grace which saves is the grace which heals the
soul. When Satan threw his darts into the soul of Paul, His great Physician in
Heaven applied His balm to his wounded spirit. “My grace is sufficient for thee,
for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” You recall how on the day of
Atonement in Israel, when the high priest sprinkled the blood of the Covenant
before the mercy seat, God’s glory which dwelt between the Cherubims did, in the
words of the Psalm, shine forth. And when the sinner is reconciled to God
through the death of His Son not only does grace reign in his heart but the
first rays of the Sun of Righteousness shine into his soul. Christ, the Eternal
Sun, rises on his soul with healing in His wings.

God’s Word also brings healing to the afflicted soul. “He sent His Word and
healed them.” It was by His Word that He healed many while He was among us. He
said to the Leper, “I will, be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy departed
from him.” This is the universal testimony of true Christian experience. You may
recall the day, when pining in the very shades of death, He passed by you and
spoke a word to your soul. How dear and precious to your heart is that word
which first brought healing and comfort to your spirit. It was as if God’s
life-giving lips had touched your soul. “Say unto my soul, I am Thy salvation.”
“The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” It is through the
application of His promises by the Holy Spirit that the Lord heals and purifies
the soul. “Sanctify them through the truth:

Thy Word is truth”. But not till we reach that happy country “where the
inhabitant shall not say, I am sick”, shall all our hurts be fully recovered.
Meantime, let us who know His name, continue instant in prayer that His balm may
bring more and more comfort to our broken and contrite spirit till the day dawn
and the day-star arise in our hearts.

It were well for us to observe where this balm is. Literally speaking, Gilead
was not remote from the daughter of Zion or the people of Israel. It was within
easy reach of all who sought a cure for their hurt. And spiritually the same is
true. “The Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thine heart; that is, the
word of faith which we preach.” We have the Word of God in our homes, and often
in our hands. Parts of it we have even stored in our memory. But is it in our
heart? Do we believe it? Do we receive Him who is present in His Word? Gilead,
or the means of grace, is near — and yet, for those who do not believe, so far.
Is not the same true of the Throne of Grace? “Draw nigh unto God, and He will
draw nigh unto you.” He is waiting to be gracious. You may kneel before God in
the privacy of your own little room in your home and ask Him to save you. You
may do it inwardly, even where you are at this moment, sitting and listening to
the Word. You are without excuse. “The word is nigh thee.” O! the deep and
solemn tragedy of entering a lost eternity because we refuse to believe —
because we refuse to come to Christ. Why should you be so unjust and unkind to
your own soul as, by your neglect, to involve it in eternal deprivation,
destruction and despair? That is what you are doing who do not avail yourselves
of God’s loving kindness. Just think of the consequences of your neglect in all
their terror; but, is it not true that they cannot really bear thinking about.

Then there is:

III. The Great and Solemn Question: “Why then is the health of the daughter of
my people not recovered?”

If this plague is so deadly, and if both the Physician and the balm are
accessible and available, why then are we not healed? At the bar of this
question each sinner may have his or her own excuse. One may say — “I have no
awareness of this disease. I have no conviction that my state is such as you
describe. Till this is given me I cannot do anything.” But, as we have tried to
show, it is not what you feel about it, but what God says about it, and what He
wants you to do, that matters. One may be dying of a malignant disease without
having any pain; but the absence of pain is no proof that all is well or that
the disease is not doing its destructive work. Whatever our “feelings” may be,
we are all, without Christ, in the grip of death.

There are others who may be in the hands of false physicians. We live,
spiritually speaking, in the age of quacks and cults. All and each of these have
their own spurious prescriptions and cures. Think, for example, of the millions
who put themselves in the hands of a priest believing that he has the power to
put away their sins, and to pave a way for them to Heaven. But, there is but one
name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, even the name of
Jesus. Pass Him by and you sink into woe.

Others there are who play fast and loose with time and privilege. Satan may
agree with them that they need salvation, but he whispers, as in the case of the
Rich Fool, that there are still “many years” and a bright long future awaiting
them. There is always, he tells them, tomorrow, or the “more convenient time”.
Alas, a lost eternity is a place of regrets. We carry our memory with us to the
world of spirits. “Son, remember”, were the words which Abraham addressed to the
rich man in torments. He had no thought of death when death came. Dear friend,
redeem your time; and while Jesus of Nazareth is passing by in the loving
overtures of the Gospel, lift up your voice and cry for salvation. Wilt thou be
made whole? May Christ, the Physician, be precious to us all, and may the Balm
of His grace, applied by the Holy Spirit to our souls, mark the beginnings of
our everlasting joy.

These sermons are taken from Everlasting Love a book of devotional sermons by
Rev. Murdoch Campbell, and published by The Knox Press (Edinburgh), 1969.


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  CHAPTER 2: S. GOD OF BETHEL
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God of Bethel by Murdoch Campbell, M.A.

“I am the God of Bethel.” — Gen 31:13.

About twenty years had elapsed in the life of Jacob between the wonderful night
at Bethel and this new manifestation of the Lord mentioned in our text. The
Lord, in giving this fresh disclosure of Himself to Jacob, commanded him, at the
same time, to leave Laban’s house in Padan-aram. By this gracious and, we
believe, longed for hour of blessing, Jacob made a deeper discovery of the love
and faithfulness of God. The name — “The God of Bethel” — by which the Lord made
Himself known to him would have brought back endearing and solemn memories of
other days. This, indeed, is one of the divine names which cannot fail to touch
a tender cord in the hearts of many of the Lord’s people. “The God of Bethel”.
Sweet beyond words is His name! What does this Name mean in the experience of
those who are heirs of salvation? Might we not say at the beginning of our
remarks that the God of Bethel is:—

I. A Prayer Answering God: In another chapter Jacob speaks of Him as “The God
who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I
went”. We believe that by the day of his distress he meant not only his night of
wrestling with God at Peniel, but also that wonderful morning at Bethel. Let us
for a moment envisage that day when Jacob bade a fond, if sad, farewell to his
father and mother. Then he moved on toward an unknown country. As the shades of
night began to fall, and the stars began to appear in the silent sky above him,
a sense of loneliness, if not of fear, would have touched his heart. Then, in
weariness, he laid him down and slept. Was there a prayer on his lips as he
closed his eyes? We believe there was. It might have been, in effect, the words
of the Psalmist: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will
take me up”. Whatever prayer was articulate within his spirit God heard it, for
he awoke out of sleep conscious that the Lord was beside him. The awe of the
Eternal was upon his soul. God’s presence and love filled his heart. “The Lord
is in this place”. The One who is with His people in every age and in all their
trials was near him. A remarkable thing about Jacob’s experience was that he
knew who was beside him. It was not something that he had never known before. He
did not say, “What is this, and whose Presence do I feel? This is all strange to
me”. No. “This”, he said, “is none other but the house of God and this is the
gate of Heaven.” Whatever other views may be held by good men on this subject
does not this prove that Jacob had communion with the Lord before this hour and
that he was already in a state of grace? We think it does. The words which are
used to describe him as a young man in his fathers’ house are, indeed, the same
as are used with regard to Job of whom the Lord speaks as “a perfect man”. Long
before this hour, therefore, Jacob was a “pious” or a “perfect man dwelling in
tents”. But at Bethel his soul enjoyed a new blessing. The dew of Hermon
descended upon his soul. He enjoyed much nearness to the Angel of the Covenant.
God’s voice and Presence became more real to him than ever before. He moved
deeper into the dimensions of eternity. Such seasons of unusual nearness to the
Lord may be rare in the lives of many of God’s people. Their days of heaven upon
earth, though few and far between, provide them with memories which are precious
beyond words. This, we believe, was a morning which Jacob shall remember through
everlasting ages. From this place of bliss, and deep communion with God, Jacob
came to the land of his affliction. For twenty years he endured many trials and
deceptions under the cruel hand of Laban. His soul also might have pined for a
new blessing and for more nearness to the Lord. Bethel became a wistful memory.
Would he ever again stand in the suburbs of Heaven as he did then, and hear that
much-loved voice and enjoy a similar season of communion with the Holy One? Ah,
dear friends, are there not seasons in our own life when we recall the years of
His right hand — the season of our first love — and when with the Psalmist we
also say:

“How long wilt Thou forget me, Lord, Shall it for ever be?

O how long shall it be that Thou Wilt hide Thy face from me?”

Some of us echo the words of the godly Cowper when he penned the words:

“Where is the blessedness I knew When first I saw the Lord? Where is the soul
refreshing view Of Jesus and His Word?” But those who know the way to the Throne
of Grace, and who know the Lord as a prayer-answering God know also that the God
of Bethel is:

II. A Covenant Keeping God. “He shall perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy
to Abraham”. And true to His promise He appeared to Jacob the second time. There
was indeed, a sense in which He was as near to Jacob over his long period of
exile as He was on that memorable morning at Bethel. Not consciously, but in His
promise and providential care. On his death bed he spoke solemnly of the Angel
who fed him all his days. He could speak of Him also as the One who led and kept
him throughout his earthly pilgrimage and amid the many dangers to which, in
this life, he was exposed. The life of every believer is, in retrospect, a
witness to God’s covenant care and love. He watches over us night and day. He
never slumbers nor sleeps. All the saints are in His hand. While we may
sometimes complain of His silence we know that He is ever at our right hand. “I
will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” At the end of his life Jacob could see
how true God was to His promise. “And behold I am with thee, and will keep thee
in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for
I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.”
It is interesting to note that this covenant also embraced Jacob’s seed. One of
the great miracles of history is seen in the way in which God has preserved in
His providence “the seed of Jacob”. Let us pray that the day may soon come when,
by the outpouring of God’s Spirit, they shall look upon Him whom they have
pierced and disowned, and mourn.

There is a remarkable incident recorded in this chapter. It was in the heart of
Laban to do Jacob harm. But we read how God appeared to him in a dream and
warned him of the consequence of doing His prophet any harm. Truly God moves in
a mysterious way. He can be terrible to those who would touch the apple of His
eye. We read in the Psalm how, in the days of Abraham and Isaac, God did appear
to mighty kings and warned them against touching His anointed. This, as Matthew
Henry and others remind us, He did in dreams or visions. Little do the people of
God know how they arc kept from those, in hell and on earth, who would devour
them. His covenant faithfulness is a bulwark between us and all our enemies.
“This God is our God for ever and ever. He will be our Guide even unto death”.
But, pre-eminently, the God of Bethel is:

III. The God of Revelation. Jacob’s dream was, above all, a supernatural
disclosure of God’s way of salvation. It was a type of Him who is the only
Mediator between God and man. Christ is God’s “Daysman” whose hand, in the words
of Job, rest on God and on His people. He alone unites Heaven and earth. If the
one end of His ladder rests on the earth, the other end reaches into the highest
heaven. This lovely, mystic vision brings before us Christ, both in His Person
as the God-man and in His state of humiliation and exaltation. When Nathanael
stood before Him He uttered the words which prove that it was He who was so
gloriously typified in this heavenly dream. “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open,
and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” When our
Lord spoke these words He was here among us in our nature and in the likeness of
sinful flesh. The eternal and personal Word became incarnate. He took bone of
our bone and flesh of our flesh. He who was, in the sinless infirmity of our
nature, in the bosom of a woman — unable to walk and unable to speak — was at
the same time, as God’s Eternal Son, in the bosom of the Father. Great, indeed,
is the mystery of Godliness. And the great end for which He became incarnate was
that He might die for us. The way to Heaven, therefore, begins at the Cross of
Calvary. At the place where He died we begin, by faith in His blood, by our
reconciliation to God and our regeneration by His Spirit, to set out on that
heavenly journey that ends within the portals of everlasting bliss. The
innumerable company of angels who minister to the Church of God on Mount Zion
are with us here because He also inhabited this earth. As no angel could appear
on earth apart from His mediation and apart from the satisfaction which God in
His law and justice received through His finished work, no sinner, on the other
hand, is accepted of God and made heir of eternal glory in Heaven but through
His death. It was, therefore, Christ the Angel of the Covenant who spoke to and
was with Jacob in his dream, as it was He who was also there in the type. Christ
is all and in all. This is the place where all the people of God meet. The
principal witness of the Holy Spirit in the written Word has to do with the
sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. They are a people who are
enlightened in the knowledge of Christ by the Holy Spirit. They know that before
any of the elect of God, from Abel to the last of His people, could stand on the
threshold of Heaven, Christ must stand on the earth. Our Lord pronounced Simon
Peter a blessed man because God the Father, by the Holy Spirit, revealed to him
that He who walked among men, without visible glory, was the Eternal Son of God,
the Messiah and the Redeemer of His people. It is in and by the written Word
that we see the glory of the Incarnate Word. The two who were on the way to
Emmaus, when the Lord opened to them the Scriptures, saw in the word the mystery
of godliness, God manifest in the flesh. How sweetly does His own description of
Himself coincide with the view that His people enjoy of Him through the
enlightenment of His Spirit. “I”, He says, “am the rose of Sharon and the lily
of the valleys.” He who as God dwelt in the Sharon of the heavenly world was
found in the valley of humiliation. He was in Heaven and on earth at the same
time. His humiliation, sufferings and glory were also before the eyes of His
Church when she exclaimed: “My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among
ten thousand.” He came where we are that we might be where He is. “Father I will
that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my
glory.” He tabernacled with us that we might, through His death and exaltation,
dwell in His presence for ever.

And, beloved, are there not rare hours in our life when in our affections,
desires and enjoyments we seem to be in another and better world? At such times
we say, “Lord, it is good for us to be here”. But here we have but the
tabernacle of a wayfaring man. Clouds take Him out of our sight. The fond vision
fades; for the just must live by faith. In Heaven shall our Bethel be permanent
— and not till then. “And ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again
and your heart shall rejoice and your joy no man taketh from you.” Peter speaks
of the time when he, and the two other apostles, were with Christ on the holy
mount, where they saw the glory of Zion’s King and heard the voice from the most
excellent glory which said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
But this great enjoyment he subordinates to the faith of the Church in God’s
word of promise. “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do
well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the
day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.” God’s word of promise stayed
with Jacob after the lovely vision and the blissful presence were withdrawn. And
in that word he trusted to the end. There are times when the Beloved withdraws
Himself, but His word stays with us both in sunshine and cloud. This is our
comfort in our affliction, for by His word are we kept and revived. Let us
observe that the God of Bethel is also:

IV. The God of Holiness. We read that when Jacob awoke out of sleep he
exclaimed: “How dreadful is this place.” The awe of the Eternal rested on his
spirit. At that moment something which has no parallel in human experience
invaded his consciousness and touched his life. There he bowed his head, for he
felt himself in the presence of a God infinitely holy. The nearer we come to
God, or the nearer He comes to us, the more we realise our own sinfulness and
insignificance. Therefore the deeper becomes our humility. This is what we see
in the Scriptures. When God revealed to Job a little of His glory he bowed his
head and said, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye
seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” The same
was true of God’s prophet when in the temple he had a glimpse of the awesome
majesty of the Triune God. “Woe is me, for I am undone . . . for mine eyes have
seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Daniel was a man greatly beloved of God, but
a man whose “comeliness was turned into corruption” when a ray of the divine
glory was let fall on his spirit. Similar instances are before us in the New
Testament when men like Peter, Paul and the apostle John shrank before the glory
of Him who is the First and the Last. This holy humility shall stay with us
throughout eternity in God’s loving but awesome presence. “God is greatly to be
feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them
that are about him.” The dark fear which is in the heart of devils and evil men
in relation to God is infinitely remote from the holy fear which lodges in the
heart of God’s child. The one has its roots in hatred toward Him and the other
has its roots in holy love. The one would destroy God, and seeks separation and
concealment from Him. The other embraces Him and is ever seeking greater
nearness to Him and a greater holiness of life. The lost shall be eternally
trying, in abject terror, to get away from His frown and presence. The redeemed
know that the joy of Heaven has its source in the light of His countenance. The
one says: “Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.” The
other says “In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are
pleasures for evermore.” The God, therefore, in whose presence Jacob was afraid
was, on the other hand, the Beloved of His soul. Deep reverence and holy love to
God are kindred graces.

It was this apprehension of the holiness of God that led Jacob to separate
himself from every species of idolatry, and which made him plead with his
household to put away their strange gods and to purify themselves from the
defilements of their idols. The God of Bethel had spoken to him again, demanding
a deeper consecration of his life. He knew that he was in the presence of a
“jealous” God to whom sin in every shape and form was a loathsome thing and the
cause of alienating the affections of His people from Himself. And especially in
our worship of His name is our sin in this respect most heinous.

Today, and within the visible Church, many have made a God in their own image
and on their own level. The complacent and almost blasphemous irreverence with
which graceless men address, and speak of, God is the evidence that they are as
ignorant of Him as they are of themselves. This holy awe or dread has never
touched their spirits. If it had they would say with others: “God be merciful to
me a sinner.”

But, perhaps, the sweetest thought that we can derive from these words is that
the God of Bethel is:

V. An Intimately Personal God. “The God of Bethel” is also “The God of Jacob”.
How wonderfully do these words dovetail into one another. This is His name, and
this is His memorial for ever. The Lord loves all His people equally, but each
one makes a personal discovery of His love and care as if — in the words of
Augustine — He loved no one but ourselves. The words, “My Lord and my God” have
often, in moments of unusual nearness to the Christ, dropped like honey from the
lips of Christ’s spouse. “My beloved is mine, and I am His.” This personal sense
of possession and enjoyment shall remain with each and all of His people for
ever and ever. Is it not also true that each of us has his or her own personal
and deeply valued spiritual experiences? We remember, like Jacob, places and
seasons where and when the Lord refreshed our souls with a deep sense of His
Presence. Sometimes in the secret place He becomes “a little sanctuary” to us.
He draws us with the cords of His love. He embraces our soul, warms it with His
love and seals His word upon our heart. We get glimpses of His glory, so that
all doubt as to who is beside us is taken away. “Surely the Lord is in this
place.” We knew a man who, night after night, and under the light of the stars,
enjoyed much communion with Christ. Sometimes, as he kneeled on the heather
beside a stone which jutted out of the ground, he watered it with his tears.
Years afterwards when he came in view of that spot of sweet and hallowed
memories he broke down and wept. Our Bethel hours, on the other hand, may be in
the public means of grace. We remember an evening long ago walking out of a
meeting house behind an elderly woman. When someone apologised to her for the
length of the service she said: “Oh, I could have stayed there for ever.” The
Lord gave her a drink from the river of His pleasure. Such hours are precious
beyond words. We remember them with a touch of holy nostalgia, and sometimes
long for the day when our Bethel shall never come to an end. It is good to know
that the God who is in Heaven is also down in this lower vale in daily communion
with His people. “Whom have I in heaven but Thee; and there is none upon earth
that I desire beside Thee.” He is here as well as there. “The God of Bethel” is
also:

V. A God to be confessed. It may be that you who read, have often poured out
your soul before the Lord in the secret place, yet you have never confessed Him
as your God before man. The Lord values our secret exercises and confessions,
but let me remind you that He has also commanded us to confess Him before men.
Let us not be ashamed to own Him as our Lord. Whatever timidity and fears may
lodge in our hearts we should never conceal the worth of our inheritance or
whose we are and whom we serve. He is not ashamed to call us brethren. He
confessed us before men. “These”, He said, “are my mother, my sister and my
brother.” The voice in which God expresses His love to His people reverberates,
as it were, throughout all creation. “And I heard a great voice out of Heaven
saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them,
and they shall be His people, and God himself shall be with them and be their
God.” Both your past sins and your present infirmities may discourage you from
paying your vows before the Lord in His people’s company and in the presence of
the world. But remember His promise:

“My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Mary confessed Him in the presence of Judas and before His apostles. “She hath
done what she could . . . and wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached
throughout the whole world this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a
memorial of her.” To confess the Lord is one of our greatest privileges here.
The Church, in The Song, though confessing herself to be “black”, would, on the
other hand, describe Him to Jerusalem’s daughters and say: “This is my Beloved,
and this is my friend, O ye daughters of Jerusalem.”

Let me end our brief meditation by saying that however sweet and precious our
Bethel hours may be here, we must not tarry on this mount. This is not our rest.
The Lord’s people are strangers and pilgrims in this world — seeking that city
which hath foundations. They shall all at last be gathered to Shiloh, their
glorious Redeemer. There, their sun shall no more go down. Till then let us,
like Jacob, wait for His salvation till the day break and the shadows flee away.
Are there those in my hearing to whom the God of Bethel is a stranger? Do not
despise Him who is speaking to you from Heaven. Make Christ your own, and then
you shall be of those who say, “The Lord is the portion of my soul.” “For God is
the portion of Jacob.” Without Him, whatever else we may have, we shall remain
in a state of eternal misery. Why not make Him your own this day? Happy are the
people whose God is the Lord. Amen.

These sermons are taken from Everlasting Love a book of devotional sermons by
Rev. Murdoch Campbell, and published by The Knox Press (Edinburgh), 1969.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 3: S. GOD'S EVERLASTING LOVE
========================================================================

God’s Everlasting Love by Murdoch Campbell, M.A.

“The Lord hath appeared unto me of old saying, “Yea, I have loved thee with an
everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee.” (Jer 31:3).
When these words were first spoken by the prophet, God was laying many and heavy
chastisements on His people for their sins. But lest their spirits should fail
under their afflictions, and lest they should be tempted to think that the Lord
had forgotten to be gracious, He sends them a reassuring word of unspeakable
consolation. It was not a word spoken to them only, but is meant for all the
people of God in every age. In seeking to understand something of the
significance and implications of these inconceivably precious words let us
consider:

I. The Nature of God’s Love

It is “everlasting”. That word “everlasting” means something which, like a
river, is ever flowing. Under this figure we may say that this love had its rise
and wellspring in the heart and sovereign will of God. It is the river of His
“good pleasure”, the streams of which make glad the city of God both in Heaven
and on earth. Unlike the love of God, our love to Him has a beginning in time,
though it shall have no end. His love flows on through eternal ages without a
beginning or an end. “Unto Him who loves us.” The present tense in this phrase
implies a beginningless and endless continuity.

There are three Persons in the Godhead, but only, as Augustine reminds us, una
mens, or one mind. Therefore His love also is one. It is the love of the Triune
God. This love, however, has its several manifestations and its different
exercises. We speak, for example, of the electing love of the Father, the
redeeming love of the Son, and the sanctifying love of the Holy Ghost. “God is
love”, and His love is, therefore, like Himself. It is infinite, eternal,
unchangeable and unsearchable. It is everlasting in its duration. It is
infinite, or like a sea without a shore. It is unchangeable or like an ocean
which is always at full tide. It is unfathomable in its depth, and unsearchable
in the mystery of its grace and choice. Paul once prayed that the new-born
Church at Ephesus might be able to know, “with all the saints what is the
breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the love of Christ which passeth
knowledge.” He told them of this life-giving plenitude, out of which they might
drink, that they also “might be filled with the fullness of God.”

It was this everlasting love which was in the heart of God that gave full
exercise to all His glorious attributes in the salvation of His Church. All His
gifts and blessings may also be traced to His love. Both Christ and the Holy
Spirit, with the countless blessings associated with each, are the gifts of His
love. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” And God “who
spared not his own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with
Him also freely give us all things?”

Again God’s love is necessarily sovereign. It arose spontaneously in Himself
“according to the good pleasure of His will” and without any worthiness on our
side. There was nothing in our persons or in our works to draw this love towards
us. There was, on the other hand, everything to repel. He loved us, not for what
we were, but in spite of what we were. Paul could never forget the stupendous
miracle of Christ’s sovereign love to himself. He who raged against and
persecuted the infant Church, and who spoke of himself as “the chief of
sinners”, marvelled that the Son of God should love him and give Himself for
him. It was he who afterwards wrote of how “the kindness and love of God
appeared to men, not by works of righteousness which we have done but according
to His mercy He saved us.” (Tit 3:1-15). This is also a love which is intimately
personal. “I have loved thee.” He loves each of His people as He loves all. In
conscious possession of Christ’s love and promise every Christian may say: “My
Beloved is mine.” To many believers God communicates this sweet secret — that
they were the subjects of His love from all eternity. In the manifestation and
assurance of His love to the soul there is an all-absorbing apprehension of
Christ as the One who is fairer than the sons of men, and of the glory of His
finished work.

II. The way in which His Love was revealed

It was revealed “of old”. He loved us “from afar”. So the word might be
translated. It embraces not only the idea of duration but also of distance. God,
in the dignity of His Being. is an infinite distance from all the creatures
whether in Heaven or on earth. He is far above all. The highest angel before the
throne is, in point of being, an immeasurable distance from Him who dwells in
light which is inaccessible, and who is infinite in Himself. But who can measure
the moral and spiritual distance between God and the sinner? Modem scientists
labour, as it were, in the grip of mathematics as they try to give expression to
the vast inconceivable distances between the various stars in that part of the
universe which is under the observation of their limited perception. These are,
however, mere fractions of distance compared to the distance between the Throne
of Glory in the highest Heaven and “the far country” where the sinner is. That
distance was so great that only God’s love and wisdom, in the Person of His dear
Son, could ever span it. “The Lord is high above all nations, and His glory
above the heavens. Who is like unto the Lord our God who dwells on high. Who
humbleth Himself to behold the things which are in heaven and in earth.” “He
raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and the needy out of the dunghill.” (Psa
113:1-9). How wonderful it is that God should look in such a way “on the base
things of the world and on the things which are despised.”

If light travels far and fast how much more does the love of God! Distance and
duration are, indeed, two aspects of His marvellous love. When the prophet uses
the words “of old” he also brings the idea of duration within historical time.
The word may even express God’s first manifestation of His love to his own soul.
We think, however, that he is speaking on behalf of the Church of God in every
age. This love which was in God from everlasting was revealed to man in the very
morning of Time. Think of Adam and Eve trying to hide themselves among the trees
of the garden. At that solemn hour God sought them, and having pronounced the
dread sentence which their sin, and ours in them, called forth, He there and
then opened for them a door of hope. Mercy shone through the thick darkness, and
the terrors of His just curse were pierced through by beams of love eternal.
From the lips of God fell that word which contained the promise of a Redeemer.
“The seed of the woman” would come to bruise the serpent’s head. Within that
unspeakably precious word were hid those great depths and the mystery of that
divine grace which the ages of eternity cannot fully declare. (Psa 106:2). From
that hour drops began to fall from Heaven, and the finger of God began to draw
aside the curtain till, in the fulness of the times, there was a real and final
manifestation of His love and glory in the gift and work of His own eternal Son.
But what, we may ask are III. The Evidence and Characteristics of His Love? A
primary characteristic of love is that it seeks nearness to its subjects. We
naturally seek nearness to those whom we love. And Christ came near to the
Church in the everlasting council of peace. He then undertook to be her Husband
and Saviour. As it is customary among men for the father “to give away” his
daughter on the day of her marriage, so in the transactions of eternity, when
the Son consented to redeem His people, God the Father gave them to the Son in
an indissoluble covenant. “Thine they were and thou gayest them me.” “He that
hath the Bride is the Bridegroom.” Nearer He could not come. This is the most
solemn and the most mysterious relationship known to man. “This”, says Paul, “is
a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.” (Eph 5:32).

He came near to them in another way. There is a lovely law in nature, whereby
all the creatures dwell together “after their kind”. This wonderful law nature
observes in the most impressive way. The Great Author of this law of kinship
imparted sanctity and honour to it when He united our nature to His own Person
for ever. Thereby He became what He was not till then — He became Man.
“Forasmuch then as the children are made partakers of flesh and blood, He also
Himself likewise took part of the same.” (Heb 2:1-18). He married our nature
that He might come near to us and dwell with us, and that He might be a true
Husband to us in all love and tenderness. God the Father prepared a body for
Him, and the Spirit conceived it in the womb of the Virgin. He took our nature
without its sin, and yet with its sinless infirmities — that He might enter into
our trials, temptations and sorrows, and that in a real, personal and
experimental sense His love and pity might flow to all His suffering people to
the end of time. The Church, indeed, is the weaker vessel, but her exalted Lord
is still touched with a feeling of her infirmity.

He took our nature also that He might destroy the sin which had destroyed us,
and “him who had the power of death, that is, the devil”. How wonderful to think
that from all eternity our Lord joyously anticipated the day when, as “a man of
sorrows” He should inhabit the earth, and in their nature and likeness
tabernacle with men in order that He might deliver them out of the hand of Satan
who had led them captive in their fall!

Another characteristic of Christ’s love was its willingness to suffer for those
on whom it rests. Our Lord found His people ready to perish for ever in the
cruel, unrelenting grasp of sin and death. They had the sentence of death in
themselves. They came to know also that God’s justice, in perfect righteousness,
was, like an avenging sword, ready to slay them. They heard the accusing voice
of the Holy Law — whose just demands are that we should perfectly love the Lord
and one another — speaking against their sins. The voice from the mountain which
is shrouded in unrelieved darkness they heard like thunder reverberating through
a guilty conscience. “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all the works
of the Law to do them.” But for the joy set before Him Christ faced all the
spiritual and physical agonies, all the shame and reproach, all the wrath, and
all the heavy and unavoidable afflictions which their sins deserved. “He who
knew no sin was made sin for us.” The whole weight of our iniquities with all
the sorrows and sicknesses which they bore, He took upon Himself. Our sins,
which were imputed to Him, became His own. In love He died our death. “For the
transgression of my people was He smitten.” This He did, that His perfect
righteousness and merit, might, in being imputed to us, render us for ever
acceptable to God. O, what love moved Him to do all this. “Christ loved the
Church and gave Himself for it . . . that He might present it to Himself a
glorious Church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.” And in the day of
her final presentation to Him in Heaven, when in His righteousness and image she
shall appear in all the wonder of eternal youth and loveliness, He shall rejoice
over her as a young man rejoiceth over his bride. As love is willing to suffer
it is also willing to give. Christ possesses unsearchable riches. As God’s only
and eternally begotten Son He is the “Heir of all things”. The Father gave all
things into His hand. As the Mediator of the New Covenant God gave Him the
fulness of the Spirit and all the treasures of His wisdom and grace. The
blessing is “on the head of Joseph and top of the head of him who was separated
from His brethren.” But, in a deed of testament, Christ gave His riches away!
That testament became valid when He died. “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, how though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor that ye through
his poverty might be rich.” These unsearchable and inexhaustible riches are
administered in the Gospel now, and will be administered throughout endless ages
in the kingdom of glory. This is love indeed; and this is good news for the poor
in Zion. God is able to supply all our needs “according to his riches in glory
by Jesus Christ.” Throughout eternity His people shall be led to make new
discoveries of the wonderful love “which passeth knowledge”. Happy are all they
whose prayer is:

“Remember me, Lord with that love, Which thou to thine dost bear, With thy
salvation, O my God, To visit me draw near.” (Psa 106:1-48).

Another blessed characteristic of this love is its irresistible power. “And with
loving kindness have I drawn thee.” Christ found His people dead in trespasses
and sin; but in a day of His power He quickened them and called them effectually
to Himself. He passed by them and said, “Live”, and He made their time “a time
of love”. He drew them out of a state of death and darkness “with the cords of
love and with the bands of a man.” They saw His love in dying for them on the
Cross. This, especially, is what melted their heart, drew them into His bosom,
and made them weep at His feet. “I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw
all men unto me.” From this love they can never be separated; for “who shall
separate us from the love of Christ?” From that day a prayer was born in their
heart: “Draw me and we will run after thee.” Those who have His love in their
soul shall be enabled to persevere to the end of their pilgrimage journey. “Love
never faileth.” Many waters cannot quench it. It is stronger than death and
jealous as the grave. Let me very briefly and in conclusion mention:

IV. Some of the marks which belong to those who know this love.

There is one place where all God’s people meet. They meet within the great
declaration — “We love Him who first loved us.” This is, therefore, a
reciprocating love. All whom Christ loved will come to love Christ. We know, of
course, that there are degrees of this love within the Church of God, but, in
this world, none can love Him in the measure in which He deserves. No, nor yet
throughout eternity.

Now, the love of Christ in the heart is not a mere emotion. It is certainly
something which lodges in our heart, but which has also its outward
manifestation in the life of all His people. To love Christ is to obey Him. “If
ye love me keep my commandments.” And to His own His commandment is not grievous
but joyous. God’s child loves God’s will as it is revealed in His Word, and,
like David, when he or she sees God’s law disparaged and trampled under foot of
men, “rivers of waters run down their eyes.”

Those who love Christ would serve Christ. In this our own day when “the harvest
truly is plenteous and the labourers are few” how we ought to exert ourselves in
His service! But with iniquity abounding on all sides the love of many has waxed
cold. O! that we might in this day of small things and during life’s brief hour,
show our love to Him by doing what we can, and especially by wrestling with Him
in secret that His kingdom may come and that the kingdom of darkness might be
destroyed. His people not only serve Him but they also suffer for Him. “Unto you
it is given on behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him but also to suffer
for His sake.” The page of history tells us of the physical sufferings of the
Church in other days. To her, literally speaking, His love was better than life.
Many lay down their lives for their love to Him. But we believe that the
greatest trials of God’s people are often inward, and proceed from their
conflicts with sin and Satan. A great Divine once wrote a letter to a friend in
which he said that in the measure in which we love God in the same measure will
Satan hate us. “For thus,” he said, “is the nature of the love of God, according
to the measure of it in the heart the most fiery and envenomed darts of Satan
will pierce through our spirits tempting us to despise Him whose glory we
account preferable to all creation.” But His love in our heart “endures all
things”. If we are His, very soon we shall be drawn beyond the reach of all that
distresses us here.

Then, in that fair world beyond the skies, we shall sing together His praise
“But as for me I with my mouth Will greatly praise the Lord, And I among the
multitude His praises will record.” (Psa 109:1-31).

These sermons are taken from Everlasting Love a book of devotional sermons by
Rev. Murdoch Campbell, and published by The Knox Press (Edinburgh), 1969.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 4: S. LET US NOT SLEEP
========================================================================

Let us not Sleep by Murdoch Campbell, M.A.

“And that knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for
now is our salvation nearer when we believed.” (Rom 13:2).

When these words were first written the Church, under the New Testament
Dispensation, was still in its spiritual infancy. But even then the Apostle
could see a dark cloud of persecution descending upon it. The Dragon was casting
a flood out of his mouth that he might devour both the Church of Christ and her
seed. The heathen were raging against the Lord and His anointed. Satan’s
emissaries never tire in their opposition to Christ and to those who serve Him.
But the Apostle was aware of another danger. This danger was within the Church
itself. It was that the people of God might, in their hour of peril, lose their
spiritual vigilance and forget the exhortation that they should always watch and
pray. This danger within the Church was, we believe, much greater than any to
which she might be exposed from without. Let us offer a word on:

I. The Sin against which we are here warned “Let us not sleep, as do others.”

We can, dear friends, expect nothing from a godless world or from the multitudes
who make a dead religious profession but that they should remain in this state
of spiritual slumber and death. But the people of God have, in a day of His
power, been delivered out of this condition. They are a people whom God has
awakened out of their spiritual unconcern. They heard His voice: “Awake thou
that sleepest, and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light.” “And
you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” But the danger is
that they may sleep again. Needless to say, the true people of God can never
return to that state of total spiritual death out of which God has called them.
They can never fall out of a state of grace, or lose their souls. In the day of
their regeneration Christ gives them eternal life. But while they have grace in
their souls, that grace may not always be in exercise. Spiritual slumber may
overtake their eves. The Psalmist prayed against this danger. “Lighten mine
eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.” Are there not influences abroad in our
day which induce this state? Many have, for example, gone to sleep on the lap of
their material comforts. They “wax fat” in the enjoyment of temporal favours
while they “kick” against their spiritual duties and neglect the Throne of
Grace. There are also ensnaring distractions peculiar to this age which too
often eat up our time and deaden our souls. Some of these have invaded our very
homes. And the world in which we live, with its deceptive haze of religious
formalism, may become an “enchanted ground”. When Christian and Hopeful became
aware of this danger on their pilgrimage to Heaven they had to stir up one
another lest the fatal atmosphere by which they were surrounded, and which so
menacingly touched their eyes, should overcome them. How solemnly is this
brought before us in the parable of the virgins. If this slumber began with the
foolish ones, it did not end with them. It overcame the wise as well. Spiritual
sleep, we believe, is infectious. Our Lord predicted that in the latter days the
love of many would wax cold. It was here that the sad decline of the Church at
Ephesus began. She had forsaken her first love. This was the root cause of her
fall. The Lord, however, did not say that the love of all would wax cold, but
that the love of many would. How we ought to thank God that there are,
throughout the land, the “few names” who do not defile their garments and who
keep watch on the walls of Zion!

Many also, as we know, sleep on the lap of a false hope, and many others are
lulled into this state by the voice of the false prophet — so common in our age
— whose favourite words are, “peace, peace”. But the Lord tells us that for such
“there is no peace”.

We ought to remind ourselves that prayer, whether at the family altar or in the
public means of grace, is good and necessary in its own place; but the Lord also
commands us to watch as well as to pray. The two go together, and what God has
joined together let no man put asunder. The Church in the Song sought Christ on
her bed in the night; but the Psalmist said that He would give no rest to his
eyelids, nor go up upon his bed, till he had found a place for the Lord, or till
the Lord would return to His Zion, the place where He desired to dwell.

All the people of God have their own infirmities and we make no excuse for
these. In the awful crisis of Gethsemane the disciples slept. While the spirit
was willing, the flesh was weak. They slept during the hour of danger and of
their Lord’s agony. But Satan and all his followers were wide awake. Judas
Iscariot was not asleep in that dread hour. “Woe to them that are at ease in
Zion.” In the days of the prophet Isaiah there was a fatal spiritual stillness
within the Church and over which God’s prophet mourned. “There is none that
calleth upon thy name; that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou
hast hid thy face from its, and hast consumed us because of our iniquities.” Was
he not an exception? Yes, he was. “And I will wait upon the Lord that hideth his
face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.” These are his words in
regard to his own secret exercises before God at the Throne of Grace. May we be
like him. Observe also:

II. The Danger and Aggravation of this Sin “And that knowing the time . . In the
world of nature there are seasons when we can relax. A ship — to use an
illustration — may be sailing on a calm sea. The wind may be favourable. The sky
clear. All is peaceful. But for the Church of God there are no such seasons in
this world. For it, the wind is often contrary, and the hour may be dark and
perilous. Its enemies in hell and on earth are ever seeking its hurt. There is
not a moment in its life here when it should remain listless or discard “the
whole armour of God”, since all the principalities and powers of the kingdom of
darkness seek its destruction. The Christian life is not a sleep but an
unceasing warfare and a constant watchfulness. And are there not times in the
history of the Church which call for greater vigilance and greater spiritual
activity? The days we live in are laden with danger. Whether we think of the
political or ecclesiastical world the same thing is true. These truly are times
of peril without parallel in history. The shadow of nuclear devastation is over
our planet. And this, we fear, is something that we cannot now escape. There
are, we believe, those who have the mind of the Lord in relation to this coming
woe. Are we not really paving a way for God’s indignation? The very sins for
which God, in His fierce anger, destroyed peoples and nations in the past are
rearing their ugly heads in our midst and are being condoned and sanctioned by
our government, by many godless men and by some of our so-called Church leaders.
This should be one of our deepest sorrows, spiritual concern before God.

You recall that when God told Abraham of his intention to destroy Sodom and
Gomorrah he immediately prayed that God would spare these cities should He have
a remnant there. He was in the path of duty. With a cloud of wrath over those
evil places Abraham did not go to sleep. And why does His judgment tarry with
us? You remember what is written — “For except the Lord had left its a very
small remnant we should have been as Sodom and like unto Gomorrah.” Another
prophet prayed in a later age that the Lord in the midst of wrath would remember
mercy. Jonah was in the way of disobedience when he slept in the ship. He had
been sent to warn the people of Nineveh, and to pray that God might give them a
spirit of repentance. Instead of doing this he sought to flee from God’s
presence and gave way to slavish fear. Some of its here have seen two
generations given over to the sword. We have witnessed two waves of God’s
judgment passing over the nations of Europe. “The second woe is past and,
behold, the third woe cometh quickly.” How can we be at ease in Zion in such an
hour? But there are graver dangers than these potential physical perils. What of
the spiritual realm? What of the cause of Christ in our day? The time was when
“Bethel” could be written on the very portals of the Reformation Church in
Scotland. The Lord was there. But as it happened in Israel of old “the boar out
of the forest” has broken down her hedges, and the once faithful vine whose
branches covered our land is now in a state of decay. Not only so, but there are
many men now within her pale whose sole aim is to bring her under the papal
yoke, and into the bondage of darkness and idolatry out of which God once
delivered her. The process of spiritual degeneration can hardly go further. And
how could such a thing happen? What caused this decay and decline? It all
happened “while we slept”. Christ is his parable of the tares reminds its that
the enemy, and those who serve him, are ever trying to undo God’s work. It was
“while men slept” — the men who ought to have kept watch in the night — that the
enemy did his evil work. Look at the Protestant Church in Britain today. Is it
not evident that its ministry is largely graceless or unconverted, for no man
born of God departs from God’s word either into the way of unbelief or into the
way of an unscriptural unity, or as to how God should be worshipped. And ought
we not to mourn over this for it is the outcome of our own spiritual slumber and
that of our fathers with whom, in the words of the Psalm, we have sinned. A
famous Highland minister, Mr Lachian Mackenzie, once made a comment in one of
his sermons on Christ when he was asleep in the ship while, on the other hand,
the disciples were awake and crying to Him for His intervention in their danger.
Neither the roaring sea nor the howling wind wakened Him, but the prayers of His
disciples did. “As long,” he said, “as we have in the Church of God on earth men
and women who keep praying to God for the preservation of His cause, the Church,
like the Ark in the flood, is safe.” But woe to the Church when its watchmen
sleep. The cry of the people of God in such an hour is, “Awake, why sleepest
thou, O Lord? Arise; cast us not off for ever. Wherefore hidest thou thy face
and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?”. As great storms are
approaching our world, it is not the roar of war on the billows of His judgment
that shall awake Hini out of sleep, but the cries or prayers of His people. This
is what brought Him down in other days. “I have heard the groanings of my people
who are in Egypt. I have seen their affliction and I am come down to save them.”
When Mordecai saw how the enemies of Israel had decreed their destruction he
reminded Queen Esther of her urgent duty, and warned her against remaining
silent in such an hour. “For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time
then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another
place; bitt thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed”. God will have a
cause in the world to the end of time, but He has often removed His candlestick
out of places which had been highly favoured of Him and transferred it to other
places and lands. Why? For the misuse of privilege and the neglect of spiritual
duties. O, that the spirit of grace and of supplication might remain with us! If
we grieve Him, He may leave us. It is easy to alienate God’s presence from our
midst, but it is not so easy to bring Him back again. This is one of the solemn
lessons before us in God’s Word. We know of many places where the Lord once
tarried but where He is now a stranger. The cry of the prophet is full of
instruction: “O, the hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble, why
shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth
aside to tarry for a night?” There is only one answer to this question. Their
own sin and their spiritual unconcern in the presence of many evils had
alienated His presence from their midst. Although the Lord shall never utterly
forsake His own people in His covenant or in His promise, this denial of His
presence and saving power is the greatest chastisement that He can bring upon
them in this world. It were well for us if we could say with the Psalmist, “My
soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say more
than they that watch for the morning.” And listen to the voice of His Bride,
“Until the day break and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of
myrrh and to the hill of frankincense.” These words express the soul exercises
of the Church in other days, when, in the way of prayer and patience, she
remained on her knees. Notice also:

III. The Duty Urged “Let us, therefore, cast off the works of darkness, and let
its put on the armour of light . . .”

There are garments which are appropriate for the night as there are garments
which are suitable for the day. It would be wrong and unbecoming to appear in
the day time in the garments which clothe us in the night. And the call of God
to His people is to put off their former conversation, or the habits which
dominated their lives in the days of their ignorance. As the children of the
day, they should discard these forever. All imitation of an ungodly world they
should for ever forsake. “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of
darkness, but rather reprove them.” This, we know, is a continuous exercise of
soul with God’s people. The works which they seek to put off would still cling
to them so that, in the words of another, they are always beginning. Not till
they close their eyes in time shall they be made perfect in holiness.

You notice that as they cast off the works of darkness they put on the armour of
light. We are commanded to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and to make no provision
for the flesh. As the children of the day, they are in conflict with the powers
of darkness, but since they have put on the Lord Jesus Christ no enemy can
prevail against them. He is an almighty Saviour. When David went forward to
engage the giant of Gath he was not afraid. “I come to thee in the name of the
Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom thou hast defied.” The
Scriptures speak of the believer as clothed in Christ as his righteousness, his
strength, his light and his salvation; but the word which is here used means
also those weapons of our spiritual warfare which the apostle mentions in his
letter to the Ephesians. And how adequate these are for all those who fight the
good fight of faith! Hell has never forged a weapon, and never shall, which
shall overcome God’s child if in his armour he be clad, and if these weapons he
rightly employs. This is what John Bunyan discovered when, with the Sword of
God’s Word in his hand, he challenged the great adversary. “Rejoice not against
me, O mine enemy: when I fall I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be a light unto me.” “The armour of light.” “The Sun of Righteousness.”
“For the Lord our God is a sun and shield.” These words proclaim that while all
the graces, all the provisions and promises of God are at the disposal of the
Church of Christ in her spiritual warfare and perseverance He is, at the same
time, present with her Himself. Therefore, no weapon formed against her shall
ever prosper. But the warfare must go on, till we, by God’s grace, can say with
Paul: “I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the
faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the
Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.” Finally, notice:

IV. The Anticipated Salvation “For now is our salvation nearer than when we
believed.” The people to whom Paul wrote these words were already in a state of
salvation; but the end of their faith was their final salvation from all
conflict, from all darkness, from all sin and from all sorrow. And such a state
can be enjoyed only on the other side of the “river” — with Christ in Heaven.
Not till then shall our warfare be over. Each breath we breathe, each step we
take, brings us nearer to our heavenly Home. What does this salvation imply? One
of Paul’s sorrows on earth came through the buffetings of Satan and through the
untiring evil of sin working in his members. This is the plague of our hearts,
but soon we shall enter upon that glorious liberty of the children of God and
shall be made perfect in holiness.

Sin is a darkness; but “there shall be no night there”. Night shall be swallowed
up in an everlasting day. There shall be no night of sorrow through temptation,
fear or loneliness in that place where the Lamb, Who is the light thereof, shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes. Neither shall they hunger any more, for He
who is in the midst of the Throne shall feed them and lead them to living
fountains of water. In His presence there is a fulness of joy, and at His right
hand are pleasures for evermore. And we ought to live each day as if it were our
last day here. We should always be ready; for we know not the hour when our Lord
shall come. Have you ever noticed how those who are on a voyage across a sea
stand in readiness to disembark when the harbour comes into view? Those who are
going to the heavenly country may even now, by faith, view the desired haven and
the fair shore of a better world. May he find us ready when He comes, with our
lamps lit and our staff in our hand, and ready to disembark on the shore of that
country wherein dwelleth righteousness. But the night is far spent, the day is
at hand. It may be that there are some listening to my voice who are moving
toward a lost eternity. Is it not time you should leave the way of sin and
return to God! Why should you die? “Behold, now is the day of salvation.” Our
earnest exhortation to you is — “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the
dead and Christ shall give thee Light.”

These sermons are taken from Everlasting Love a book of devotional sermons by
Rev. Murdoch Campbell, and published by The Knox Press (Edinburgh), 1969.


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  CHAPTER 5: S. THE BRIDE'S PRAYER
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The Bride’s Prayer by Murdoch Campbell, M.A.

“Awake, O north wind: and come thou south; blow upon my garden that the spices
thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat of his
pleasant fruits. I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse.” (Song of
Solomon 4:16 and Song of Solomon 5:1)

There are seasons in the life of God’s people when their souls cleave to the
dust, and when the shadow of spiritual decline may lie heavily over their
spirits. At such times they seek “a little reviving in their bondage,” and, in
the words of the Psalm, they ask the Lord to quicken them according to His word.
And when the Lord draws near to them, and breathes upon them with the warm
breath of His mouth, not only are their own hearts revived but their prayers
also ascend to God that He might visit all His people with a time of refreshing
and with a day of His power. This, we think, is the way the Church prays here.
“Blow upon my garden.” Then she goes on to plead that He would visit His own
garden everywhere and that both His gracious presence and the fruits of the
Spirit might rejoice and encourage His waiting people everywhere. In making a
comment on these words let us consider:

I. The Prayer and its Plea This prayer, we believe, is for the awakening power
of the Holy Spirit. Under this figure the Spirit of God, in His saving
operations, is often brought before us in the written Word. “The wind bloweth
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence
it cometh or whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” When
God’s prophet stood helpless before the valley of dry bones God commanded him to
pray for the living breath, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe
upon these slain that they may live.” It was as “a rushing mighty wind” that He
descended on the Church on the day of Pentecost .So mighty was His power on that
day that the holy repercussions of the Spirit’s descent are still felt in this
world, and shall be to the end of time. The immediate situation which moved the
Church to utter this prayer was her awareness of the spiritual decay which had
spread over God’s vineyard everywhere. In the words of the prophet death had
come up into her windows and had entered her palaces. In his own day Isaiah
speaks of the ominous stillness, the dark symptom of spiritual death, which
everywhere prevailed. “There is none that calleth upon Thy name, that stirreth
up himself to lay hold upon Thee”. Spiritual silence and sleep always go
together. It is when we sleep that Satan, “the boar out of the forest” plays
havoc with God’s vine. It is then that the enemy sows his tares in the field.
The Church knew that when the enemy, through the neglect of those who should
keep watch upon the walls of Zion, came in like a flood only the Spirit of the
Lord could arrest his power. Therefore she prays, “Awake, O north wind and come
thou south.” In the presence of such a state of decline the Church is aware of
her own helplessness. There is so much that men can do. They can initiate
unspiritual, and often unscriptural, movements within the visible Church, but it
is not by might or by power on the part of man that God’s cause is rescued and
revived but by His Spirit. The question was asked of old “By whom shall Jacob
arise for he is small?” “Lord thou knowest.” The prophet could see the Church in
his own day drawing, as it were, its last breath, and only by a miracle of
divine power could Jacob arise again. By proclaiming the word of the Lord the
prophet Ezekiel brought all the dry bones of the house of Israel together. They
even assumed the appearance and order of life, but as yet there was no breath in
them. There was much stir and noise. There was a form of godliness, but no power
at all. Only when the prophet, at God’s command, prophesied unto the breath did
they arise to newness of life. When, conscious of his helplessness, he combined
his pleading with earnest supplication did the miracle of a spiritual
resurrection happen. It is comparatively easy to assemble men and women
together, to assume a religious complexion and to create noise and stir in the
religious world; but without the Spirit it can avail, little or nothing.

There was something else of which the Church was aware. She knew that only the
Holy Spirit could give its proper exercise to the grace which lodges within the
souls of believers. The Holy Spirit is given to God’s people as the Spirit of
grace and of supplication. But there are seasons when they are at ease in Zion,
and when they “rest on their lees.” But “woe to them that are at ease in Zion.”
Her earnest prayer, therefore, was that with the coming of the wind “the spices”
of grace in the hearts of God’s people might flow forth in continual prayer to
God that “in a day of small things” He might arise and plead His own Cause.

It is encouraging to observe how in other days the prayers and conscious
helplessness of the Church coincided with mighty displays of God’s power. It was
often when the Church was on her knees that her Lord went forth in His chariots
of salvation and His right hand performed “terrible things”. Look at her in
Egypt under sentence of death. But she was not silent. “I have surely seen,”
said the Lord to Moses, “the afflictions of my people who are in Egypt and I
have heard their cry . . . and I am come down to deliver them.” Their sighs went
before their songs — their night of weeping preceded their morning of joy. The
wind which dried up the sea before her was the evidence of His saving power. He
came in answer to her prayers. Her deliverance out of the bondage of Babylon
answered to the same pattern. There they sat and wept as they thought of Zion in
her desolation. There they wrestled with God that He might pluck His hand from
His bosom and save them. Then it happened. “When the Lord turned again the
captivity of Zion we were like them who dream. Then was our mouth filled with
laughter.”

Look also at what happened in Europe during the midnight darkness of the papal
age. Throughout those long years of spiritual decay and death God’s “hidden
ones” were crying to Him to visit His own desolate vineyard with a day of power,
Then the wind began to blow, driving before it the idolatries, superstitions and
blasphemies of the papal system which had for so long ensnared and defiled the
nations of Europe. God’s vineyard was again revived and purified. The Church of
the Reformation — the perfect counterpart of the apostolic Church — was born,
never to die. Do we not at this hour live in “a day of small things”? But with
all its terrors, lawlessness and apostacy the Lord has still many people in the
world whose prayer is that His Kingdom might come and His cause be uplifted. We
believe that the day will come when the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the
earth as the waters cover the sea. Many today have this same prayer on their
lips and in their heart — “Awake O north wind and come thou south.” And what is
the promise? “When the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory.
He will regard the prayer of the destitute and not despise their prayer.” In
this prayer there is a just recognition that a true awakening is accompanied by
both sorrow and joy. The north wind, we believe, is typical of the Spirit’s work
in convincing men of their sin. “When He is come He will convince the world of
sin and of righteousness and of judgment.” He brings the sinner to the bar of
God’s Word where he sees that he is without God and without hope in the world.
There also he sees that all his righteousnesses are as filthy rags and that at
the bar of His just judgment he cannot but bow his head and plead guilty before
Him. He also looks to Him whom he has pierced, and mourns. He mourns over the
fact that he hated Him without a cause. When this strong wind blows through our
souls we are left with nothing but our sin and its shame.

There have sometimes been so-called “revivals” from which this godly sorrow was
absent, and too often they bore no lasting fruit. There are those who, like
Bunyan’s Pliable, receive the word with a false joy only to return to their old
haunts and environment. But true believers have their seasons of sorrow before
their time of love and their hour of deliverance. Before their Bethel comes
their Bochim. We agree that there are different degrees of this in the
experience of God’s people but repentance unto life is a saving grace and can
never be divorced from grief over sin. Let me give an illustration of this. One
of the most genuine revivals that ever took place in our land had this wholesome
characteristic. On one occasion over seven thousand people gathered in a small
picturesque Highland valley to hear the Gospel. At the end of the day, and as
the last Psalm was being sung, only the preacher and the two leaders of the
praise were able to sing. What had happened to the rest? God’s Spirit like a
mighty wind had swept over them. Arrows from the King’s bow had pierced through
many hearts. God had convinced them that they were sinners under wrath. Apart
from their weeping they were silent. But the warm south wind of His grace, love
and forgiveness soon brought them into a state of joy. They were given a new
summer and a new song. The Church herself could tell the story of that hour when
she passed from death to life. “My beloved spake and said unto me, Rise up my
love, my fair one and come away; for the winter is past, the rain is over and
gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is
come.” The winter of sin, with its snell north wind, had given place to a new
and everlasting summer. The warm wind of His love now wafted through her soul.

You notice that there was another great reason why the Church prayed for the
reviving breath of the Spirit. It was that Christ’s presence might be known and
felt within His own vineyard or Church. “Let my beloved come into His garden.”
The power of the Spirit and the presence of the Lord always go together. There
may be many choice flowers in the garden; but it is Christ the Rose of Sharon
and the Lily of the Valleys, who gives grace and fragrance to His own vineyard.

“That I thy power may behold, and brightness of thy face,” was the prayer of one
who knew that without God’s presence in His own Church there could be only
weakness and darkness. The greatest chastisement that the Lord can bring upon us
in this life is to withdraw His presence from His Church, or, in the wider
sphere, to become a stranger in the land. It is true that the believer may have,
like Moses on the Mount, a personal enjoyment of God’s presence while He may
become a stranger within the visible Church. Do we mourn, then, over His absence
in those places of which it could be said in other days that “the Lord was
there”? The Church had that measure of spiritual discernment which enabled her
to differentiate between His presence in the means of grace and the means of
grace without His presence. Her cry: “Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth?” is the
proof of this. In our worship we may be satisfied with ourselves and with one
another while He may be absent. But it is His presence among us that lends
solemnity and sweetness to the public means of grace. It is through His presence
and power that the dead are raised and that sinners are converted unto Him.

Once I was present at a prayer meeting in a certain church. God truly was among
us. After the benediction was pronounced a good woman present gently asked the
presiding minister if we could still tarry there. But we had to part, for here
we have but the tabernacle of a wayfaring man. Do we know what this means? Have
we truly the spiritual discernment to know when He is present in, or is absent
from, His garden. A few years ago a certain lady visited the North of Scotland.
During her sojourn there she worshipped in a number of congregations where sound
scriptural preaching was proclaimed from each pulpit. But she entered one
church, and as soon as she sat in the pew she could say, “the Lord is in this
place”. It was this that endeared that place to her soul in after days. It was
to her a season of heaven on earth.

Let us plead with Him that He might once again visit those parts of His vineyard
where He is now a stranger. When we read, for example, of other days in places
like our native Highlands, where men like Dr John Macdonald, Mr Hector MacPhail,
“Big” John MacRae, Dr John Kennedy, Alexander Stewart, and many others, once
reaped such a great harvest, we can only pray:

“To these long desolations Thy feet lift, do not tarry.”

Without His power and presence among us the vineyard and the fruitful field may
become dry parched land. O, then let us seek to discover and disown those sins
which have grieved His Spirit and alienated His gracious presence from our
midst.

Now you will notice that after such gracious visitations the Church is not
ashamed to ask her Lord to come into His own garden. She has ample fare to set
before Him. “Let Him eat of His pleasant fruits.” These words mean that where
the Spirit is present His fruits are to be seen in the lives of those whom He
blesses and among whom He works. This is what satisfies, or is pleasing to, the
Lord. The fruits of the Spirit cannot be concealed in the lives of those who
bear them. “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance — against such there is no
law.” To this end Christ has chosen and ordained all his people. “I have chosen
you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your
fruit should remain.” The Church is God’s vineyard or garden, and each believer
is His planting. His people are the subjects of His care, love and interest.
“What could have been done more for my vineyard that I have not done in it?” Do
these spiritual fruits show themselves in our lives? How ought we to bow our
heads in God’s presence as we see our own barrenness and spiritual dilatoriness.
This grief was in the heart of the Church when she said: “They have made me a
keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept.” We who are
Christian ministers, Christian elders and witnesses are all professedly
interested in the preservation, purity and increase of God’s cause. And yet
through our neglect and prayerlessness our own lives, our own homes, our own
congregations, may fall under the shadow of spiritual decline. Is it not so? Are
our lives pleasing to God? He conies for fruit, but we have little to show. This
truly is often the grief of the gracious soul. But while we mourn over our own
leanness and the low state of His cause we hope and long for the day when,
through the outpouring of God’s Spirit, the wilderness shall again blossom as
the rose.

We mentioned some of the fruits of the Spirit which show themselves in the true
Christian life, but there are others also. Our Lord Himself spoke of other
spiritual fruits which His people bear. Where does he begin? “Blessed are the
poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are they that mourn
for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the
earth. Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they
shall be filled.” If this cluster of blessings is found in our lives then the
Lord is with us and dwells in our heart as in a garden. “With this man will I
dwell, even with him who is of a poor and a contrite heart and who trembles at
My Word.” O, dear friends, do we not long for the day when our garden shall be
His entirely, or when our souls shall be for ever delivered from all that is of
self and of sin? But consider now:

II. The Lord’s Answer to Her Prayer: “I am come into my garden, my sister, my
spouse.” As she would provide Him with the pleasant fruits of His own Spirit, He
comes to her laden with blessings. Christ never visits His Church or the soul of
the believer empty-handed. He comes to furnish our table. And if the gifts are
precious, the presence of the Giver is what lends sweetness to each one. The
blessings mentioned here are the choice fare of the heavenly Canaan. The fulness
which He communicates to His Church resides in Himself. Here we have the sincere
milk of the Word, the wine of His love, the honeycomb of His promises. These all
carry the pure aroma of Heaven. In the written Word we have the ecstatic
testimonies of those who had tasted of these blessings. “Thy words were found
and I did eat them; and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine
heart.” “More to be desired are they than gold, yea than much fine gold: sweeter
also than honey and the honeycomb.” “Thy love is better than wine.” “O, taste
and see that the Lord is good.” These indeed are enjoyments, the nature of which
it is impossible to describe. Only by personal participation in them can we know
their unspeakable sweetness.

We once heard a story of a boy who lived a primitive life in a heathen land. The
missionary working among the tribe presented this lad one day with some sweets.
He had never seen or tasted such things before. He ran home and told the others
about what he had in his hand and in his mouth! They plied him with questions,
but he had no words which could describe his enjoyment. At last he said: “Here,
you must taste it yourselves.” This enjoyment of the Church was “under the
tongue” or in her heart while she was still on her pilgrimage journey. She had
in this world of time the earnest of good things to come. And if our blessings
here are mixed with many bitter herbs these only increase our longings for that
full and eternal enjoyment of God which awaits us at the table above where all
tears shall be wiped away from our eyes.

If the Giver and His gifts are so desirable so is His welcome to partake of His
feast. “Eat, O friends, drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved.” He who supplies
all our needs and who has in Himself an infinite fulness of grace and truth
would have us eat abundantly. Sometimes the public means of grace may be
destitute of the spiritual nourishment we require. We cry with David — “Oh that
one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem which is by the
gate!” But when, like David’s mighty men, our graces are in exercise, we often
break through every barrier and overcome the sins which would deprive us of the
needed blessing. When prayer, faith and patience do their perfect work, the Lord
extends the royal sceptre of His promise to our souls. “What is thy request and
what is thy desire?” We are led into his banqueting house where we say with the
Psalmist — “A day in thy courts is better than a thousand.” In these days when
we see not our signs, our only hope is to plead with God that He might once
again stir up His strength and send His Spirit both to arrest the flood of evil
and to revive us in the midst of the years. In such a day our silence is our
greatest sin. If we open our mouth wide in holy longings, He, on His side, will
open the windows of heaven and pour us out a blessing so that there shall not be
room enough to receive it. And if we fail in our duty let us remember what is
written — “I shall yet be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them.”
May the Lord give us the grace to continue instant in prayer.

These sermons are taken from Everlasting Love a book of devotional sermons by
Rev. Murdoch Campbell, and published by The Knox Press (Edinburgh), 1969.


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  CHAPTER 6: S. THE HEAVENLY FORETASTE
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The Heavenly Foretaste by Murdoch Campbell, M.A.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen.” (Heb 11:1). In these words we have a perfect definition of the grace of
faith. True faith is God’s gift, and it is begotten in the soul by the Spirit of
God. All men may have some kind of faith, but all men have not the faith which
rests on Christ alone for salvation, and which, whatever the trials in the way,
brings the soul to Heaven. Saving faith is a grace which the hand of the
Heavenly Father has planted in the soul of the renewed man. It thrives and
matures to the extent in which it is exercised in relation to the Lord and His
Word. Both the written Word, and the Personal Word — the Lord Jesus — are the
proper foundation, life, and objects of saving faith. We must, therefore, never
confuse ordinary, rational, historical, or even theological faith, with the
faith, which, in union with the living Head in Heaven, is the substance of
things hoped for. Let us think then, for a moment, of:

I. The Things which God’s People Hope for: The “things” mentioned in the verse
do not, of course, come within the category of “things seen”. “For what a man
sees why doth he yet hope for it.” “We look not”, says the apostle, “at the
things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.” In other words
this faith has a far reaching vision which sees, or apprehends, things beyond
the visible and temporal order, or even beyond space and time. It apprehends the
things which are spiritual and eternal. A supernatural grace, it brings the
blessings of “the heavenly places” into the hearts of true believers while they
are still sojourning in this lower world. Some of the things hoped for by those
who have this precious faith are mentioned in the immediate context. The context
reminds us, for example, that all true Christians hope for the fulfilment of all
the Divine promises, which “by faith and patience” they shall inherit at last.
The promises of God are not only great and precious, but in their variety and
number we cannot fully describe or reckon them. (Psa 40:1-17). Like the stars
which fill the night sky. their number is known only to God.

Some of His promises relate to our requirements, trials and comforts in this
broken life. These come within the sweep of God’s Covenant love and care, as
expressed in the words, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” As our needs
arise, and our trials come and go, we see the Lord daily fulfilling His Word in
providing grace for the journey which, otherwise, is “too great” for us. The
large majority of the promises, however, can only be inherited in Heaven with
God. The streams of daily mercy and grace communicated through the promises of
God here, shall at last give way to a full and perfect realisation of all that
we hoped for in this life.

We read in this chapter, that one of the things which all the people of God
hoped for in the past was the promise of “a city which hath foundations”. He
gave this promise to Abraham. It was the promise of Heaven. In all his
pilgrimage, therefore, he sought that city which, by faith, he saw as through a
glass. The view that he enjoyed of that good land “wherein dwelleth
righteousness” led him to confess that he was a stranger in the earth. Both his
heart and walk were, from the day that God called him out of the world, bent
towards the heavenly country, the land of his desire. God convinced him that
here he had no continuing city. Man, indeed, is destined to outlive the physical
universe, but only the Heaven-born man acts on that knowledge by seeking a
dwelling-place with God. “But now they desire a better country, that is an
heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath
prepared for them a city.” To that longed-for Home God will bring His people.
“He led them forth by the right way that they may go to a city of habitation.”
(Psa 107:1-43). Our glorified Lord is now in that city of many mansions,
preparing a place for His chosen and redeemed people. Do we not associate our
sweetest earthly joys with the word “Home”? It is so spiritually. Home is where
our loved ones reside. And Heaven is the palace of the Great King, our Father in
Christ, who has begotten us to Himself. Our beloved Redeemer is also there. So
is our Mystical Mother, the “Jerusalem which is from above” or “the Church of
the first-born written in Heaven”. There the whole family of God will meet at
last to enjoy the pleasures which are at His right hand for evermore. But again.
God’s redeemed people hope also that the Lord will fit them to enjoy Heaven with
Himself. Reconciled by His blood, clothed in His righteousness, regenerated and
sanctified by the Spirit, they are made meet to inherit His Kingdom. The many
corruptions which still cling to them God will put away. When they pray for
holiness He sometimes answers their prayers “by terrible things in
righteousness”. (Psa 65:1-13). He brings them through the fires of suffering
that in the end they may come forth as purified gold. “Many shall be purified,
and made white and tried.” This process necessarily precedes the glory that
shall be revealed in them. Then shall they “shine as the brightness of the
firmament and . . . as the stars for ever and ever.” (Dan 12:1-13).

They hope and long also for unbroken communion with God. All their future
happiness lies within the promise that they shall see His face and dwell
eternally in His presence. In the communication of His love and in the enjoyment
of His felt presence the Lord here is often “like a wayfaring man”. One day His
love flows sweetly through the soul, while the next we seem to dwell in a
“thirsty land where there is no water”. (Psa 63:1-11). Christian enjoyment has
its ebbs and flows. But what is the promise? “We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house.” In Heaven they shall thirst no more. All divinely
planted desires which form the life and content of true Christian hope, God will
at last satisfy. “He will fulfil the desire of them that fear Him.” (Psa
145:1-21). Heaven is a place where the provisions and consolations of God’s
covenant love shall surprise and delight us beyond all we ever knew or thought.

Now the hope of these things is not a lovely dreamland, or a species of wishful
thinking, which has no foundation in reality. The words hint at:

II. The Evidence of their Existence, and the Certainty of their Enjoyment: The
evidence of these things we have in the infallible Word of God. God’s promise of
eternal life and happiness to His people is so certain that in order to show its
immutability He confirmed it by an oath (Heb 6:17). “For when God made promise
to Abraham, because He could swear by no greater he swore by himself, saying,
surely blessing I will bless thee. And so after he had patiently endured he
obtained the promise.” (Heb 6:15). Every promise made over to the Church of
Christ is thus ratified and sealed. One specific reason why the Scriptures are
given us is “that we may know that we have eternal life.” The inner faith of the
believer rests, therefore, on God’s testimony in His Word. And when we believe
His witness we have the evidence of its absolute certainty in our own souls.
Those born of God have this witness in themselves (1Jn 5:1-21). The accents of
faith have thus the ring of certainty and assurance. True faith, therefore, is
not only theological: it is also experimental. “We know and are sure that this
is the true God and eternal life.” Even should our faith falter at times —
during these seasons when darkness and sorrow descend upon us — yet God remains
faithful to His promise, “for He cannot deny Himself.” A frowning providence may
seem at times to stand opposed, or even in contradiction, to the promise. Like
Jacob we say: “Against me are all these things.” But in every storm His Covenant
promise remains sure and steadfast. “The end of the Lord” is always good and
kind in His dealings with His people, and though Heaven and earth shall pass
away His Word can never be broken.

There is, however, another side of our text. Some there are who give ready
assent to the truths of God’s word. They accept and adhere to systems of sound
doctrines in all intellectual honesty. Their minds may have much light, and they
may have a sense of appreciation of the value of the truths cherished. And yet
such people may be quite destitute of the substance, or the life, which these
truths should convey to the soul by the Spirit of God. The Pharisees, for
example, had the cold light of truth, but Christ said to them: “I know you that
the love of God is not in you.” Thus faith goes deeper and higher than any
acquiescence in a doctrinal system, however absolutely necessary to our faith
such an acceptance must be. True faith brings the very substance of what we hope
for into our souls. Believers get a “foretaste” on earth of all their future
enjoyments in Heaven. This is what is called “the earnest” of good things to
come. The assurance and enjoyment of the love of Christ; the peace which reigns
in the conscience through the sprinkling of the blood of atonement; joy in the
Holy Ghost, and communion with God, are the very life and substance of the
things we hope to enjoy in Heaven. Does not Christ Himself dwell in our hearts
by faith? What life and sweetness did the Bride extract from the promises!
Though she was still on her pilgrimage to Heaven, Christ addressed her in these
words: “Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb; honey and milk are under
thy tongue.” (Song of Solomon 4:1-16). She had in her heart the very food of
Canaan even while she was still in the desert. The grace of life in the soul is
glory in the bud, and Heaven in miniature. It is the day spring from on high
with tokens of the coming everlasting summer. These enjoyments have their roots
in reality. They are refreshing streams of life from the very Throne of God. But
they are infinitely beyond the reach, or the knowledge, of those who have only a
form of godliness but who know nothing of its power.

We are not, however, to conclude that the sensible enjoyments of Christian
experience — however sweet and precious — are, in the matter of faith, of equal
value with God’s testimony in His Word. No. Faith must often live without its
assurance or enjoyment. It must cling to the promise in the days of darkness and
destitution. Such days are not, by any means, rare in the history of the Church
of God. The disciples on the Mount saw the glory of the Redeemer. They heard the
voice out of the cloud. They tasted the powers of the world to come. The very
bliss of heaven touched their souls. It was a day in His Courts, which is better
than a thousand elsewhere. Such seasons belong to an exercised Christian
experience, and are greatly to be prized and sought after. They prove that we
are welcome guests at God’s table, and that we have “the knowledge of the holy.”
And yet they are not the foundation of our faith; but that Word which is for
ever settled in Heaven. (2Pe 1:1-21). Lastly let me mention:

III. The Infinite Importance of Ascertaining Whether this Faith is our own:

There is, as we hinted a moment ago, a form of faith which consists entirely in
an external and nominal profession. For example, the foolish virgins had all the
outward exercise and appearance of the wise. They had lamps, but no oil; they
had faith without substance. They lacked the life of God in their souls. God
puts His treasure in the earthen vessels; but those vessels are renewed by the
grace of God, and are therefore “unto honour”. The love of Jesus is shed abroad
in their hearts. If the love of Christ is shed abroad in our hearts our hope
shall never be put to shame. An empty faith may pass the test of time, but not
the test of death or judgment. Therefore the lamps of the foolish ones flickered
and died in the hour of death. Many, for example, travel to the great eternity
sure that if they have a certain ecclesiastical connection, and if they fulfil
their several religious duties, then Heaven is sure. Too often we presume that
God is pleased with what pleases us. The Immortal Dreamer, John Bunyan, tells us
how “Ignorance” went through life and death sure that his “Vain Hope” would take
him to Heaven. It was at the door of Heaven that he made the dread, and to him
the very surprising, discovery that he was destitute of saving faith. From the
pinnacle of presumption he was cast into the depths of perdition. Satan can
weave a false hope and a false faith in our soul; but only those who have the
Spirit of God can say, “Thou knowest, Lord, that I love thee.” Does our faith
then rest on what Christ is, what Christ says, and what He did when He died on
the tree? Have we experienced the great change of a new birth which all who hope
to enter Heaven must know? Can we say that “the Lord our Righteousness” is all
our hope, and that we love Him who first loved us? Have we indeed this faith
which works by love?

Let each and all of us here today face these solemn questions; and may the Lord
enable us to answer them in a way that shall be to His own glory and to the
everlasting good of our souls. For the night cometh when no man can work.

These sermons are taken from Everlasting Love a book of devotional sermons by
Rev. Murdoch Campbell, and published by The Knox Press (Edinburgh), 1969.


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  CHAPTER 7: S. THE JOYFUL SOUND
========================================================================

The Joyful Sound by Murdoch Campbell, M.A.

“Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in
the light of Thy countenance.” (Psa 89:15).

In this inconceivably precious Psalm, there are great truths, great promises and
prophecies, which cannot but bring joy to the hearts of God’s people. In it we
read of God’s everlasting covenant with the Church in Christ who is her Head; of
His power to save and keep all who trust in Him; of His faithfulness and love
towards all the heirs of salvation, and of the way in which His infinite
perfections come to light in the work of redemption. The revelation, or
declaration, of these truths, and of many more besides, is truly a “joyful
sound” to His own people. Let me this evening offer a few comments on these
words. Let us think first of:

I. The Joyful Sound and what it is To an Israelite the “joyful sound” might have
meant some of those events which stood related to the Old Dispensation. There
are, to begin with, those who associate the words with the great Day of
Atonement. On that day the High Priest divested himself of the garments of
beauty and glory — in which he was habitually clothed in the holy place — and
put on the holy linen robe in which he was to minister in the most holy place.
In the one hand he carried the blood of the Covenant, and in the other the
golden vessel of incense. With these offerings he entered “within the veil”
where he sprinkled the blood before the Mercy Seat on which, between the
Cherubims, the divine glory permanently rested. Sin was typically put away.
Atonement was made. And when the high priest re-appeared before the people the
trumpets gave forth their joyful sound, and the people came forward with their
sacrifices of praise. God had embraced them anew. Peace, through reconciliation,
was once more established between Him and “the great congregation”. Truly this
was a day of joy.

These words may be also related to the daily ministry in the holy place where
sacrifices were continually offered for the sins of the people. An Israelite.
for example. would move toward the outer court of the tabernacle with the lamb
which the priest was to offer for his transgressions. There he would place his
hand on the head of the lamb and transfer, typically, his guilt to the innocent
creature which was presently to die for him. And as the high priest offered to
God this sacrifice, and moved within the holy place, the sound of the golden
bells which were attached to his robe might be heard in the outer court. The
sound of these would declare that atonement was being made for him, that his
guilt was put away, and that God had accepted his offering. A greater occasion
than these was the year of Jubilee which was observed in the nation every fifty
years. It began with the Day of Atonement. On that glad and longed-for day the
trumpets sounded throughout the land to proclaim that all prisoners were
released, that all debts were cancelled, that all inheritances forfeited through
death or poverty were to be restored, and that all the weary were to rest from
toil. It is easy to imagine the joy that would touch the heart of the prisoner
in his cave or cell, the poor man oppressed with poverty and toil, or the heart
of the widow whose lost inheritance would now be restored, as the trumpets gave
their joyful sound in every corner of the land. But these and other such events
were mere typical occasions which pointed to greater events and blessings and
which anticipated the fulfilment of these promises which, like stars, graced the
firmament of the Old Testament Dispensation. These promises, types and
prophecies were all related to Christ who is both the centre and substance of
revelation. Christ is present in the first and in the last promise given to the
Church of God in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. The first promise speaks
of “the seed of the woman” who was to come in the fulness of time to bruise the
head of the serpent. The last speaks of “the sun of righteousness” or “the
bright and morning star”, who was soon to arise with healing in His wings on His
waiting people and on a fallen world. He therefore commanded us to “search the
Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and these are they which
testify of me.” The true spiritual Israelite — while rejoicing in those
occasions such as we have mentioned — knew that all these pointed to the coming
of the Messiah who was to procure everlasting salvation for His people through
His obedience and death. Enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and by faith, he knew
that behind and beyond all these types and ceremonies God had provided eternal
life and peace for all His people through the coming of the Just One. With His
coming these types would for ever fade away. They were but mere shadows of good
things to come. Think then of the joy that was in the heart of the Old Testament
Church as she waited for the coming of her Lord, and as she could already hear
the joyful sound of His voice in His Word! “The voice of my beloved, behold, he
cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.” She could already
hear the sound of His footsteps coming over the mountains of time and
separation. The coming of our Redeemer into the world was therefore the occasion
of the greatest joy, we believe, ever known in Heaven or on earth. On that night
the heavenly host sang above our world. “Glory to God in the highest and on
earth peace, and good will toward men.” A world “living in the wicked one”, and
ruined by sin, became the scene of the greatest manifestation of God’s love ever
given to men or angels. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have
everlasting life.” The New Testament is replete with lovely stories of the joy
which the coming of Christ brought to His own waiting people. How wonderful, for
example, are the words of Elisabeth who, when Mary who bore the Holy Child Jesus
in her womb arrived at her door, exclaimed in ecstasy — “For, lo, as soon as the
voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for
joy.” She had the secret of the Lord with regard to the One who was soon to
appear in the world and, in a way too mysterious for words, her joy was
communicated to the unborn child who was to be His forerunner on earth. The
question has often been asked as to who were the wise men who, at His birth,
came to worship our Lord. To some they were mere superstitious star-gazers. Not
so. They, also, had the secret of the Lord in relation to the coming of the
Prince of Peace. And there is not in Scripture a lovelier word than that which
describes their ecstatic joy when they saw His star, which for the moment had
faded from their view. “When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding
great joy.” That star, with its joyful tidings, brought them to the portals of
bliss. Their Redeemer had come. And when they saw Him they fell down and
worshipped Him. They did not worship Mary, as the poor benighted papists do.
They had no eyes for any creature in Heaven or on earth but for “Jesus only”. O!
the joy of knowing that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. This
is “a joyful sound” that shall deepen and become more wonderful within the
breast of every saved man and woman throughout the ages to come. Does it bring
joy to us? The same joy was in the heart of Simeon when he took the Holy Child
in his arms and blessed God that his eyes had seen His salvation. He was now on
the threshold of eternal joy, and he desired to be here no more. “Lord, now
lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.” The sweetest
note in this joyful song is that Christ came to die. He took our nature that in
our nature He might die for us. It is no contradiction to say that it is the
death of Christ which produces godly sorrow and penitence in our souls, while,
at the same time, there is no joy like the joy of knowing that He died to
reconcile us to God and to put our sins away “as far as the east is distant from
the west”. All the blessings of His people come through His death. And these in
their number, preciousness and permanence, are unsearchable and beyond number.
Take the case of Paul when he penned the words, “The Son of God who loved me and
gave himself for me.” This was his joyful song on earth. But it was also the
source of his sorrow. He remembered his past with its hatred and opposition to
the One who loved him. Christ forgave him, but here he could not forgive
himself. “They shall look upon Him whom they have pierced and mourn.” When
Joseph’s brethren wept on his shoulder, both sorrow and love filled their
hearts. They remembered how they had hated him without cause. Who among Gods’
people ever stood before the Cross of Calvary without grief? It was their sin
that nailed their Beloved to the Tree. But the song shall remain, after the
years of their mourning have ceased. Heaven is the place of songs. There they
sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb. “Unto Him who loved us and washed us
from our sins in His own blood . . . to Him be glory and dominion for ever and
ever.” This is, then, the joyful sound, or song, which has its beginning here,
but which shall continue to reverberate through the realms of glory for ever and
ever. My friend, do you, through God’s grace and forgiveness, know it? Is it not
a joyful sound also to know that He who died rose again from the dead for our
justification, and that He ascended up into Heaven where He is making continual
intercession for us? By His resurrection “He proved to be the Son of God with
power.” He overcame death. He robbed the grave of its prey. All those for whom
He died shall experience His saving power and participate in His victory. Their
spiritual resurrection out of a grave of trespass and sin is the evidence of
“the exceeding greatness of His power.” This was the song of David.

“O, Lord, my soul, thou has brought up And rescued from the grave.” Was that not
a joyful sound which His stricken Bride heard when He passed her by and said,
“Live”, and when He made her time “a time of love”. And their bodies are to
share in this great honour and power. “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with
thy likeness.” His ascension and priestly advocacy within the veil are the
infallible guarantee that one day we shall see Him as He is and that not one for
whom He died shall perish. You recall how He led His disciples out as far as
Bethany; and after He had blessed them He was taken up into heaven. Usually when
we separate for the last time on earth from our dearest friends we are full of
sorrow, but it was not so with those, His followers, when, without His bodily
presence and companionship, they moved toward Jerusalem. We are told that “they
returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple
praising and blessing God.” Why this ecstasy? Just because they knew “the joyful
sound”: “I am He that liveth and was dead.” It was a joy that remained with them
amid all their sufferings here. The Lord had gone to prepare a place for them.
Because He lived they also would live. They were partakers of the joy with which
the hosts of Heaven welcomed the glorious Redeemer and Conqueror as the
everlasting doors opened to admit Him, and in Him, all the heirs of salvation
into the mansions above. Already they were there in Him. They were there also in
their desires, hopes and affections. Their treasure was above. So you see, dear
friends, that both at His entrance into our world and at the hour of His bodily
departure into the heavenly kingdom there was a song of joy. Does it end there?
Ah, no. Is He not coming again to receive us unto Himself? In the Epistle to the
Hebrews, Paul expounds all that His coming into the world procured for the
Church, and he ends his great exposition with the words — “And unto them that
look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” He,
Himself, gives the promise: “I will come again and receive you unto myself that
where I am there ye may be also.” His last words to His waiting Bride are:
“Behold, I come quickly.” And what is her answer? “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”

I shall never forget that summer evening when I entered a Church in the Island
of Skye and heard a Psalm being sung by a large congregation.

“Let heavens be glad before the Lord And let the earth rejoice, Let seas, and
all that is therein Cry out and make a noise Before the Lord; because He comes;
To judge the earth come He . . .“ (Psa 96:1-13). That evening, as in the words
of the Psalmist, the inanimate creation was commanded to rejoice at the prospect
of His coming, something indescribably sweet and solemn touched my soul. I
could, as it were, see through the vistas of future ages the happy day when the
Beloved would come to judge the world and to gather His people to Himself. “The
joyful sound” which filled my soul that evening was shared, I knew, by the
people of God in every age. Again, I ask, is this a joyful sound to you? And we
could also give this hope a personal application. While we should acquiesce in
the Lord’s will for us, and while we would tarry here for a while to do
something for Christ “in a day of small things”, we look forward to the day when
we shall appear in Gods’ presence. How joyful is the sound of His word of
promise in this connection. “And they shall see His face and His name shall be
in their foreheads.”

“They shall be brought with gladness great, and mirth on every side, Into the
palace of the King and there they shall abide.”

II. The Blessedness of knowing the Joyful Sound The blessedness, you will
notice, consists not in hearing the joyful sound but in knowing it. To use an
example, a stranger might be passing through the land of Israel as the trumpets
sounded to proclaim the advent of Jubilee, but their sound might convey little
or nothing to him. The joy which touched the hearts of the Israelites at that
hour he could not feel, for he was ignorant of the blessings and privileges
which the sounds conveyed. And are there not many who sit under the sound of the
Gospel who, in their own experience, know nothing of the blessedness of those
who are saved, and who, therefore, rejoice in the Lord? To them the Gospel is a
savour of death unto death. There are those who have no ear for music; and,
similarly, there are many whose inner ear is deaf to “the glad tidings of great
joy” which the Gospel proclaims. No man ever spake like the Lord Jesus Christ;
yet He condemned many of those who heard His words, but who failed to respond to
the glorious overtures of His Gospel. “We have piped unto you and ye have not
danced.” We may pretend to admire the Gospel, while we fail to respond to the
overtures of God’s offer of salvation in Christ.

We might say of many of those who know the joyful sound that before it gladdened
their heart they heard another voice which filled them with fear and concern.
What voice or sound was this? It was God speaking to them from the dark and
terrifying precipices of Sinai. God awakened them out of their sleep of death.
They came to realise that they were under the just sentence of a broken
covenant, and under God’s holy and just wrath. They were in the hands of God’s
Justice, and its hold on them would not, and could not, relax till all its
demands were fully satisfied. The thunders of God’s law made them fear and
tremble exceedingly, for of themselves they had nothing whereby its voice could
be silenced. They knew that God was just in the sentence which was pronounced
against them. But the purpose of the Lord in bringing them into such a state of
concern, and in making them recognise where they were and how they were, was not
their destruction but their salvation. Another voice, therefore, sounded from
God’s Word. It was the still small voice of peace and acceptance through the
merits of Him who died on the Tree. “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy
transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” “As far as
the east is from the west, so far bath he removed our transgressions from us.”
“Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the
transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger for
ever, because He delighteth in mercy.” This was the hour when their mourning was
turned into dancing, and when an undying love was born in their hearts for Him
who died in their room and stead. That was the day when the bells of peace sent
their sweet chimes through their conscience and mind. O! friend, was there such
an hour in your life? Such an experience marks the beginning of our eternal
happiness. As unforgiven sin is the source of everlasting despair, the
forgiveness of it is the beginning of our unending joy. And with our forgiveness
a new desire to praise the Redeemer is born in our souls.

Heaven is the place where we shall, in perfection, express our indebtedness and
happiness to Christ in our praise. With this love and desire to praise the Lord
there is true spiritual discernment. The knowledge which God imparts to His
people is seen in the way in which otherwise simple souls, who are but babes in
His Kingdom, have a knowledge of the Gospel which is outwith the reach of the
wise and the learned of this world. This is one of the evidences that the new
creature in Christ is given a knowledge which mere religious formalism or
schools of learning can never impart and which belongs to a world they cannot
know or enjoy. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born
of the Spirit is spirit.” “For the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned.”

There is no joy in this world to be compared with the joy which the voice of
Christ brings to the heart of the gracious soul. “The companions hear thy voice:
cause me to hear it.” In my younger days I used to hear the Lord’s people speak
of how Christ would sometimes awake them out of sleep with His Word on their
lips. Others would relate how, at the Throne of Grace, God would speak to them
out of His written Word of what was relevant to their needs or trials. And
others would tell how, unexpectedly, God’s Word would become articulate within
their spirits, bringing the needed warning or comfort, or anticipating something
which was to emerge within the sphere of Providence. Such people knew the Lord
and His voice. This was their joy on earth. “Thy statutes have been my songs in
the house of my pilgrimage.” To the Psalmist God’s Word thus given was more
precious than gold and sweeter than honey.

III. The Evidence in our life that we know the joyful sound “They shall walk, O
Lord, in the light of thy countenance.”

These words mean that they are a people who obey God’s voice. To know God
savingly is to love and obey Him. Both the mind and the will of God are revealed
exclusively in the Written Word. Any word, or tradition of men, which
contradicts, adds to, or subtracts from, God’s Holy Word is to be rejected, and
is rejected by the true believer. An unenlightened world listens to “strangers”
whether they be popes, graceless ministers and bishops, or the initiators of
ensnaring and deadly religious cults. But God’s people listen only to Him. And
the evidence of their obedience is that God is with them in the way. They often
say, “Whom have I in Heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire
beside Thee.” This was how God’s saints walked in every age. “Enoch walked with
God.” The Lord speaks of Abraham as His “friend”. This is the meaning of those
words in the fourth Psalm. “But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is
godly for himself.” To God’s people His presence is often more real than the
presence of those who dwell with them in their homes. This is their heaven on
earth. “Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.”

There are seasons, however, when God’s people walk without the light or comfort
of His face; but “light is sown for the righteous.” “The path of the just is as
the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” But whether
it be in light or shade the Lord will enable us, by His grace, to go “from
strength to strength” till we reach the place where we shall see His face
without a cloud between.

Dear friend, do you know the joyful sound? Has God ever spoken to your soul:
“Son, Thy sins be forgiven thee”? Is the name of Jesus sweet to your ear, since
it was He who came to save His people from their Sins? If so, one day you will
hear His voice welcoming you into that kingdom which fadeth not away. “Come, ye
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
of the world.” But if we refuse to “kiss the Son”, and to give Him our hearts,
there is another voice we must listen to. “Depart from me.” O! be wise and
embrace Christ now. Then, not only would you have joy but we also would rejoice
in your salvation. Heaven would rejoice as well. “There is joy in the presence
of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” Come and welcome to Jesus
Christ. Amen.

These sermons are taken from Everlasting Love a book of devotional sermons by
Rev. Murdoch Campbell, and published by The Knox Press (Edinburgh), 1969.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 8: S. THE LORD AROUND HIS PEOPLE
========================================================================

The Lord around His People by Murdoch Campbell, M.A.

“They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed but
abideth for ever. As the mountains are around Jerusalem so the Lord is round
about His people from henceforth even for ever.” (Psa 125:1-2).

Throughout the Bible we often find that the Holy Spirit uses natural figures to
illustrate profound spiritual truths and realities. In the words of our text the
Church of God, or individual believers, are, in their faith and constancy,
compared to Mount Zion, while God Himself in His nearness and protecting power,
is compared to the mountains which shelter and surround Jerusalem. Let us look
at these words for a moment. Let us consider:

I. The People of God in their Faith and Steadfastness

These are a people who trust in the Lord and who cannot, therefore, be moved.
They are a people who trust not in themselves or in any other creature. Their
faith does not rest on what they are or on what they do. In this respect they
are “a peculiar people”, for men in a state of nature are often proud and self-
sufficient. They think that by their own imagined goodness they are capable of
paving a way into the favour of God. Such men were in the world in the days of
our Lord — “men who trusted in themselves that they were righteous.” And such
men are in the world still. They are men who would place the crown of their
salvation on their own head. They would be independent of all help. Although man
is in a state of condemnation, without holiness or spiritual ability, he is,
left to himself, self-righteous. But “cursed is he that trusteth in an arm of
flesh, for he shall be as the heath in the desert which knoweth not when good
cometh.” And there is no power on earth that can remove this sinful pride and
deception within man’s heart but the power of God. Only in a day of His power
are we made willing to renounce all trust in ourselves and to trust wholly in
the Lord for salvation.

Those mentioned in our text are a people who, in relation to their destiny and
acceptance with God, have no trust in themselves. There is, of course, so much
that we can do in our moral conduct and in our social relationships; but
spiritually we are helpless “without God and without hope in the world.” There
was a day, for example, in the life of Paul when, fixed in his own
self-righteousness and deriving all his hope for eternity from his false zeal
and from his own correct religious formality, he saw not his need of a Saviour.
But Christ brought him into the dust of self-abasement and gave him the sentence
of death in his own breast. In that day all trust in himself was for ever slain.
He learned that without Christ he had nothing that was pleasing to God, and that
he could do nothing to procure his own salvation. From that day he knew that God
justified him not by his own works of righteousness but by His sovereign grace
and by faith in Christ. He saw that what pleased him was, before God, “as filthy
rags”, and that weighed in the balances of the sanctuary he infinitely came
short of God’s glory. Only by faith in the righteousness of Another was he
delivered from the bondage and condemnation of sin. From that day Christ alone
was the subject of his trust and hope. This trust in the Lord on the part of His
people is all-inclusive. If we are of this number we commit into God’s hand not
only our persons, but also our times and destiny, and all our cares within the
sphere of providence. “Into thine hand I commit my spirit.” “Casting all your
care upon Him for He careth for you.” “My times are in Thy hand.” “I have set
the Lord always before me.” “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that
He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” Such
words as these show that they commit themselves wholly and for ever into His
hand, “as into the hands of a faithful Creator.” The trust of God’s people is
pre-eminently in His Word or promise, for the Lord Himself is present in the
Word in which they trust. God and His Word are identical. There can be no trust
in the one without trust in the other. Those who are His are given “exceeding
great and precious promises”, and it is of the nature of the true Christian life
that God often seals His promises, both in relation to His providence and grace,
on their hearts and minds. Although all the promises are the heritage of God’s
elect, God often makes a personal application of His Word to their souls. And it
may often happen that circumstances emerge in their life which seem to nullify
His promise. David, in fear and trembling, once asked the question: “Lord, where
is Thy former loving kindness which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth?” “Hath
the Lord forgotten to be gracious?” But whatever clouds may overshadow our
lives, God’s covenant bow of promise is never absent from our sky. How often do
we tremble in our nights of trial, but “hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” And
the God of yesterday is the God of today and of the future. “This God is our God
for ever and ever: He will be our guide even unto death.” Or, as the words may
be translated, “He will be our guide unto death, beyond and over death,” and
till we reach the place where death is unknown. Such a blessed assurance as this
should strengthen our faith and provide us with a song in the night.

Whatever contrary storms, therefore, may break in upon their lives, God’s people
“cannot be moved”. “Their heart is fixed trusting in the Lord.” Christ, their
Rock and Stay, is the foundation of all their hope. And “the foundation of the
Lord standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His.” Paul,
in one place, sits as it were, on the very pinnacle of the universe and surveys
all the powers on earth and in hell, which, if they could, would separate the
Church from the love of Christ. But how does he end his glorious theme in praise
of that love which is stronger than death? “For I am persuaded that neither
death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able
to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The
enemies of the Church never tire of trying to separate her from Christ, but a
good hope through grace, which is the anchor of the soul, is both sure and
steadfast since it is fixed in Christ the Rock of Ages. Their faith may be
small, but in the words of another, “their little faith is in a great God.” His
love is bound to almighty power and it is by His power they are kept through
faith unto salvation. “None perish that trust in Him.” “Trust ye in the Lord for
ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.” Let us consider also:

II. Their Privilege and Safety The Lord is about them as the mountains surround
Jerusalem. His Israel, in every age, are a people near to Him. They are the
subjects of His care. The figure here used is very significant. Let us dwell on
it for a moment. What are those mountain ranges, spiritually speaking, which
surround the people of God?

He is, to begin with, round about them in His eternal purpose of grace. The Holy
Spirit in the Word dwells on this. Where does He begin? “For whom he did
foreknow, he also did predestinate . . . and whom he did predestinate them he
also called, and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified
them he also glorified.” And although these divine acts and decrees have their
beginning and their end in the Eternal mind and world, they stand related to the
salvation and security of the Church in this world. This purpose has, and shall
have, its revelation, fulfilment and consummation, both in the finished work of
Christ and in the full redemption of His people. The salvation of the Church, in
its origin and consummation, is embraced in that covenant “which is ordered in
all things and sure.” It was to ratify and procure its promises and provisions
that Christ came into the world. The pleasure, or purpose, of the Lord prospered
in His hand.

Again, the infinite merits and righteousness of Christ stand between the people
of God and the perils to which, in a state of sin, they were once exposed. Their
sins exposed them to His just wrath, and to the curse of a broken law. But in
all His merits as the substitute and surety of His people, He shelters them from
those fearful storms which once threatened their destruction. “A man shall be as
an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, and . . . as the
shadow of a great rock in a weary land,” There is no shelter for His Church but
in the clefts of the rock. “Our life is hid with Christ in God.” It was when the
shed blood was sprinkled before the mercy seat that God became a refuge to His
people. It was when the blood of the Paschal lamb was sprinkled on their
doorposts on the night that the destroying angel was to pass over Egypt, that
the safety of Israel was assured. Mount Calvary is pre-eminently the spiritual
mountain that gives shelter to the soul. In heaven, “the Lamb in the midst of
the throne” shall engage the eyes and affections of all the redeemed for ever
and ever; for they know that their eternal happiness and safety have their
source in His love in dying for them that He might bring them to God. This
figure also speaks, we believe, of all the attributes of Cod which surround His
people for ever. For those who are reconciled to God there is not an attribute
in the Godhead but is exercised in their favour. In the words of the Psalm,
these are the lofty mountains which bring forth peace unto his people. “We have
peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Through the death of His Son,
“mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace kiss each other.” The
righteousness of God which, in the words of another Psalm, is “like the great
mountains” is now covered with the golden cloud of God’s peace, proclaiming its
blessing upon all who kiss the Son. Its frown is changed into a smile. His mercy
also encompasses them as a shield. One could speak of His eternity and His
unchangeableness as these stand related to our everlasting salvation. “I am
Jehovah, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” The “I AM”
is He in whose hand are all the saints. “The eternal God is thy refuge and
underneath are the everlasting arms.” This is a vast subject, but those who know
the teaching of Scripture know that the Triune God, in all His perfections,
surrounds His own night and day.

“I of the Lord my God will say He is my refuge still, He is my fortress and my
God And in Him trust I will.”

Think also of the all-availing intercession of our great High Priest which
surrounds His people always. In heaven He is making continual intercession for
us. The glory and virtue of His priestly office and acts are derived from Who He
is, what He did, and from the authority which belongs to Him as the exalted Son
of God. God the Father has sealed His office with an oath. “Thou art a priest
for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” This ensures that His prayers are
always heard, and that all who are within the circle of His priestly advocacy
shall never perish. God hears Him always. On earth He prayed, “Father, I will
that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may
behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the
foundation of the world.” These words shall continue to rise, like incense
before God until the last of His people arrives in His presence. His
intercession is the secret of their preservation. This is what we discover in
His words to Peter. “Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you that he may
sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.” That
prayer Peter never heard, but he knew from that hour where his safety lay. It is
good to pray for one another, and to have a place in the prayers of God’s
people; but the true believer rises higher than the help of mere man. He trusts
in the Lord. “I have prayed for thee.” When a godly woman was once asked by her
friends if they would remember her in their prayers she simply said: “Prayer is
being made for me above.” She valued their prayers but her hope had risen beyond
them to the very throne of God. Do these words not mean also that God’s Presence
is ever with His people? Ah, yes. In this way He is around them night and day .
. . “My presence,” he said to Moses, “shall go with you and I will give you
rest.” “Lo, I am with you alway.” We are not to conclude that the Lord is not
with us when we mourn over a lack of His conscious presence. Our sensible
enjoyments of His presence ebb and flow like the tide. But His faithfulness is
not dependent on our frames and feelings. We fear sometimes that the Beloved has
withdrawn Himself. But what does He say? “Fear not, for I am with thee, I have
called thee by thy name. Thou art mine.” “I will never” — and this includes
every moment of time as well as eternity — “leave thee nor forsake thee.” This
is what His people have discovered in all the great crises of their life. How
real was His presence to Israel as they were passing through the Red Sea! He was
a light and shield to them, but a darkness and a terror to their enemies. In the
furnace which the king of Babylon prepared to consume the holy children,
Christ’s presence preserved them from all harm. When the young man who
accompanied the prophet trembled as he gazed on their enemies, the prophet of
the Lord prayed that his inner eyes might be opened that he might see that He
who was with them and for them was mightier and nearer than all their enemies.
God and His ministering spirits surrounded the hill. Whatever trials we may have
to endure here He will be with us. “Fear not, for I am with thee, be not
dismayed, for I am thy God; yea, I will help thee, yea, I will strengthen thee,
yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” How many of
the Lord’s people in various parts of the world are lonely and for various
causes, separated from the public means of grace and from fellowship with their
brethren and sisters in Christ. But listen to what He says, “I will be to them
as a little sanctuary.” He is with each as intimate and personal and loving as
He is with all. The Lord is round them also in all His great and precious
promises. Many years ago I accompanied a friend in the way. He related to me how
the Lord, in answer to prayer, and in the midst of many trials, had upheld him
by His word of promise. It was a promise which touched his inward being in the
power and comfort of the Holy Spirit. “For this is as the waters of Noah unto
me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the
earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee nor rebuke thee. For
the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not
depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the
Lord that hath mercy on thee.” (Isa 54:1-17). Since that hour many a sweet drop
of comfort have I also derived from these words. Like all the promises of God,
it is not only personal to all His people, but it is also confirmed by His oath.
Let us therefore keep our eyes fixed on those mountains and say with the
Psalmist, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth.” Is He not around His
people also in the processes of His Providence? How solemn and mysterious is
this truth! One supreme end of God’s providence is to preserve His people. This
is what the Psalmist meant when he said, “Thou gayest commandment to save me.”
Nothing works contrary to the welfare of the Church of God. She may be tossed on
many billows and doing “business in great waters” but all things work together
for her good. And it is out of her greatest trials that her greatest blessings
often come. We mentioned a moment ago how “the lofty mountains”, or God’s
attributes, bring peace to His people; but the Psalm also speaks of “the little
hills” which by righteousness — or by God’s wise ordering — shall do the same.
All things, small and great, combine in securing the safety and welfare of those
who are heirs of salvation. We are told, for example, that the stars in their
courses fought against Sisera. The forces of the universe were in array against
him. Not only so, but God’s people are “in league with the stones of the field.”
The great and the small! To give another example, the book of Esther is a solemn
commentary on how the wheel of providence may turn both to nullify the designs
of the wicked and to preserve the righteous. And it all began in such a small
way. We read that the king could not sleep. And to beguile the time and compose
his mind he asked that a book might be read to him. The book that was brought to
his bedside was the right book. It was opened at the right page and at the right
moment! On that simple incident the wheel of providence revolved till the
enemies of the Church were brought low and God’s remnant given a day of joy. “No
weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall
rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the
servants of the Lord and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.” The days
in which we live are laden with peril for the world, but He, under Whose control
are all things, is the Guardian and the Shepherd of Israel. Though earthly
mountains may be cast into the depths of the sea, the God of Jacob shall remain
the refuge of His own people for evermore.

Let me say one other thing. Throughout the Bible we read that the Lord is round
about His people not only personally, but through an angelic ministry. This is
something which we should always emphasise. “The chariots of God are twenty
thousand, even thousands of angels. The Lord is among them as in Sinai, in the
holy place.” How sweet it is to sleep with the great promises of Psa 91:1-16 as
our pillow:

“No plague shall near thy dwelling come No ill shall thee befall, For thee to
keep in all thy ways His angels charge He shall.” But our safety is not, in the
highest sense, dependent on any creature. Our hope and trust rest wholly on the
Angel of the Covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me conclude my remarks by reminding those who are strangers to God that in
the presence of all the storms which are soon to rock our world there is no
place to hide. And do you ever think of the day when we must all appear before
the Judgment Seat of Christ, and when the Christless shall be driven by the wind
of God’s displeasure from His presence for ever? May God give you the wisdom to
say, “I flee unto Thee to hide me.” Christ is now on the Throne of Grace. He is
waiting to be gracious. He is speaking to you personally — “How often would I
gather you.” And if you come, a song shall be born in your heart that shall
never die.

“In shadow of Thy wings I’ll joy, For Thou my help hast been.”

Then, and only then, shall you rejoice in this promise. “As the mountains are
round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth
even for ever.” Amen.

These sermons are taken from Everlasting Love a book of devotional sermons by
Rev. Murdoch Campbell, and published by The Knox Press (Edinburgh), 1969.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 9: S. THE SHEPHERD AND HIS FLOCK
========================================================================

The Shepherd and His Flock by Murdoch Campbell, M.A.

“He shall feed his flock like a shepherd.” (Isa 40:11).

Since these words obviously refer to the Lord Jesus Christ in His tender and
constant care toward His people, an introduction to them is hardly necessary.
There are three words in our text on which I should like to dwell this morning.
They are the “shepherd”, the “flock” and the “feeding”. Let us consider these.

I: The Shepherd.

Christ is before us in the written Word under many glorious names. Each of these
carries its own heavenly fragrance, for “His name is as ointment poured forth”.
To all who believe on His name He is truly precious under whatsoever name the
Holy Spirit brings Him before them in His Word. And there can be few of His
names more endearing to His people than this one. How often, for example, are
our affections moved by the words of the Psalm:

“The Lord is my shepherd”. The Father Himself addresses Him under this name.
“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow,
saith the Lord of Hosts.” And this is the name by which He brought Himself so
often before His people in the days of His humiliation here. “I am the good
shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” In the Epistle to
the Hebrews he is designated as “that great Shepherd of the sheep”. And wherein
does His greatness consist? He is, in His Person and Being, the Eternal Son of
God equal to the Father and to the Holy Spirit both in power and glory. All the
attributes of the Godhead belong to Him in their unchanging fullness and
perfection. He is the ever-living “I am”. This is how He spoke of Himself while
He was in this world. “Before Abraham was, I am.” Those — and there are many
such in this day of blasphemy and unbelief — who would reduce Him to the level
of a mere man have to contend with the witness of God Himself on this claim.

It was, indeed, necessary that He who was to redeem us to God should be equal to
God Himself. Sin brought such dishonour upon the glory and majesty of God that
He could never accept satisfaction or atonement from any being lower than
Himself. That Christ was in no respect lower than God in His Being is, to give
one instance, clearly shown by God Himself where He speaks of Him “my Fellow” or
“mine equal”. Only He could satisfy Divine justice, endure the penalty of a
broken law and of a violated covenant. Only He could or would endure the stroke
of that sword which the justice of God must inflict upon Him as the surety and
substitute of His people. Only God could break the dread sway of sin, and put it
away for ever. Only He could have borne the burden of imputed sin which would,
otherwise, have crushed and destroyed all humanity for ever. When He entered
this world, therefore, in our nature, He took all the perfections of Deity with
Him. He was “Emmanuel, God with us”.

It was necessary also that He who was to suffer and die must also be man. It was
man who sinned and God the Father could not therefore in justice lay the penalty
of sin on one who was not also a true man. He took our nature that in our nature
He might die — the just in the room of the unjust. It is the infinite greatness
of the Person which lends dignity, efficacy and glory to His finished work of
redemption. In the Gospel our Lord speaks also of Himself as “The good
Shepherd”. What the Church, both in Heaven and on earth, sees in his coming into
the world to die for her is the greatness of His love. He loved all His people
with an everlasting love. Why He loved us we cannot tell. We sinned against Him.
We hated Him without a cause. We despised and rejected Him. We nailed Him to the
tree and put Him to open shame; but in spite of all this He loved us to the end.
“Greater love hath no man than this that a man should lay down His life for his
friends”. But, as we were by nature, we were not His friends but His enemies.
Only when he changed our hearts, and gave us the spirit of repentance, did we
become His friends. O! the wonder of His love as we see it in contrast to all
our ill-deservings. Is it any wonder that the theme of the songs of the redeemed
in the heavenly world should be: “Unto Him who loved us and washed us from our
sins in His own blood”? As in the case of Paul who spoke of himself as “the
chief of sinners”, each one of His people puts himself or herself in the same
category and shall wonder, through all eternity, at the love which embraced them
and rescued them. And how thankful we should be that this love is united to
infinite power. “All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth.” Satan “the
son of mischief” took all humanity out of the hand of the first Adam. We all
sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression. But Satan can never
take any of God’s elect out of Christ’s hand. “I give them eternal life, and
they shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of mine hand.” They
are kept by the power of God. On the great day He shall give an account to the
Father of all for whom He died. “Behold I and the children whom God hath given
me.” Satan’s power is great; so is the power of sin, but Christ’s power, love
and faithfulness stands between us and all that would destroy us.

God’s word also speaks of our Lord as “The chief Shepherd” of His sheep. “And
when the chief Shepherd shall appear ye shall receive a crown of glory that
fadeth not away.” On the natural level there are some who leave their flocks
under the care of their servants. The sheep belong to them; but they give them
no personal attention. Some, indeed, would consider it beneath their dignity to
attend personally to their flocks. Now Christ, as the Head of the Church and the
King of Zion, has ordained and appointed angels and men to care for His flock in
this lower vale. Angels are ministering spirits who are sent forth to minister
to those who are heirs of salvation. They watch over them night and day. They
keep them in all their ways. The Lord also has chosen men who care for the
spiritual welfare of His people. Peter, after his profession of love to Christ,
was commanded to feed His sheep and lambs. Such men should manifest their love
to Christ by their love to His people. The Lord has a called, converted and
devoted ministry within His Church on earth who attend to the spiritual needs of
His people. But, however faithful and loving all such may be, the Lord does not,
in the highest sense, leave His people under their care. He Himself is the chief
Shepherd. When Moses was offered an angel to lead God’s Israel through the great
and terrible wilderness into the place of their rest, he said: “If thy presence
go not with me carry us not up hence.” Under God’s hand he was a shepherd
himself, and he knew the value of angelic protection and care, but only under
the wings of the Eternal would he feel safe. Under the pillar of cloud by day
and of fire by night would he know that no harm could befall them. Above and
beyond all that man and angels could do was His own unfailing care. How sweet to
the believing soul are those Psalms which speak of this.

“But his own people like to sheep thence to go forth He made. And he amidst the
wilderness them, as a flock did lead.”

“Thy foot he’ll not let slide, nor will He slumber that thee keeps, Behold he
that keeps Israel He slumbers not, nor sleeps.”

We seek, as we ought to do, to keep ourselves unspotted from the world and, by
His grace to persevere in the way of His commandments. This is the desire and
resolve of God’s people. But while all the people of God ever strive to do so,
their faith rests on Him who alone is the Keeper of Israel: for they know that
without Him they could do nothing. It was this that gave such unspeakable
comfort to the Psalmist. “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and afterward
receive me to glory.”

Think also of the sympathy and love of the Shepherd toward His flock. In the
natural world the shepherd, however tender and faithful, cannot understand how
the weary or enfeebled sheep or lamb may feel in the way. There may be a hidden
instinctive pain of which the shepherd can know nothing. This is so because they
belong to two different dimensions of existence. There is a fundamental
difference of nature. Our Lord, however, has a human nature as well as the
Divine. He is, therefore, touched with a feeling of our infirmities. “In all
their afflictions He was afflicted.” In this world He was “a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief.” “Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our
sorrows.” His sympathy with His afflicted people is, therefore, very real. He
has passed through all our sorrows. Although in Him was no sin, all our
weaknesses, perplexities, trials and hidden griefs were in His cup. Our tears
and our wounded spirits touch him as they cannot touch our nearest friends on
earth. His people are the apple of His eye. He knows our frame. He knows our
enemies. He knows our burdens. He also knows that many of our sufferings are due
to our attachment to Him, and to His cause in this world. “For thy sake are we
killed all the day, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” One wonder of
His care over us is the way He adapts Himself to our personal states. He leadeth
gently those that are with young. He carries the lambs to His bosom. He applies
His balm to the hurts of those who suffer for His sake. When they are ready to
halt He gives them rest. “As a beast goeth down into the valley the Spirit of
the Lord caused them to rest; so didst thou lead thy people to make thyself a
glorious name.” (Isa 63:1-19). How sweet to know then that nothing will ever
emerge in our lives but He is ever beside each one of us. “The Lord is my
Shepherd.” “I will fear no evil for Thou art with me.” The next word in our text
that we would look at is:

II. The Flock The Lord speaks in His Word of His people here as “a little
flock”. Some think that this phrase is a term of endearment. And so it is. But
it is also a word which enables us to see that, in comparison to the rest of the
world, the Lord’s people have often, if not always, been small in number. There
have been times when they were few, feeble and hidden. Although the Lord — and
we should bless His name for it — has much people in the world today — they are
still, compared to the teeming masses of humanity, “a very small remnant.” But
they are the salt of the earth. It is for the Elect’s sake that God bears with
us. For their sake He shortens the days of anguish. In the ultimate sense, how
ever, those who make up Christ’s flock are not a small number. They are “a great
multitude which no man could number.” When Abraham, at God’s command, looked at
the stars of heaven He said to him, “so shall thy seed be”. And we know that all
the stars which grace the universe are known only to God. They are in their
number utterly beyond human calculation. We believe also that the day is coming
when God’s people shall make the earth resound with His praise. He is going to
bring His sons from afar and His daughters from the ends of the earth till,
among Jew and Gentiles, the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the
waters cover the sea. But coming nearer to our theme we ask a question. How may
we identify His people in this world? What are their peculiar marks? The Lord’s
people may differ in many ways within the context of their individual Christian
experience, but they have also so many things in common. For one thing they all
love the Lord Who redeemed them. Whatever their own feelings and fears if they
are His, His love is shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit who dwells
in them. “Whom having not seen, ye love.” “The righteous love thee.” Peter,
newly out of the devil’s sieve, and still under a cloud of fear and shame, could
say, “Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee.” The flood of the adversary could not
extinguish that flame of love to Christ which beamed through his spirit. We are
not always conscious of our love to Christ. It is often a hidden grace which
shows itself in other ways. The evidence of their love to Him is really seen in
their spiritual discernment and obedience. They know the Shepherd’s voice. To
the Church in the Song of Solomon Christ’s voice had no counter part in Heaven
or on earth. “The voice of my beloved.” “No man ever spake like this man.”
“Cause me”, was the prayer of David, “to hear thy voice for in Thee do I trust.”
They say that, naturally speaking, sheep can distinguish between the voice of
the shepherd and all other voices. The imitation of his voice may be almost
perfect; but the false voice never deceives them.

God’s true people listen only to God’s Word. The false shepherd and there are
many such in our day — whose voice deviates from God’s Word they ignore and
reject. This has often involved them in sufferings and death. Throughout the
long day of historical time many of them suffered for their devotion to Christ
and His Word. Rather than forsake His Word, or leave the way of holiness and
truth, many of them chose and welcomed death. Not only are they bound to the
way, but their hearts are also bound to those who are with them in the way. How
beautifully is this seen, for example, in the life of Ruth as she said an
everlasting farewell to her people and her gods. “Whither thou goest, I will go;
thy people shall be my people and thy God my God.” The love of Bunyan’s pilgrims
for the way was of a part with their love to Christ and to one another. God was
their companion and guide. And they had fellowship with Him and with one another
both in their joys and sorrows. A good Christian girl was once on the eve of
leaving her home for one of our Scottish cities. She was concerned as to where
she could find true Christian fellowship and food for her soul. At the Throne of
Grace she addressed the Lord in these words: “Tell me, Othou whom my soul
loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon.” When
she arrived in the city she sat on the Sabbath evening in a certain Church, and
great was her astonishment when the minister preached from these very words.
There her soul found rest and nourishment for many days.

Another mark which is peculiar to the flock of God is that they are reconciled
to the Lord’s hand when He brings them under the rod of correction. If sheep are
often foolish and apt to go astray so are the Lord’s people sometimes. If they
heed not His voice which says, “This is the way, walk ye in it”, they may come
under His loving chastisement. But, however sore these trials, He will not give
them over to death. “The Lord hath me chastised sore, but not to death given
over.”

Satan may at times insinuate that His chastisements are not the tokens of His
love but of His displeasure. But He gives them the needed grace whereby they are
able to “hear the rod” and Him who appoints it. Not till we reach our heavenly
home shall we see the wisdom and love of God in the ordering of His providence.
Can we not even now, with so much of our Christian life in retrospect, thank Him
for the use of His rod when we were apt to go astray into the way of danger?

Let us now say a word on:

III. The Feeding The great end for which Christ came into the world was that His
flock might have life and have it more abundantly. He who is their resurrection
out of a state of spiritual death is also their sustaining life. Of His fulness
they all receive and grace for grace. As sheep, naturally, are clean creatures,
the Lord’s people, as new creatures in Christ, are conscious of new desires
which only God can satisfy. The evidence of their regeneration is that they
hunger and thirst after righteousness. Reclaimed and redeemed from the “far
country” of sin, they no longer desire the husks which graceless men and women
live on. They have for ever left the impoverished and unclean fare of a
degenerate world. Their Shepherd has furnished their table with the wholesome
food and drink of the heavenly Canaan. When God brought His people out of Egypt
He gave them manna from heaven and water out of the smitten rock. And the
spiritual Israel feed on the pastures of His Word. The Word of God is their life
in every age. “Thy words were found and I did eat them.” It is by “the sincere
milk of the Word” that His lambs are nourished. His people confess that “His
mouth is most sweet”. It is, in other words, through the channel of His Word,
that He communicates His grace to their souls. The words which He speaks to them
are life and truth. Exercised Christians read the Word and love to hear it
expounded in the public means of grace. God says to them each day: “Arise and
eat because the journey is too great for thee.”

Inseparable from this pasture is the practice of prayer. “Give us this day our
daily bread.” “Evermore give us this bread.” God did not bring the manna into
the houses of the Israelites. Nor did He place it in their mouth. They had to go
out into the fields and gather it. Ruth had to glean on the fields of Boaz for
her daily bread. Those who neglect the means of grace God will not bless. Family
worship and public worship go together. If the one is persistently neglected the
other becomes an empty formality. There are those who say that they can worship
God in their homes without going to His House, but in so saying they dishonour
God. We are to keep His Sabbaths and reverence His sanctuary. But God’s children
have also secret dealings with the Lord in prayer. It is in the secret place
that they often enjoy more of His presence, and that He supplies their needs
according to His riches in Christ. In all the means of grace they open their
mouth in prayer and desire, and He fills it. They extend the hand of faith
toward Him and He gives them a token for good.

We mentioned how the Lord uses His rod of chastisement for their safety; and
does He not also feed them on bitter herbs, and give them the waters of Marah to
drink? There are seasons when instead of bread to eat they are given tears of
sorrow. The cup which He puts to their mouth is not always sweet. The sorrows of
the flock come from many sources. “In this world ye shall have tribulation.” But
it only lasts “for a small moment”. Soon, very soon, He shall wipe all tears
from their eyes. There are no bitter herbs, no waters of Marah, in Heaven.
Sorrow and sighing shall for ever flee away. “And now ye have sorrow, but I
shall see you again and your heart shall rejoice and your joy no man taketh from
you.”

Dear friend, do you know the Lord as your shepherd? Do you bear the marks of His
Own? Do you feed at their table? Let me end my remarks with a little story. It
is that of a well-trained elocutionist who once at the request of some friends
repeated the twenty-third Psalm. So impressed were many by his art that when he
finished there was the sound of subdued, and respectful applause. In that
company there was an elderly Christian man who also, in a halting and broken
voice — and not without much feeling — repeated the Psalm. When he finished some
were in tears. “How is it,” someone asked the master of elocution, “that when
you repeated the Psalm some applauded but none wept; but when the other repeated
it he brought tears to our eyes?” His answer was, “The difference between us is
this: I know the Psalm, but he knows the Shepherd.” My friend you also knew the
Psalm from your mother’s knee, perhaps. But do you know the Shepherd? “And this
is life eternal that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom thou hast sent.”

These sermons are taken from Everlasting Love a book of devotional sermons by
Rev. Murdoch Campbell, and published by The Knox Press (Edinburgh), 1969.


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  CHAPTER 10: S. THE SOUL'S COMPASSION
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The Soul’s Compassion by Murdoch Campbell, M.A.

“We are journeying into the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you:
come thou with us, and we will do thee good: for the Lord hath spoken good
concerning Israel.” (Num 10:29). In the lives of most men and women there are
moments when they are presented with solemn issues which may profoundly affect
their future lives, if not their destiny. This is especially true of those who
hear the Gospel. Such solemn issues call for careful and prayerful
consideration, and by the grace of God, for a wise decision. A wrong decision,
or no decision at all, may involve us in regret, in remorse, and in everlasting
sorrow. On the other hand, a right response to the overtures of God in the
Gospel shall bring us into the way of peace and eternal happiness. In this
chapter we read of a man who, at the cross-roads of destiny, was asked by Moses
to throw in his lot with the people of God. He was also given the promise that
if he did so, he would truly share in their blessings and in their inheritance.
We have reason to believe that although Hobab at first hesitated in obeying the
word which God through His servant addressed to him, he did join himself to the
Israel of God and that he became an heir of the righteousness which is of faith.
And because, I believe, there are in this congregation some, if not many, to
whom this appeal is also addressed by God in His Word I want to give these
solemn words a personal application.

Hobab. we believe, is with God in heaven, but you may be here still “halting
between two opinions”with eternity very near, and your precious soul unsaved and
your time unredeemed. Although you are still in the room of mercy, do remember
that you may yet be a stranger to God. Your state, therefore, is truly perilous.
Let us offer a few remarks on these words.

Let us consider:

I. The Urgent Appeal and The Loving Invitation "Come thou with us."

Hobab, we know, was related to Moses by natural bonds; but it was not any mere
natural affection which lay behind these words of Moses. True, the Lord’s
people, like Paul, have a concern for those who are their kinsmen according to
the flesh; but their spiritual concern, prayers and affections go beyond their
own immediate circles. They would, indeed, have all men come to the knowledge of
the Truth and of Christ. In this matter they are also, like Paul, constrained by
the love of Christ. Christ Himself has compassion on the ignorant and on those
who are out of the way. On earth He wept over those who, in their folly, moved
toward eternal destruction, but whom He would have gathered under His wings. If
we have a measure of the spirit of Christ our compassion also will go out to the
wayward and the lost. Who can remain silent before God as they see the great
harvest which might be reaped for Him if true labourers were on the scene! If we
were the means of bringing even one soul to seek salvation how great would be
our joy in the day of Christ! In the words of Samuel Rutherford, heaven would be
heaven twice over if, in the world of glory, we saw one who came to Christ as
the result of our prayers or of our witness.

If, like Moses, we belong to Christ, we would have others share our spiritual
happiness. Moses, in the midst of all his afflictions, was a happy man. So were
God’s true Israel whom the Lord had saved, not from mere temporal danger, but
from the power and consequence of sin. “Happy art thou, O Israel, O people saved
by the Lord.” The day he and they came to the knowledge of God, and had tasted
that He was merciful and gracious, was the day when they found the key to
everlasting blessedness. “O, taste and see that God is good.” Only God is good.
Only God alone can give us the desire of our heart. “This,” said David, in
speaking of his hope of enjoying eternal communion with God, “is all my
salvation and this is all my desire.”

Moses, as we know, was offered the best — or the worst — that this world could
give him. He was, perhaps, even offered a throne. He was offered all the
pleasures, all the riches and all the honours that this world could confer upon
him. Not merely some of these earthly and carnal favours, but all of them. But
when he tasted of the heavenly life, and of the deep unspeakable enjoyment of
communion with God, he, as an immortal being, knew how empty and vain were all
created things. He knew that earthly “things” are ultimately irrelevant to such
as are destined to exist for ever. He knew that man can carry nothing with him
to eternity but either sin or God. God had forgiven him his sin, and had made
him an heir of glory. He knew that to live in sin and to be deprived of God’s
mercy and love would involve him in misery and despair for ever and ever. O, my
dear fellow sinner, we are not trying to deceive you when we say with him, “Come
thou with us. and we will do thee good.” “How great is thy goodness, which thou
hast laid up for them that fear thee:which thou hast wrought for them that trust
in thee before the sons of men!” God’s people only enjoy an earnest, or a
foretaste, here of what is awaiting them in the world to come, but even these
drops from heaven are infinitely preferable to all the so- called joys which
this unclean and empty world can bestow.

Let me say something else; Paul, you will remember, speaks of the “terror of the
Lord”. And knowing what that meant he sought to persuade men to “flee from the
wrath to come”. Moses also knew what these words meant. He extended his earnest
invitation to Hobab because he knew that the alternative to God’s goodness and
obedience to His will would be His eternal displeasure. He had seen with his own
eyes the dire consequences of disobeying God’s voice and of living a shelterless
life without the safety which Christ’s death and blood provide. He saw the land
of Egypt come under God’s anger and become a veritable city of destruction. The
deluge of wrath which descended on Egypt and of which he was a witness was,
however, limited and momentary. But “the wrath to come” is unmixed with mercy
and is eternal. And since it is the will of God that none should perish but that
all should return to Him and live, this precious invitation is not merely from
man’s heart or lips but from the heart of God Himself. We are but Christ’s
ambassadors who plead with men to be reconciled to God. The blessed implication
of these words, you will notice, is that the free offer of salvation and the
invitations of the Gospel have the sanction of God’s Word. We find them in every
part of Scripture. Our Lord addressed men in these words: “Come unto me, all ye
that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Since all men enter
the world under a burden of guilt and sin these words are, therefore, addressed
to “all”. None is excluded. One of the last words in the Bible is “Come”. The
Spirit and the bride say “Come”. The Church unites in uttering the same word as
Christ and the Spirit. So do all who hear and obey God’s voice. To say that this
appeal to men implies that they have some measure of ability to save themselves
is not true. In the matter of salvation man, of himself, can do nothing. He is
utterly helpless. But there are, on the other hand, three solemn facts which
confront us in relation to the offer and invitations of the Gospel. The first is
that man is accountable to God. Why shall the ungodly be excluded on the last
day from the presence of God? Is it because they had lost all ability to come to
Christ? No. “I was a stranger and you took me not in.” He knocked at their door,
but they kept it closed. How often, and in how many ways, has He knocked at your
own?

Another truth is that there is something we can do. This is not a contradiction
of what we have just said. We can pray. We can cry for mercy. “I waited
patiently for the Lord, and He included unto me and heard my cry.” It is truly
God’s power and hand that rescues us from the pit of sin; but, as in the case of
the Psalmist, He does this in answer to prayer. Prayer is always the expression
of our inability to save ourselves. You stay as you are and you will remain
where you are. Keep silent and God may keep silent also. The cry of a drowning
man cannot save him, but it may bring someone to his side who can rescue him.
Let me ask the Lord’s people here this question. Was it not in answer to prayer,
and with your eye upon Christ crucified, that the Lord saved you? I can almost
hear the still small voice of a universal “yea” within the souls of all to whom
the question comes.

There is another and a more important truth which we should mention. When Moses
said to Hobab, “Come thou with us”, the Holy Spirit accompanied that word to his
heart and made him willing in a day of His power. The Holy Spirit, who is
present in His own infallible Word, is He who quickens us and who draws the soul
to Christ. Here, then, is a mystery of God’s sovereignty which is beyond our
comprehension. “The wind,” said Christ, “bloweth where it listeth, and thou
hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it
goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” May that blessed wind, from
the very portals of heaven, waft into your soul and bear you away to the very
place whence it has its rise. When, therefore, we say, “Come thou with us”, we
do so in the hope that the blessed Spirit who also says “Come” may, through our
words, work effectively in your heart.

Sometimes when we speak to men and women about their need of salvation, and of
their duty to come to Christ, they reply that they are, as yet, “not good
enough”. But, as one put it, Christ did not come to save little sinners or good
sinners, but great sinners and bad sinners. Christ saved the poor publican who
cried for mercy while He left the proud and “good” Pharisee severely alone. How
unspeakably solemn and terrible is the divine contempt in relation to such men
who put their own righteousness before Christ’s. We are all in the same
category. Our best, before God, is often our worst; for we substitute our own
imperfect and soiled righteousness for the spotless righteousness of Christ. My
dear fellow sinner, be not deceived. He wants you as you are. There is no sin in
your heart or in your life but His blood can wash away. Our God is a forgiving
God. “Who is a God like unto Thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the
transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger for
ever, because he delighteth in mercy.” Let me say, like many another who
obtained mercy, that there was a dark distressing season in my own life when a
deep fear lurked in my heart that I had a sin, in the shape of evil thoughts,
which God would not and could not forgive. But when He passed by me in mercy,
and spoke to my soul in love I saw the wonder of His forgiveness, and the depth
of pity which is in His Being toward the lost. “Come thou with us”, and you will
discover this for yourself.

Look again at:

II. The Sure Hope and The Great Promise:

Moses assured Hobab that they were “journeying to the place of which the Lord
said, I will give it you”, and that He had “spoken good concerning Israel”. God
had, indeed, promised His people that He would bring them into a land flowing
with milk and honey. We know also that because of their unbelief and
disobedience many in that camp never saw that good land. Moses himself was
denied that favour. He saw the good land from the top of Pisgah, but, literally
speaking, he did not inhabit it. He was already in Heaven when he appeared on
another mount — the Mount of Transfiguration — talking to the Lord.

It is good to know that Canaan was but a type of that other land “which is
fairer than day” — the heavenly country. The natural Canaan was but a pale
imperfect shadow of Heaven. While Moses, therefore, might have included the
lower Canaan in his words to Hobab, we know that his eyes and heart were fixed
on “Him Who is invisible” and on the place where He dwells. This was how he
endured amid all the tribulations of his life. In the Epistle to the Hebrews
Moses, and all the heirs of God’s promises, are spoken of as spiritual men who
desired and sought that country wherein dwelleth righteousness. They saw
spiritual and eternal realities by faith. God and Heaven were more real to them
than this sinful world which is, after all, but a passing shadow. As spiritual
men they had put this world for ever behind their back. They had become pilgrims
and strangers on the earth. This then is what Moses truly meant when he said,
“We are journeying to the place of which the Lord said, “I will give it you”.
They were journeying to the new Jerusalem which is from above. And those who are
going to Heaven are in the way to Heaven. How will you reach your own home after
this service? Only by taking the right way to your own door. And unless you are
in the way to Heaven how can you reach it? For Moses and his people this journey
began with the slaying of the paschal lamb and “the blood of sprinkling”. “When
I see the blood I will pass over you”. This transaction was typical of the great
atonement which Christ made for the redemption of His people. He is the way to
Heaven. “I am the way and the truth and the life”. it is through His merits and
death that we have access to God, and are provided with a way of escape out of
our bondage. It is through His death that God’s saving power operates for our
salvation. It was through the blood of sprinkling that God’s arm was
outstretched to make a pathway for His people through the deep.

Another evidence that they were in God’s way was that God provided for their
daily needs. Hobab might have wondered how the great host who were journeying
through the wilderness could survive the journey. But he came to know that this
favoured people had a daily supply of manna from Heaven, and that a stream from
the rock followed them to the end. Dear friend, who may be still ignorant of the
blessings which God’s people enjoy, little do you know of their enjoyments. They
feed on Christ, the “bread of life”. They drink daily from the river of life
which flows from the smitten “Rock of Ages”. Goodness and mercy shall follow
them all the days of their life here. Their bread shall be given them, and their
water shall be sure. But till you come with us, you shall know nothing of the
spiritual fare which nourishes the souls of His people. He has prepared this
table for them in the wilderness. “They go from strength to strength, every one
of them in Zion appeareth before God.” “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
neither have entered in the heart of man the things which God has prepared for
them that love Him: but God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” To enjoy
the rest and the happiness which remain for the people of God, Hobab must also
share in their afflictions. Israel was surrounded by enemies. Their souls were
often discouraged because of the way. But afflictions are not hostile to our
true happiness or to our holiness. Very often our greatest blessings come
through our greatest trials. Besides, the true believer has more joy in his
afflictions, both actually and prospectively, than graceless men have in all
their choice pleasures. Their sighs and tears are preferable to the smiles and
frivolities of the ungodly. The greatest honour and privilege that can be
conferred on us here is that we should be partakers of Christ’s sufferings. If
we are in the way of Heaven we shall reach the desired haven through many
storms. Moses did not conceal or exclude this fact when he spoke to Hobab. Do we
participate in the trials of His people? Are we in the footsteps of His flock?
If so, we are journeying to the place where sorrow is unknown. The greatest
happiness that Moses knew on earth was the enjoyment of God’s presence. This was
not personal or exclusive to Himself. The Lord was also in the midst of His
people. He dwelt between the cherubims in the most holy place. The pillar of
cloud by day and of fire by night was over the camp always. It was not only the
symbol of His gracious presence, butt also of His nearness and protecting power.
What solemnity, sweetness and comfort did this lend to the hearts of His people!
“Lo, I am with you always.” “My presence shall go with you and I will give you
rest.” You, who have enjoyed moments, hours or days of God’s presence in your
own soul, know that this verily is Heaven in the foretaste. Short of this, we
have nothing. Without this we shall have nothing but utter desolation for ever.
To know God in His love and gracious Presence reduces all other favours to mere
nothingness. My dear fellow sinner, when we say to you, “Come thou with us and
we will do you good”, it is not something of our own that we want to impart to
you, but to know Christ “whom to know is life eternal”. This is the great
goodness to which you also are invited. By the words, “We will do thee good”,
was Moses not also emphasising how wonderful is the communion of the saints on
earth, and that we are safer and happier in the company of God’s people than in
the company of those who know not God? The Lord warns us in His Word that the
companions of fools shall be destroyed. Ruth, by choosing the people of God as
her companions, is now in Heaven. So is David who said, “I am a companion of all
those who fear thee.” Dear Christless friend, we are not perfect. Far from it.
God’s people have their own infirmities and failings. They are still in the
flesh. If you go about with your magnifying glass you will find spots and flaws
in their life. Like Paul. they all acknowledge themselves to be the chief of
sinners. But those who belong to God have something which you will never find
elsewhere. You have even now a place in their affections, in their prayers, and
in their desire for your salvation. O, how happy would the Lord’s people here
tonight be if you also would say with Ruth: “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to
return from following after thee; for whither thou goest I will go, and where
thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people and thy God my God.” In
conclusion, let me say a word on:

III. His Hesitation and Decision As we have remarked, Hobab’s immediate reaction
to Moses’ appeal was unfavourable. As he viewed the present state of Israel, and
compared it to his own temporal comforts, he was inclined to reject his offer.
Israel was a people apparently homeless. They were moving within the heart of a
barren and dreary land. Their past afflictions were many. Their future trials
might be even greater. He had an earthly home of his own. He lived among a
people who cared for his temporal welfare. He lacked nothing in God’s
providence. But something happened. Yes, something happened. Moses’ second
appeal moved his heart to go with him. Perhaps, at that moment, he also had a
glimpse and a foretaste of the things which are unseen and eternal. The Holy
Spirit unveiled his inner eyes and enabled him to taste and see something of the
great goodness laid up in heaven for all who fear God and follow Him. In Jos
4:1-24, we have Hobab’s name and some of his descendants mentioned as being
members of God’s Israel. Hobab therefore did “come”. O! that this would happen
to you. The Lord’s people should persevere in prayer and persuasion where
precious souls are concerned. We must never conceal from them the worth of our
inheritance, and the certainty of its possession. Our prayers, our words and
invitations God may bless in their salvation. Even a casual word of welcome and
exhortation to Christless souls may be the means of arresting them in their
sinful ways. All Christians have a lovely story to tell and a lovely Saviour to
commend. They are on the way to a lovely place which is their eternal Home. The
gates into this blessed Home are open night and day to all who would enter in.

Notice also how Moses detected in this man latent gifts and talents which the
Lord might, by His grace, use for the good of His cause in this world. How
unspeakably sad it is to see men of gifts and parts serving the world and the
enemy of their souls! Only a few days ago have I listened to two young men
preaching the good tidings of salvation. Like Hobab they once hesitated, but now
they know the joy of the Lord and they display the banner of Truth and fight His
battles. Are you here, either misusing or burying your talents? Great, dear
friend, will be your sorrow and remorse in eternity if you do not give your
Creator His own back with its interest. Remember, the night is coming when no
man shall be able to work. Your opportunity and your day of grace are passing
away. “Jesus of Nazareth passeth by.” Moses was moving on when he met Hobab. And
your present privilege may never be repeated. We, also, say to you from the
depths of our heart: “Come thou with us and we will do thee good.” Will you,
like Mary, make choice of Christ, the Good Part? Will you, like this man of old,
be one of His in the day when He shall make up His Jewels? Will you, whether old
or young, be among those who shall praise Him in His Zion? “Acquaint now thyself
with Him and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee.”

These sermons are taken from Everlasting Love a book of devotional sermons by
Rev. Murdoch Campbell, and published by The Knox Press (Edinburgh), 1969.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 11: S. TILL THE END BE
========================================================================

Till the End Be by Murdoch Campbell, M.A.

“But go thou thy way till the end be; for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot
at the end of the days.” (Dan 12:13). In these days we hear much about the
subject of Christian consecration. All who belong to the Lord should, indeed,
heed the exhortation: “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” “Walk before me, and be thou
perfect”, was God’s command to Abraham. It is also a command which is addressed
to all the people of God in every age. Truly none of us is consecrated to the
Lord to the degree that we should. This is our grief — or it should be. Though
they cannot attain to perfection in this life the Lord’s people, in the words of
another, would be holy if they could. But one of their sorrows is that they are
continually coming short of His glory.

Daniel, to whom these words were addressed by the Lord, was a man greatly
devoted to His fear, His service and His glory. He enjoyed much of His secret.
The Lord was also his Companion in the way. He therefore could say with the
Psalmist: “Nevertheless I am continually with Thee.” God speaks of him as a man
“greatly beloved”. The Lord loves all His people. They are all “greatly
beloved”; but there are some who give clearer evidence in their lives that His
love truly dwells in their hearts.

Although, as His prophet, the Lord revealed His mind to Daniel in so many things
related to the future course of His Providence there were things which, in His
infinite wisdom, He would not reveal. “It is the glory of God to conceal a
thing.” The Bible is an infallible revelation of God’s mind and will: but His
Providence is a great deep, the contents and unfoldings of which can only be
understood with their fulfilment. “And I heard, but I understood not: then said
I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way,
Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.” And in
cornmanding him to go his way, the Lord leaves with him a great promise of
eternal rest in Heaven where, “at the end of the days” he would also possess an
unfading inheritance with Himself. These words — the command and the promise —
are also addressed, and belong to all who truly love and fear His name. Let us
consider:

I. The Divine Command “But go thou thy way till the end be.” The implication of
these words is that Daniel’s way was wholly approved by God. God’s way and that
of His servant were identical. “The ways of the Lord are right, and the just
shall walk in them.” When we look at this man’s life as it is before us in this
Book we may see how he walked before God. To begin with he walked consistently
in the way of Truth. Both in his outward conduct and in his inward spiritual
desires he was ruled by God’s Word. God’s will was pre-eminently his own. The
prayer of David was inscribed on his heart also by the Holy Spirit:

“In Thy law’s path make me to go, For I delight therein.”

He also could say, “Hold up my goings in Thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.”
When his enemies, for example, tried to ensnare him, the only fault they could
find with him was that he refused to deviate from the law of his God. A higher
testimonial than this was seldom given to any in this world. He would not grieve
God’s Spirit or cast a shadow on his own conscience by any compromise with evil.
He would not adapt himself to the ways of a pagan and godless nation. Rather
than deny the Truth of God in his worship and conduct, or go out of the way into
any by-path of sin, he was prepared to die. His love to God and his devotion to
His Word brought him into the den of lions. But the Guardian of Israel preserved
his life there and made his enemies to see that there is a reward for the
righteous. An old friend of mine used to remark that the night Daniel spent in
the lion’s den was the happiest he ever spent in this world. It passed all too
quickly! In that lower cave God’s blissful Presence filled his soul, while He
was also a wall of fire round about him. God spread His covering wings over him,
and no enemy in hell or on earth could touch him. If the way of Truth leads many
of God’s people into the way of suffering it is only that they might discover
how great is His love, sympathy and faithfulness. To suffer for Christ is to be
partaker of His own sufferings. And many of His people have discovered that in
suffering for Him there is a joy no words can describe.

We notice also that the way of Truth is bound to the way of holiness, And in
this way Daniel also walked. True holiness derives its power and complexion from
the well of Truth. Our Lord in His great prayer of intercession emphasises this
fact. “Sanctify them through the truth: Thy Word is Truth.” “And an highway
shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The Way of Holiness: the
unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men,
though fools, shall not err therein.” The Word of God everywhere enforces the
truth that true holiness involves, on the one hand a life of separation, and on
the other what we might call a life of proclamation, or a life of witness for
God. In other words, holiness, in its outward manifestation, is both negative
and positive. The Book of Psalms begins, for example, with a description of the
happy or blessed man. “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the
ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners.” When, in other days, Satan walked
to and fro on the earth he saw one man who had no spiritual counterpart in his
age. “And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that
there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that
feareth God and escheweth evil.” Rather than defile their garments by following
the evil course of this world, Daniel’s young friends in the Lord chose to be
cast into the furnace of fire. “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of
darkness, but rather reprove them.” Although we are in the world, we are not of
the world. The so-called “good religious mixers” of this age who think they can
serve God, while at the same time they crawl in the sewers of a sinful world,
are far removed from this way. “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord” or
dwell in His presence. Holiness is the very air which the inhabitants of the new
Jerusalem breathe, “for there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that
defileth neither whatsoever worketh abomination.” True holiness is congenial
only to the new man in Christ, while to the graceless man it is hateful and
repugnant. But holiness has also its positive side. It is not mere separation.
It is a witnessing by our life and conversation whose we are and whom we serve.
“Ye,” said our Lord, “are the light of the World. A city that is set on an hill
cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on
a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your
light so shine before men.” Daniel was a man who, by his holy walk, shone like a
lone star in the prevailing darkness.

There are two kinds of men and women within the visible Church in the world.
There are those who take on the colour of the age in which they live. These walk
with the times. And there are those whose path is “as the shining light, that
shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” These are they who have the promise
that in the world to come they “shall shine as the brightness of the firmament”
and “as the stars for ever and ever”. The banner of truth and holiness has,
therefore, its two sides. One is a spiritual and moral separation from all
ungodliness and the other, personal witness that we are the children of the day.

We see that this man was also in the way of prayer. As holiness derives its
power from the fountain of Truth there is, on the other hand, no spiritual
growth or maturity without unceasing prayer. We read of this man that three
times each day he kneeled in God’s presence. He brought all his personal
concerns to the Lord at the Throne of Grace. But the great theme of his prayers
was the diminished state of God’s cause. Israel — a people whom the Lord had
loved and embraced as His own — were in a state of rebellion against Him. The
nation was, therefore, under the rod of His chastisement and indignation. The
land was desolate. Its lights were extinguished. The people were led into
captivity. In such “a day of rebuke and blasphemy” Daniel did not, however, give
way to despair. He continued to plead God’s covenant promises made to Abraham
and to his seed.

It is good to know that as there is a continual intercession going on “within
the veil” for the Church by our great High Priest, the Lord Jesus, there has not
been an hour since the beginning of time but the Lord had some on earth whose
prayers “like the pillars of smoke” have been ascending to Heaven. God’s people
pray that Christ may prosper in His reign and kingdom and that the enemies of
His glory might be restrained. Whatever discouragements and opposition they may
meantime meet with they “ought always to pray and not to faint”. The exceeding
great and precious promises of God anticipate the coming day when the question
shall be asked once more, “who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as
the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?” The promises
of God and the prayers of His people are joined on this glorious issue. They
both anticipate the coming Day. But is it not true that they are but few who are
exercised in this way, and who wrestle with God for the uplifting and revival of
His cause? Although, as in the days of Elisha, there might have been many in
Babylon who were secretly loyal to God and His cause, they were not all like
this man. May God give us the grace to continue instant in prayer till He again
pluck His hand from His bosom and make known His saving power!

We notice also that although this man enjoyed such nearness to God, He did not
reveal to him the content, trials and conflicts of his future life in this
world. The way of His Providence, as it stood related to His servant, He kept a
secret. Nowhere do we see the wisdom and the love of God so clearly as in this
concealment. Were He to disclose to us beforehand the many sorrows which were to
make up our cup in this life our hearts and lives would be crushed in
apprehension and fear. He merely says, “Go thy way till the end be.” And
whatever may transpire in the way of His Providence He is ever beside His own to
help and comfort them. “As thy days so shall thy strength be.” This is His
promise till the day dawn and the day star arise in our hearts. In His hand we
are as safe as the saints in glory — though, as yet, not so happy. Let us also
look at:

II. God’s Promise “For thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the end of the
days.” The promise is two-fold. There is the promise of rest and the promise of
possession. “There remaineth a rest to the people of God.” This rest is going to
be both perfect and eternal. Both our souls and bodies are to participate in
this sweet repose within the bosom of the Eternal. Already, as heirs of
salvation, we have the beginnings of it in our heart, mind and conscience. It is
a rest which is derived from our relationship and union with Christ. “We who
have believed do enter unto rest.” But not till we pass out of time shall we
enjoy this rest in all its perfection and fulness.

We are to enjoy rest from sin and Satan. As in the case of Paul there is, in
this life, a cry and a restlessness in the heart of all who know the Lord.
Indwelling sin is tireless in its enmity to God’s law which the new creature in
Christ loves and which he would obey. David’s cry was, “There is no rest in my
bones because of my sin.” And if sin is active in their members they are a
people who also wage a constant warfare with Satan. “We wrestle not against
flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of
the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Sin
and Satan are one in their opposition to all who would serve the Lord and obey
His Word. Not until we cross the last river, and reach the end of our pilgrimage
here, shall our warfare cease. The evil thoughts which so often terrify us, and
the subtle temptations which so often cast their shadow over our spirits, shall
one day be for ever removed. In eternity there shall be no room in our soul for
sin or fear. God’s presence and love shall wholly possess our beings. As the sun
banishes the night so shall God’s eternal day, with the unclouded dawn of the
Sun of Righteousness, for ever remove every shadow of fear and sin. In heaven
our souls shall be wholly possessed of God’s love. Life’s storms shall be
changed into an everlasting calm.

We shall also rest from sorrow and sufferings. These shall for ever flee away.
This promise is also given to those who labour for Christ — whether they labour
for Him in secret or in public. “They shall rest from their labours and their
works do follow them.” And, however much the Lord’s people may be discouraged in
this life, in all their labours for Christ they shall know, in that day, that
their labour in the Lord was not in vain. This rest shall be extended not only
to the soul but to the body as well. It may be that your strength is now,
through labour, age and infirmity, abated in the way. The once alert step is now
reduced to a slow, uncertain pace. “The grasshopper” is becoming a burden. Signs
are present with some of us that the earthly tabernacle is soon to be dissolved,
and that we must soon lie down not to arise till the earth be no more. The rest
of the body in the grave coincides with the rest of the soul in the mansions
above. The two separate to meet again on the resurrection morning when the Lord
shall come to awake His loved ones out of sleep. Sometimes we fear the approach
of the last enemy, but Christ by His own death has rendered death harmless to
His own people. And the Lord, who rested in the grave, has warmed this bed for
His loved ones. Our bodies are united to Him in the grave and when, at the sound
of His voice, we awake we shall be satisfied with His likeness.

I will both lay me down in peace And quiet sleep will take;

Because Thou only me to dwell In safety, Lord, dost make. But there is also the
Promise of Possession. “Thou shalt stand in thy lot at the end of the days.”
Before He ascended into Heaven our Lord comforted His people by assuring them
that He was going away to prepare a place for them in a better world. “Ye are
they who have continued with me in my temptations”, and “I go to prepare a
kingdom for you” — a kingdom “which is incorruptible and undefiled and that
fadeth not away”. Beyond what is revealed it would be presumptuous on our part
to seek to describe what heaven is like. There are, indeed, no words in our
earthly vocabulary which could do justice to this theme. “Eye hath not seen, nor
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of men the things which God hath
prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them to us by His
Spirit.” But the glory and the happiness of Heaven are derived from Christ but
the Lamb is the light thereof.” He is the Tree of Life. The wellsprings of the
redeemed are wholly in Him. It is the fulness of His love, enjoyed by all His
people, that shall move their lips to praise Him. The supreme joy of Heaven,
therefore, is not the place but the Person of our full enjoyment of God. Only
God can justify the renewed soul. He is the inheritance and lot of all His
people. How well does the Psalmist express this:

“God is of mine inheritance, and cup the portion: The lot that fallen is to me
Thou dost maintain alone.

Unto me happily the lines in pleasant places fell;

Yea, the inheritance I got in beauty doth excel.”

John Duncan used to say in his latter years that his very soul was woven, in an
ever deepening desire, into the words — “to enjoy Him for ever”. Many a sad day
the believer has in this life: but O, the promise of the Beloved which shall
have its fulfilment when our nights of weeping shall be no more. “Sorrow and
sighing shall flee away.” And think of how they are to stand before God in their
inheritance. All their happiness, all their possessions, are eternally secure
through the righteousness of their unchangeable Redeemer in which they stand
before God. “He hath dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor. His
righteousness remaineth for ever.”

We come into this, our lot, “at the end of the days”. Our days and nights here
pass as a tale that is told, but the end of these shall mark the dawn of our
eternal day when our sun shall no more go down. “For there shall be no night
there.”

Meantime let us pray for the needed grace that shall enable us to go from
strength to strength until we appear before God in Zion.

There may be those among us who move, without concern, in the broad way which
leads to destruction. To all such God speaks, “Turn ye. turn ye . . . why will
ye die?” The way of life begins with our reconciliation to God through the blood
of Christ. The way out of the kingdom of darkness into the path of life begins
with the blood of sprinkling, through beholding and receiving the “Lamb of God
who taketh away the sin of the world.” “Who is wise and he shall understand
these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are
right, and the just shall walk in them; but the transgressors shall fall
therein!” O! may we all meet at His right hand where there are pleasures for
evermore. Pray, dear soul, that yours may not be an eternal night. but an
eternal day, with Christ The Day Star in your heart. May the Lord bless His own
Word.

These sermons are taken from Everlasting Love a book of devotional sermons by
Rev. Murdoch Campbell, and published by The Knox Press (Edinburgh), 1969.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 12: S. WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM
========================================================================

We Shall be Like Him by Murdoch Campbell, M.A.

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall
be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see
Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in him, purifleth himself even
as He is pure.” (1Jn 3:2-3).

Without waiting to give these words an extended introduction we may go on to
consider:

I. The Present Privilege of God’s People: “How are we the sons of God...”

Literally there are two ways in which we may enjoy membership in a family. The
one is by birth and the other is by adoption. By human law it is, of course,
unnecessary to be adopted into the family into which we are born. Our birth into
the family entitles us to the privileges which belong to it. But within the
family of God both are necessary. God in His Word declares that without a new
spiritual birth we can have no place within this family. This is one of the
great requirements of Heaven. Nicodemus, for example, was a religious man. He
followed the pattern of a formal, traditional religion. He was, by modem
standards, a college professor. His outward life was morally correct. In his own
eyes he was already within God’s Kingdom. He was by birth an Israelite, and
therefore a member of God’s Church. When, however, he stood before Christ, and
when he asked Him a question with regard to His power and miracles, our Lord
simply said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, ye must be born again.” This was
not an irrelevant answer to his question. Our Lord knew that the natural man,
however learned or however religious, can never receive or understand the things
of God. They are indeed, foolishness to him. Without, for example, being born
into the world of nature we would know nothing of that world. We would, in fact,
have no real existence at all. The same, and in a deeper sense, is true
spiritually. There can be no apprehension or understanding of the spiritual
world — which belongs to another dimension entirely — unless we are born into
it. “How can these things be?” was the question which exposed Nicodemus for what
he was in a state of spiritual death or blindness. He was ignorant of the very
beginnings of the true Christian life, and of the experience which God’s people
value because it marks their entrance into God’s kingdom and into communion
with, and knowledge of, the only living and true God. Men are by nature dead in
their trespass and in their sin, and as such they cannot know or have any
fellowship with Him Who is “the God of the living.”

We heard once of two men who met each other in the way. They had never seen one
another before. “What,” said the one to the other, “is that which never was,
which never is, and which never shall be?” The answer was — “That which never
was, which never is, and which never shall be is that a child not reborn should
be in my Father’s house.” The question and the answer were spiritual, for they
were both spiritually-minded men. The Church in heaven is known as “the Church
of the first born.” The names of God’s elect were in the Lamb’s Book of Life
before the world was, but just as our names are registered by law in the books
of the nation when we are naturally born, God also has our names written in that
heavenly Book in which is recorded our entrance into His Kingdom. The Book of
Life is the Book of the Living.

“And it of Zion shall be said This man and that man there Was born and he that
is Most High Himself shall stablish her When God the people writes He’ll count
that this man born was there . . .” In the realm of grace our rebirth and
adoption go together. Both, as we said, are necessary. Although the people of
God were chosen and loved in Christ from all eternity they were, in their fallen
state, “strangers and foreigners to God”. They were the children of wrath even
as others. They were darkness, in a kingdom of darkness and under the sway and
dominion of the prince of darkness. In a state of sin they were the children of
the wicked one But God translated them and adopted them out of that state into
His own Kingdom and family. This was an act of sovereign grace, a wonder beyond
all knowledge. In these acts of grace there is a manifestation both of God’s
power and of God’s love In the epistle to the Ephesians Paul ascribes the
spiritual resurrection or conversion of believers to “the exceeding greatness”
of God’s power. They were held by a power which they could never break or
overcome. Satan and Death held them in their grasp. Only God Himself could open
their prison door, break the chains which bound them, and give them to know the
glorious liberty of the children of God. “Thy people shall be willing in the day
of Thy power.” The new birth then is a display of the effectual working of the
Holy Spirit in bringing the soul from death to life. But there is also a
revelation of God’s love. “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed
upon us that we should be called the sons of God.” How wonderful to all the
people of God is this love. David in speaking of Jonathan’s love to him placed
it in this category. “Thy love to me was wonderful.” But that love was but a
small reflection of Christ’s love to His people in making them all, by this act
of adoption, His sons and daughters. If Paul prayed that his Ephesian converts
might know the exceeding greatness of God’s power in their conversion he also
prayed that they might, with all the saints, be able to comprehend that love
which passeth knowledge. It was this love which made them fellow citizens with
the saints and members of the household of God.

We knew a man who, after he had tasted that the Lord is gracious, was so filled
with amazement that God should love and embrace such a vile creature as he was,
and that He would give to such an one a right to all the privileges and
blessings of His redeemed people, that he felt that when he entered heaven he
would “for a thousand years” bow his head at the wonder that such an one should
be there. And this truly is a wonder that shall ever lodge in the breast of all
His people. The evidence of this change, both of our nature and of our
relationship to God, is two-fold. The one is inward and the other is outward.
“He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.” In the new
born soul there is a love for holiness and an aversion to sin. Sin is what gives
grief to the believer. The good that he would do he cannot do because evil is
present with him. This conflict between grace and sin, or between the law of God
inscribed by the Holy Spirit on the renewed soul, and the law of sin remains
while we are in this tabernacle.

There is also a love to Christ and to all His people. They say that when a child
is born into the natural world he brings with him into that world a natural, or
instinctive, love for his parents and also for those who make up the family. Be
that as it may, we know that love to God and to all His people is in every
renewed heart. “We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love
the brethren.” It begins with Christ, “the Elder Brother” in heaven, and extends
to all the mystical body both in heaven and on earth. The true believer embraces
in his or in her affections all the people of God. They say with Ruth — “Thy
people shall be my people and thy God, my God.” And as new born babes they
desire the sincere milk of the Word. This is another evidence of their being
His. Their mouth is open to receive God’s Word. By faith they receive of the
fulness which is in Christ. They are a people who hunger and thirst after
righteousness and who therefore have the promise that God shall supply all their
needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. By the spirit of
adoption they cry “Abba, Father” and say, “Give us this day our daily bread”.
And in His house there is bread enough and to spare. His table is furnished with
good things, which all His children are invited to enjoy. Do they not also prove
themselves to be God’s children by receiving and enduring the Lord’s
chastisement when that is needed? “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth and
scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” “As many as I love I rebuke and
chasten.” It is in his chastisements that we often see His love, His
faithfulness and wisdom. In these also we often discover our own follies.
“Before I was afflicted I went astray.” But there is the outward evidence of
their sonship as well. As the child may bring a natural love for his family into
the world, family likeness may also be imprinted on his very face. This is
often, as we know, a fact of nature. And the new creature in Christ bears the
image of the heavenly. “We all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the
glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as
by the Spirit of the Lord.” They are epistles of Christ that may be known and
read of all men. The question was asked of old, “Who is she that looketh forth
as the morning, clear as the sun, fair as the moon and terrible as an army with
banners?” Who but the children of the day of whom Christ said, “Ye are the light
of the world.” Their light is derived or borrowed from the Sun of Righteousness.
God’s people answer to the description which the Lord gives of them in His Word.
They abstain from all appearance of evil while, at the same time, they are in
the footsteps of the flock. The Lord’s people see but little of His likeness in
themselves. Mercy and Christiana, in the “Pilgrim’s Progress”, could not discern
in themselves what the one could see in the other. We say, “my spot is not the
spot of thy children.” Ruth said to Boaz that she was not, either in grace or
beauty, like his handmaids, but he saw a loveliness in her which she could not
see in herself. It is good to reflect in our life and conversation the
unconscious image of Him who hath begotten us unto a lively hope. Moses wist not
that his face shone. It was he who prayed: “And let the beauty of the Lord our
God be upon us.”

Now notice, in the second place:

II. Their Future Hope

“We know not what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be
like Him for we shall see Him as He is.” In the words of Thomas Manton there is
a mist on eternity. The future state of the redeemed within the veil, and the
kingdom which they are to inherit, they can only see through a glass darkly. It
is God’s glory to hide a thing. We know something of what we were, where we were
and how we were. We know our present infirmities, our crosses and burdens, our
fears and confficts. We mourn over our leanness and the years which the locusts
have eaten. Our sins are ever before us. But we know not what we shall be.

Needless to say our relationship with Christ through our regeneration and
justification is the same now as it shall be in heaven; but with regard to the
glory that shall be revealed in God’s redeemed, we know only in part. Who can
envisage a world, or a state of existence, without sin, without sorrow, without
temptation or without weakness of mind or body? Heaven is the place where the
inhabitant shall not say “I am sick”. Christ shall present His people to Himself
without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. When John gazed upon the great
multitude which no man could number he knew not who they were. Their glory,
happiness and songs made them a great wonder even in Heaven. Surely that great
multitude did not belong to this fallen world. But they did. In that multitude
there were some whom he knew on earth, and who had passed through great
tribulation, but they were now, in the light of God’s face, shining as the
brightness of the firmament and as the stars for ever and ever. How
inconceivable is the change that shall take place in our translation from grace
on earth to glory in Heaven!

Though ye have lien among the pots Like doves ye shall appear Whose wings with
silver, and with gold Whose feathers covered are. And we know not what we shall
have. In this life we have but the earnest of good things to come. The Lord,
indeed, gives His people here a foretaste of all the blessings which they are to
enjoy in Heaven. The supreme joy of Heaven has its source in the full and
everlasting enjoyment of God. In this life their fellowship is with the Father
and with His Son, Jesus Christ. The love of Christ is also shed abroad in their
hearts. But here these enjoyments come and go. Their brook often dries. Seasons
there are when they mourn over the absence of the Beloved and when their hearts
feel empty and cold. Although they are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus
Christ, they speak of themselves as poor and needy. But when they shall come of
age they shall possess the unsearchable riches of Christ reserved in Heaven for
them. This is all their desire, and there is no desire implanted by the Spirit
of God in their hearts but God shall satisfy. In that day “they shall hunger no
more, neither thirst any more, for the Lamb who is in the midst of the Throne
shall feed them, and shall lead them to living fountains of waters, and God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” The sweet “crumbs” which now fall
from His hand and which sustain them on their wilderness journey, only increase
their longings for the fullness prepared for them above.

We could also say that we know not where we shall be. Heaven is the eternal home
of the redeemed. They are born from above and for that reason God has created a
longing in their souls for that city which they are seeking. Heaven in the
highest sense of the word is God Himself. “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling
place in all generations.” Not only has He been their home in this world of
time, but “from everlasting to everlasting”. They had a place in His heart and
in His purpose of grace from all eternity. Their life is now hid with Christ in
God. At Bethel, Jacob said “The Lord is in this place . . . this is none other
than the house of God and this is the gate of Heaven.” But Heaven is also a
place. It is the city of the Great King. “I go,” said our Lord, “to prepare a
place for you.” It is the land wherein dwelleth righteousness. There are moments
in the life of God’s people when they get a glimpse not only of the King in His
beauty, but also of this land of far distances. Moses saw the good land from the
top of Pisgah. We also see it by faith. We look at the things which are unseen
and eternal. And what they see by faith detaches them from things seen. They
have the heart and walk of pilgrims and strangers on the earth. They are on the
way Home. But how little we know of that glorious abode! Not till we cross the
river shall we know the glory and the bliss of that Kingdom which is
“incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.” It is not sweet to
think that although we are still in the world of time, each one of His people
may enjoy a little heaven here under His wings. Under His wings we have
protection, we have nearness to Him, we have warmth and fellowship, we have
unspeakable joy.

“In shadow of thy wings I’ll joy For thou my help hast been.”

Although, dear friends, we know not yet what we shall be, “we know that when He
shall appear we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.” This is the
great hope of the people of God — that they shall see His face in righteousness.
“I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness.” Before He left this world
He gladdened the hearts of His people by giving them all a great promise. “And
ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall
rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” When Job was in great depths of
sorrow this was the one bright star in his sky. “Whom I shall see for myself and
not another.” And they shall see Him as He is. Not as He was. John and many of
his contemporaries saw Him in a state of humiliation and grief. They saw Him in
the likeness of sinful flesh. They saw Him bearing a crown of thorns. They saw
Him rejected and despised of men, and a homeless Wanderer in this cold world.
But there we shall see Him as He is in all His exalted glory. We shall see Him
at God’s Right Hand “crowned with many crowns”. In that happy world their sun
shall no more go down. No cloud shall ever come between them and Christ, the
bright and morning Star.

Let me say this one word. Would you go to a Christless heaven? If you would you
will never be in heaven. If the Church, who is Christ’s bride, were to get the
mansions and riches of the heavenly world, and Christ absent, do you think she
would be happy? No! Her cry would be, “Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth?” This,
needless to say, cannot happen. We simply want to stress again the truth that
all the well-springs of the people of God are in Christ. Their love rests on Him
“Whom having not seen ye love; in whom though now ye see Him not, yet believing,
ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” We rejoice in the hope o.
seeing Him as He is.

Now the fulfilment of this promise is not something remote or far away. “When He
shall appear.” He is to appear to each of His people when they leave this scene
of time. Then their souls immediately pass into glory. Absent from the body they
are present with the Lord. He shall appear on the last day when their bodies
shall also be redeemed, and when all His people shall be gathered to Him.
Meantime let us watch, pray and wait, till the day break and the shadows flee
away. “My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they who watch for the morning.”

Finally notice:

III. The Constant Exercise of God’s People

“And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure.”
Heaven is a place of infinite purity. Nothing shall enter there “that loveth and
maketh a lie.” God’s people know that without holiness no man shall see the
Lord. They are therefore at the Throne of grace asking the Lord to wash them
with hyssop and to create in them a clean heart. “Having, therefore, these
promises dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the
flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” The Church here is
like a bride who is preparing herself to enter into Her Lord’s presence in the
mansions above. “The marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made
herself ready.” This is their desire — to be like Him. Long ago I sat down in a
church and listened to a faithful minister of Christ as he spoke about the
longing after true and perfect holiness which is in the heart of God’s people.
“This is a people,” he said, “who would make their bed in hell rather than
entertain the hope that they could enter heaven with one sin in their soul.” He
who has His fire in Zion and His furnace in Jerusalem shall refine His people as
gold till His own image is perfectly reflected in each one of them. In the
heavenly world they shall be like little mirrors in which Christ may see His own
image perfectly reflected. The blood of sprinkling is also ever available. “They
washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” My dear fellow
sinners who are still in darkness, “without God and without hope in the world”,
there is also an eternity of woe of which you know but little. As there is a
wise concealment on the part of God with regard to the glorious destiny awaiting
His people, what our Lord says of the terrors of a lost eternity should alarm us
and stir us into a state of spiritual concern. Those who are in hell knew but
little on earth of what hell is like. May none of us here, who are still in the
room of mercy, enter into those dungeons of everlasting despair. Listen to what
He says — “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” If you
come to Christ, and embrace Him as your own, then you also shall have a good
hope through grace and shall know the good of His chosen people. And if you come
let me assure you that a welcome awaits you, for “This Man receiveth sinners.”

These sermons are taken from Everlasting Love a book of devotional sermons by
Rev. Murdoch Campbell, and published by The Knox Press (Edinburgh), 1969.


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