Machen Sunday

It's only every several years that we're able to commemorate  Machen Day on a Sunday. This is my first "Machen Sunday" since being led by the merciful Father to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Accordingly, I felt it appropriate to share with my readers his final sermon at Princeton Theological Seminary. The date was Sunday March 10, 1929 and it was your typically dreary day from the weather standpoint. The high was not expected to go above  40 degrees and the modernists had seized the reins where Edwards, Davies, Hodge and other champions of Princetonian Calvinism once trod.  Yet, as Rev Machen spoke, the mechanisms were in place that led- thank God- to classes at the then newly formed Westminster Theological Seminary to begin that Autumn.

The Good Fight of Faith
        By Rev. Professor J. Gresham Machen, D.D., Litt.D.

Phil. 4: 7: "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus." I Tim. 6: 12 (part): "Fight the good fight of faith."

The Apostle Paul was a great fighter. His fighting was partly against external enemies—against hardships of all kinds. Five times he was scourged by the Jews, three times by the Romans; he suffered shipwreck four times; and was in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren. And finally he came to the logical end of such a life, by the headsman’s axe. It was hardly a peaceful life, but was rather a life of wild adventure. Lindbergh, I suppose, got a thrill when he hopped off to Paris, and people are in search of thrills today; but if you wanted a really unbroken succession of thrills, I think you could hardly do better than try knocking around the Roman Empire of the first century with the Apostle Paul, engaged in the unpopular business of turning the world upside down.
But these physical hardships were not the chief battle in which Paul was engaged. Far more trying was the battle that he fought against the enemies in his own camp. Everywhere his rear was threatened by an all-engulfing paganism or by a perverted Judaism that has missed the real purpose of the Old Testament law. Read the Epistles with care, and you see Paul always in conflict. At one time he fights paganism in life, the notion that all kinds of conduct are lawful to the Christian man, a philosophy that makes Christian liberty a mere aid to pagan license. At another time, he fights paganism in thought, the sublimation of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body into the pagan doctrine of the immortality of the soul. At still another time, he fights the effort of human pride to substitute man’s merit as the means of salvation for divine grace; he fights the subtle propaganda of the Judaizers with its misleading appeal to the Word of God. Everywhere we see the great apostle in conflict for the preservation of the church. It is as though a mighty flood were seeking to engulf the church’s life; dam the break at one point in the levee, and another break appears somewhere else. Everywhere paganism was seeping through; not for one moment did Paul have peace; always he was called upon to fight.
Fortunately, he was a true fighter; and by God’s grace he not only fought, but he won. At first sight indeed he might have seemed to have lost. The lofty doctrine of divine grace, the center and core of the gospel that Paul preached, did not always dominate the mind and heart of the subsequent church. The Christianity of the Apostolic Fathers, of the Apologists, of Irenæus, is very different from the Christianity of Paul. The church meant to be faithful to the apostle; but the pure doctrine of the Cross runs counter to the natural man, and not always, even in the church, was it fully understood. Read the Epistle to the Romans first, and then read Irenæus, and you are conscious of a mighty decline. No longer does the gospel stand out sharp and clear; there is a large admixture of human error; and it might seem as though Christian freedom, after all, were to be entangled in the meshes of a new law.
But even Irenæus is very different from the Judaizers; something had been gained even in his day : and God had greater things than Irenæus in store for the church. The Epistles which Paul struck forth in conflict with the opponents in his own day remained in the New Testament as a personal source of life for the people of God. Augustine on the basis of the Epistles, set forth the Pauline doctrine of sin and grace; and then, after centuries of compromise with the natural man, the Reformation rediscovered the great liberating Pauline doctrine of justification by faith. So it has always been with Paul. Just when he seems to be defeated, his greatest triumphs, by God's grace, are in store.
The human instruments, however, which God uses in great triumphs of faith are no pacifists, but great fighters like Paul himself. Little affinity for the great apostle has the whole tribe of considerers of consequences, the whole tribe of the compromisers ancient and modern. The real companions of Paul are the great heroes of the faith. But who are those heroes? Are they not true fighters, one and all? Tertullian fought a mighty battle against Marcion; Athanasius fought against the Arians; Augustine fought against Pelagius; and as for Luther, he fought a brave battle against kings and princes and popes for the liberty of the people of God. Luther was a great fighter; and we love him for it. So was Calvin; so were John Knox and all the rest. It is impossible to be a true soldier of Jesus Christ and not fight.
God grant that you—students in the seminary—may be fighters, too! Probably you have your battles even now; you have to contend against sins gross or sins refined; you have to contend against the sin of slothfulness and inertia; you have, many of you, I know very well, a mighty battle on your hands against doubt and despair. Do not think it strange if you fall thus into divers temptations. The Christian life is a warfare after all. John Bunyan rightly set it forth under the allegory of a Holy War; and when he set it forth, in his greater book, under the figure of a pilgrimage, the pilgrimage, too, was full of battles. There are, indeed, places of refreshment on the Christian way; the House Beautiful was provided by the King at the top of the Hill Difficulty, for the entertainment of pilgrims, and from the Delectable Mountains could sometimes be discerned the shining towers of the City of God. But just after the descent from the House Beautiful, there was the battle with Apollyon and the Valley of Humiliation, and later came the Valley of the Shadow of Death. No, the Christian faces a mighty conflict in this world. Pray God that in that conflict you may be true men; good soldiers of Jesus Christ, not willing to compromise with your great enemy, not easily cast down, and seeking ever the renewing of your strength in the Word and sacraments and prayer!
You will have a battle, too, when you go forth as ministers into the church. The church is now in a period of deadly conflict. The redemptive religion known as Christianity is contending, in our own Presbyterian Church and in all the larger churches in the world, against a totally alien type of religion. As always, the enemy conceals his most dangerous assaults under pious phrases and half truths. The shibboleths of the adversary have sometimes a very deceptive sound. "Let us propagate Christianity," the adversary says, "but let us not always be engaged in arguing in defense of it; let us make our preaching positive, and not negative; let us avoid controversy; let us hold to a Person and not to dogma; let us sink small doctrinal differences and seek the unity of the church of Christ; let us drop doctrinal accretions and interpret Christ for ourselves; let us look for our knowledge of Christ in our hearts; let us not impose Western creeds on the Eastern mind; let us be tolerant of opposing views." Such are some of the shibboleths of that agnostic Modernism which is the deadliest enemy of the Christian religion to-day. They deceive some of God's people some of the time; they are heard sometimes from the lips of good Christian people, who have not the slightest inkling of what they mean. But their true meaning, to thinking men, is becoming increasingly clear. Increasingly it is becoming necessary for a man to decide whether he is going to stand or not to stand for the Lord Jesus Christ as he is presented to us in the Word of God.
If you decide to stand for Christ, you will not have an easy life in the ministry. Of course, you may try to evade the conflict. All men will speak well of you if, after preaching no matter how unpopular a Gospel on Sunday, you will only vote against that Gospel in the councils of the church the next day; you will graciously be permitted to believe in supernatural Christianity all you please if you will only act as though you did not believe in it, if you will only make common cause with its opponents. Such is the program that will win the favor of the church. A man may believe what he pleases, provided he does not believe anything strongly enough to risk his life on it and fight for it. “Tolerance” is the great word. Men even ask for tolerance when they look to God in prayer. But how can any Christian possibly pray such a prayer as that? What a terrible prayer it is, how full of disloyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ! There is a sense, of course, in which tolerance is a virtue. If by it you mean tolerance on the part of the state, the forbearance of majorities toward minorities, the resolute rejection of any measures of physical compulsion in propagating either what is true or what is false, then of course, the Christian ought to favor tolerance with all his might and main, and ought to lament the widespread growth of intolerance in America today. Or if you mean by tolerance forbearance toward personal attacks upon yourself, or courtesy and patience and fairness in dealing with all errors of whatever kind, then again tolerance is a virtue. But to pray for tolerance apart from such qualifications, in particular to pray for tolerance without careful definition of that of which you are to be tolerant, is just to pray for the breakdown of the Christian religion; for the Christian religion is intolerant to the core. There lies the whole offense of the Cross—and also the whole power of it. Always the Gospel would have been received with favor by the world IF it had been presented merely as one way of salvation; the offense came because it was presented as the only way, and because it made relentless war upon all other ways. God save us, then, from this “tolerance” of which we hear so much : God deliver us from the sin of making common cause with those who deny or ignore the blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ! God save us from the deadly guilt of consenting to the presence as our representatives in the church of those who lead Christ’s little ones astray; God make us, whatever else we are, just faithful messengers, who present, without fear or favor, not our word, but the Word of God.
But if you are such messengers, you will have the opposition, not only of the world, but increasingly, I fear, of the Church. I cannot tell you that your sacrifice will be light. No doubt it would be noble to care nothing whatever about the judgment of our fellowmen. But to such nobility I confess that I for my part have not quite attained, and I cannot expect you to have attained to it. I confess that academic preferments, easy access to great libraries, the society of cultured people, and in general the thousand advantages that come from being regarded as respectable people in a respectable world—I confess that these things seem to me to be in themselves good and desirable things. Yet the servant of Jesus Christ, to an increasing extent, is being obliged to give them up. Certainly, in making that sacrifice we do not complain; for we have something with which all that we have lost is not worthy to be compared. Still, it can hardly be said that any unworthy motives of self-interest can lead us to adopt a course which brings us nothing but reproach. Where, then, shall we find a sufficient motive for such a course as that; where shall we find courage to stand against the whole current of the age; where shall we find courage for this fight of faith?
I do not think that we shall obtain courage by any mere lust of conflict. In some battles that means may perhaps suffice. Soldiers in bayonet practice were sometimes, and for all I know still are, taught to give a shout when they thrust their bayonets at imaginary enemies; I heard them doing it even long after the armistice in France. That serves, I suppose, to overcome the natural inhibition of civilized man against sticking a knife into human bodies. It is thought to develop the proper spirit of conflict. Perhaps it may be necessary in some kinds of war. But it will hardly serve in this Christian conflict. In this conflict I do not think we can be good fighters simply by being resolved to fight. For this battle is a battle of love; and nothing ruins a man’s service in it so much as a spirit of hate.
No, if we want to learn the secret of this warfare, we shall have to look deeper; and we can hardly do better than turn again to that great fighter, the Apostle Paul. What was the secret of his power in the mighty conflict; how did he learn to fight?
The answer is paradoxical; but it is very simple. Paul was a great fighter because he was at peace. He who said, “Fight the good fight of faith,” spoke also of “the peace of God which passeth all understanding”; and in that peace the sinews of his war were found. He fought against the enemies that were without because he was at peace within; there was an inner sanctuary in his life that no enemy could disturb. There, my friends, is the great central truth. You cannot fight successfully with beasts, as Paul did at Ephesus; you cannot fight successfully against evil men, or against the devil and his spiritual powers of wickedness in high places, unless when you fight against those enemies there is One with whom you are at peace.
But if you are at peace with that One, then you can care little what men may do. You can say with the apostles, “We must obey God rather than men”; you can say with Luther, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me. Amen”; you can say with Elisha, “They that be with us are more than they that be with them”; you can say with Paul, “It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth?” Without that peace of God in your hearts, you will strike little terror into the enemies of the Gospel of Christ. You may amass mighty resources for the conflict; you may be great masters of ecclesiastical strategy; you may be very clever, and very zealous too; but I fear that it will be of little avail. There may be a tremendous din; but when the din is over, the Lord’s enemies will be in possession of the field. No, there is no other way to be a really good fighter. You cannot fight God’s battle against God’s enemies unless you are at peace with him.
But how shall you be at peace with him? Many ways have been tried. How pathetic is the age-long effort of sinful man to become right with God; sacrifice, lacerations, almsgiving, morality, penance, confession! But alas, it is all of no avail. Still there is that same awful gulf. It may be temporarily concealed; spiritual exercises may conceal it for a time; penance or the confession of sin unto men may give a temporary and apparent relief. But the real trouble remains; the burden is still on the back; Mount Sinai is still ready to shoot forth flames; the soul is still not at peace with God. How then shall peace be obtained?
My friends, it cannot be attained by anything in us. Oh, that that truth could be written in the hearts of every one of you! If it could be written in the hearts of every one of you, the main purpose of this seminary would be attained. Oh, that it could be written in letters of flame for all the world to read! Peace with God cannot be attained by any act or any mere experience of man; it cannot be attained by good works, neither can it be attained by confession of sin, neither can it be attained by any psychological results of an act of faith. We can never be at peace with God unless God first be at peace with us. But how can God be at peace with us? Can he be at peace with us by ignoring the guilt of sin? by descending from his throne? by throwing the universe into chaos? by making wrong to be the same as right? by making a dead letter of his holy law? “The soul that sinneth it shall die,” by treating his eternal laws as though they were the changeable laws of man? Oh, what an abyss were the universe if that were done, what a mad anarchy, what a wild demon-riot! Where could there be peace if God were thus at war with himself; where could there be a foundation if God’s laws were not sure? Oh, no, my friends, peace cannot be attained for man by the great modern method of dragging God down to man’s level; peace cannot be attained by denying that right is right and wrong is wrong; peace can nowhere be attained if the awful justice of God stand not forever sure.
How then can we sinners stand before that throne? How can there be peace for us in the presence of the justice of God? How can he be just and yet justify the ungodly? There is one answer to these questions. It is not our answer. Our wisdom could never have discovered it. It is God’s answer. It is found in the story of the Cross. We deserved eternal death because of sin; the eternal Son of God, because he loved us, and because he was sent by the Father who loved us too, died in our stead, for our sins, upon the cross. That message is despised to-day; upon it the visible church as well as the world pours out the vials of its scorn, or else does it even less honor by paying it lip-service and then passing it by. Men dismiss it as a “theory of the atonement,” and fall back upon the customary commonplaces about a principle of self-sacrifice, or the culmination of a universal law, or a revelation of the love of God, or the hallowing of suffering, or the similarity between Christ’s death and the death of soldiers who perished in the great war. In the presence of such blindness, our words often seem vain. We may tell men something of what we think about the Cross of Christ, but it is harder to tell them what we feel. We pour forth our tears of gratitude and love; we open to the multitude the depths of our souls; we celebrate a mystery so tender, so holy, that we might think it would soften even a heart of stone. But all to no purpose. The Cross remains foolishness to the world, men turn coldly away, and our preaching seems but vain. And then comes the wonder of wonders! The hour comes for some poor soul, even through the simplest and poorest preaching; the message is honored, not the messenger; there comes a flash of light into the soul, and all is as clear as day. “He loved me and gave Himself for me,” says the sinner at last, as he contemplates the Saviour upon the Cross. The burden of sin falls from the back, and a soul enters into the peace of God.
Have you yourselves that peace, my friends? If you have, you will not be deceived by the propaganda of any disloyal church. If you have the peace of God in your hearts, you will never shrink from controversy; you will never be afraid to contend earnestly for the Faith. Talk of peace in the present deadly peril of the Church, and you show, unless you be strangely ignorant of the conditions that exist, that you have little inkling of the true peace of God. Those who have been at the foot of the Cross will not be afraid to go forth under the banner of the Cross to a holy war of love.
I know that it is hard to live on the heights of Christian experience. We have had flashes of the true meaning of the Cross of Christ; but then come long, dull days. What shall we do in those dull times? Shall we cease to witness for Christ; shall we make common cause, in those dull days, with those who would destroy the corporate witness of the church? Perhaps we may be tempted to do so. When there are such enemies in our own souls, we may be tempted to say, what time have we for the opponents without? Such reasoning is plausible. But all the same it is false. We are not saved by keeping ourselves constantly in the proper frame of mind, but we were saved by Christ once for all when we were born again by God's Spirit and were enabled by him to put our trust in the Saviour. And the gospel message does not cease to be true because we for the moment have lost sight of the full glory of it. Sad will it be for those to whom we minister if we let our changing moods be determinative of the message that at any moment we proclaim, or if we let our changing moods determine the question whether we shall or shall not stand against the rampant forces of unbelief in the church. We ought to look, not within, but without, for the content of our witness-bearing; not to our changing feelings and experiences, but to the Bible as the Word of God. Then, and then only, shall we preach, not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord.
Where are you going to stand in the great battle which now rages in the church? Are you going to curry favor with the world by standing aloof; are you going to be “conservative liberals” or “liberal conservatives” or “Christians who do not believe in controversy,” or anything else so self-contradictory and absurd? Are you going to be Christians, but not Christians overmuch? Are you going to stand coldly aloof when God’s people fight against ecclesiastical tyranny at home and abroad? Are you going to excuse yourselves by pointing out personal defects in those who contend for the faith today? Are you going to be disloyal to Christ in external testimony until you can make all well within your own soul? Be assured, you will never accomplish your purpose if you adopt such a program as that. Witness bravely to the truth that you already understand, and more will be given you; but make common cause with those who deny or ignore the gospel of Christ, and the enemy will forever run riot in your life.
There are many hopes that I cherish for you men, with whom I am united by such ties of affection. I hope that you may be gifted preachers; I hope that you may have happy lives; I hope that you may have adequate support for yourselves and for your families; I hope that you may have good churches. But I hope something for you far more than all that. I hope above all that, wherever you are and however your preaching may be received, you may be true witnesses for the Lord Jesus Christ; I hope that there may never be any doubt where you stand, but that always you may stand squarely for Jesus Christ, as he is offered to us, not in the experiences of men, but in the blessed written Word of God.
I do not mean that the great issue of the day must be polemically presented in every sermon that you preach. No doubt that would be exceedingly unwise. You should always endeavor to build the people up by simple and positive instruction in the Word. But never will such simple and positive instruction in the Word have the full blessing of God, if, when the occasion does arise to take a stand, you shrink back. God hardly honors the ministry of those who in the hour of decision are ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
But we are persuaded better things of you, my brethren. You have, indeed, your struggles here in the seminary : faith contents against doubt and doubt contends against faith for the possession of your souls. Many of you are called upon to pass through deep waters and to face fiery trials. Never is it an easy process to substitute for the unthinking faith of childhood the fire-tested convictions of full-grown men. But may God bring you through! May God bring you out from the mists of doubt and hesitation into the clear shining of the light of faith. You may not indeed at once attain full clearness; gloomy doubts may arise like angels of Satan to buffet you. But God grant that you may have sufficient clearness to stand at least for Jesus Christ. It will not be easy. Many have been swept from their moorings by the current of the age; a church grown worldly often tyrannizes over those who look for guidance to God’s Word alone. But this is not the first discouraging time in the history of the church; other times were just as dark, and yet always God has watched over His people, and the darkest hour has sometimes preceded the dawn. So even now God has not left Himself without a witness. In many lands there are those who have faced the great issue of the day and have decided it aright, who have preserved true independence of mind in the presence of the world; in many lands there are groups of Christian people who in the face of ecclesiastical tyranny have not been afraid to stand for Jesus Christ. God grant that you may give comfort to them as you go forth from this seminary; God grant that you may rejoice their hearts by giving them your hand and your voice. To do so you will need courage. Far easier is it to curry favor with the world by abusing those whom the world abuses, by speaking against controversy, by taking a balcony view of the struggle in which God’s servants are engaged. But God save you from such a neutrality as that! It has a certain worldly appearance of urbanity and charity. But how cruel it is to burdened souls; how heartless it is to those little ones who are looking to the Church for some clear message from God! God save you from being so heartless and so unloving and so cold! God grant, instead, that in all humility but also in all boldness, in reliance upon God, you may fight the good fight of faith. Peace is indeed yours, the peace of God which passeth all understanding. But that peace is given you, not that you may be onlookers or neutrals in love’s battle, but that you may be good soldiers of Jesus Christ.

 

A cordial invitation for and open challenge to the Rev Bob Merrill of Kearsarge Community Presbyterian Church in New London, New Hampshire

I commented on an article recently in The Layman and received this response from Pastor Merrill:




  Pastor Bob Merrill says: 

   

Eric, while I respect your reasons for leaving the PC(USA) and joining the OPC, you need to let bygones be bygones. Using blanket statements like “apostate” to describe the entire denomination, lumps us all— together, even those of us who preach the Word and adhere to the Confessions.
Some of us find ourselves in challenging situations.

 To leave my congregation would be to abandon one of the small handful of places in Northern New England which holds true to the Word and the Confessions. I very much feel that God still calls me to be their pastor, and when I have contemplated leaving, the Holy Spirit made it abundantly clear I am to remain.

By staying, your position is that I tacitly endorse what the majority of current PC(USA) ruling and teaching elders commissioners and PJC members are doing in regard to the Word and the Confessions. But this is far from the truth.

Every opportunity I find, I go on record in our Presbytery to speak against the tidal-bore of ignoring scripture and the confessions. I did so in the past by using the logic of our documents, which until July 2011 supported each other. Unfortunately, the Form of Government has now seemingly been elevated to a place higher than scripture and confessions.


One leg of the logical three legged stool has been hacked off.

Now, while I thank God for the interaction with Pastor Merrill, I find his idealism and hope for internal reform to be misguided, quite candidly. To this end, I would be more than willing to engage him further and I echo the sentiments of my good friend and brother in Christ, the Rev Jim Tuckett in inviting Rev Merrill to join the Westminster Fellowship.

                                             http://www.westminsterfellowship.org/

 

2 Corinthians 6:14-17

1599 Geneva Bible (GNV)

¹⁴ Be not unequally yoked with the infidels: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

¹⁵ And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath the believer with the infidel?

¹⁶ And what agreement hath the Temple of God with idols? for ye are the Temple of the living God: as God hath said, I will dwell among them, and walk there: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

¹⁷ Wherefore come out from among them, and separate yourselves, saith the Lord, and touch none unclean thing, and I will receive you.

Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) Ch. 25


IV. This catholic Church has been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular Churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the Gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them.
V. The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated, as to become no Churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall be always a Church on earth to worship God according to His will.

Pastor Bob,

• You know what the Scriptures say. See also Proverbs 14:7, Proverbs 23:9, Matthew 7:6, Gal 1:7-9,1 Cor 5:9-11, 2 Thess 3:6,14......the list goes on...
• You're well aware that Christianity and liberalism are, one with the other, irreconcilable
• You know the Biblical and confessional definition of apostasy and that Louisville meets the criteria .....and then some.......
• You know how traditionalists are/ have been treated by the "powers that be" in the mainline..Bill Hill, D James Kennedy, J Gresham Machen...that list goes on...
• You know your effectiveness in witnessing for Christ is compromised for simply being in the PCUSA
• You know that, while many in the pews cling to traditional values, the national leadership is a poor reflection and does not represent their spiritual needs, positions and so forth
• You know what to do and, in your rationale, you're wasting time, kidding yourself and doing members of your flock a grievous disservice.....Albeit, unintentionally. 

 

Couple all of the above with a hemorrhaging of nearly a half million people in the past six years alone and that doesn't exactly leave you with a potential laden scenario. On the other hand, the doors of true fellowship and witness for Christ hang on the hinges of welcome for you and the time is right now!


               The German Hercules said it best and the very same principle is at work, here:

“I am refuted and convicted by testimonies of the Scriptures or by clear arguments (since I believe neither the Pope nor the councils alone; it being evident that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am conquered by the Holy Scriptures quoted by me, and my conscience is bound in the word of God: I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is unsafe and dangerous to do anything against the conscience. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me! Amen.”

                                                 Luther at the Diet of Worms, 1521


The Protestant faith in the mainline has become all too cosmopolitan and politically schizophrenic. As disheartening as it is, these are nonetheless exhilarating times to make a stand for Christ's Truths and His Kingdom, here on earth! God is so good He has already provided alternatives for those called to live out/ act on/ celebrate their faith, the Great Commission and the victory that is already their portion by way of the eternal decree of election! I needn't run any further risk of being anti- climactic.You know what to do, Reverend.........

 

                                                         Oh, by the way.........


    Who said anything about leaving your congregation behind?????

                                                             God Bless, Eric

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Heart of Presbyterianism: Christ's Saving Rule

The Rev Steven F Miller is the pastor of Nashua OPC in Edinburg, Pennsylvania. He serves also as adjunct professor of missions at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh. Having one of the more proliferant callings in mission experience, he's an outstanding citadel of Calvinist theology, as well. My pleasure in the numerous theological exchanges I've had with him is exceeded only by the blessing of his being my pastor. This is a sermon of his from just over ten years ago and if you savor a vignette of the reassurance from it which proves my portion every Sabbath, you'll be enriched-indeed.

SOLA GRATIA 

Jesus is alive. I know. I know for certain. I know because the Bible tells me so, and the Spirit bears witness with my spirit that it is so. This is just as real as if Jesus himself said in an audible voice, "I am here, and I am with you."



Isn't this just the way it is with you too? For so many of you, it is. You recognize that wonderful help and care provided by our Good Shepherd. What greater comfort is there than this? Whatever we will face, wherever we will go, whoever else may or may not go with us, we do not go alone. He is with us. He will never leave us. He promised us, "Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.' So we can confidently say, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?' " (Heb. 13:5-6).



And his Spirit seals it to our hearts. So we go on and ahead. We go on with Jesus with us—now, and then. Now, in our living. Then, in our dying. Whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. He's made sure that we have that promise in hand:

If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. (Rom. 14:8-9)

Christ's Rule

We all need the Lord. We all so desperately need the Lord. And he gladly gives himself. He comes to us and makes himself and his Father known to us. He gives us life and keeps us. He takes us as his own as we "hear his voice," and are incorporated into his flock under the care of the kingdom of his grace:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father' s hand. (John 10:27-29)

Word and Spirit

Then Jesus leads us through this life in his grace until we enter his glory. He shows us the way by his Word and Spirit. As our prophet, he teaches us by his Word and Spirit: "Christ executeth the office of a prophet, in revealing to us, by his Word and Spirit, the will of God for our salvation" (Shorter Catechism, Q. 24).



This revelation of the will of God for our salvation is brought home directly to our hearts. It comes to bear on us in the great work of God's effectual calling. We hear his voice in that he calls us with power to himself. The power that makes the Word work in us is the Spirit he sends. The way we say it in our theology is that in our effectual calling the Spirit works through and with the Word in our hearts. The Larger Catechism beautifully puts it this way:

Effectual calling is the work of God's almighty power and grace, whereby (out of his free and special love to his elect, and from nothing in them moving him thereunto) he doth, in his accepted time, invite and draw them to Jesus Christ, by his Word and Spirit, savingly enlightening their minds, renewing and powerfully determining their wills, so as they (although in themselves dead in sin) are hereby made willing and able freely to answer his call, and to accept and embrace the grace offered and conveyed therein. (Q. 67)

So we hear his voice as the Shepherd of our souls, by his Word and Spirit working together in us, as Paul by the Spirit writes, "But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth" (2 Thess. 2:13).

A Living Word

For my family and me, that is what makes Sunday such an important day of the week. We may attend a church where the gospel is preached to sinners. By that I mean that the text of the Holy Scriptures is opened and explained and thoroughly applied to the hearts and consciences of the congregation present in worship. This is just the way his Word is designed and inspired to be used by the appointed officer of the Word, the pastor.



So Paul by the Spirit reminds Timothy

how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:15-17)

Then Paul commands Timothy:

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. (2 Tim. 4:1-5)

We hear his voice primarily in the preaching of his Word by his appointed servants. Jesus, speak to us in and by your church yet today. Show us something of yourself and your glorious grace, that you would "dwell in [our] hearts through faith" and let us know "with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that [we] may be filled with all the fullness of God" (Eph. 3:16-19).



My wife often comments that Sunday is the best day of the week. On that day, as a pastor and his wife, we really don't get much rest, but we are refreshed nevertheless. We enjoy the privilege of hearing from our Savior and Good Shepherd, and our faith is established and strengthened. That's what our Confession of Faith reminds us in Chapter 14, "Of Saving Faith," paragraph 1:

The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word, by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and strengthened.

And the Larger Catechism emphasizes it again:

The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of enlightening, convincing, and humbling sinners; of driving them out of themselves, and drawing them unto Christ; of conforming them to his image, and subduing them to his will; of strengthening them against temptations and corruptions; of building them up in grace, and establishing their hearts in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation. (Q. 155)

Government

Jesus has put life in his flock, the church. His reign of life by grace is present and real as the Spirit works in the church by and with the Word. What a wonderful Savior and true friend of our soul Jesus is! The Confession of Faith sums it up this way:

To all those for whom Christ has purchased redemption, he doth certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same; making intercession for them, and revealing unto them, in and by the Word, the mysteries of salvation; effectually persuading them by His Spirit to believe and obey, and governing their hearts by His Word and Spirit; overcoming all their enemies by his almighty power and wisdom, in such manner, and ways, as are most consonant to his wonderful and unsearchable dispensation. (8.8)

Officers in the Church

Jesus has appointed a government in the church to establish, refresh, and maintain this heart government in his flock. This government has life and power by the Word and Spirit sent by Jesus. Nevertheless, it is in the hands of men. And into their hands Jesus places the means to exercise his government, namely: the preaching of the Word, the observance of the sacraments, and public prayer. It is by his Spirit and Word that Jesus establishes offices with officers as a real government, not just as a form of organization for his flock. The Confession of Faith has three chapters on the church, and they always ought to be understood together. They are Chapter 25 ("Of the Church"), Chapter 26 ("Of the Communion of Saints"), and Chapter 30 ("Of Church Censures"). From that last-mentioned chapter, we learn about officers in the church:

1. The Lord Jesus, as king and head of his church, hath therein appointed a government, in the hand of church officers, distinct from the civil magistrate.

2. To these officers the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed; by virtue whereof, they have power, respectively, to retain, and remit sins; to shut that kingdom against the impenitent, both by the Word, and censures; and to open it unto penitent sinners, by the ministry of the gospel; and by absolution from censures, as occasion shall require.

These officers are: the ministers of the Word, who have the several power of the proclamation of the gospel; the ruling elders, who sit with the pastor (hence "the session," which means "a sitting") in all matters of rule and discipline in the joint power of government; and the deacons, who administer the mercy of Jesus to those in need.

A Living Church

When the men whom Jesus calls to fill these God-appointed offices enter into their labors imbued by the Spirit with power and constrained by the love of Christ and the requirements of God's Word, it is a wonder to behold and a blessing to enjoy. Decisions are made on the basis of the Word of God and not by what men think will "work" best or be readily accepted. God's Word, when preached, is fearlessly applied with the great sympathy of the Cross, with the inevitable result that we deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him. And no one of the flock finds himself without a hand offered to help along the way. That's the kind of church our Lord calls us to be, the kind of church we all want to have and support.



This is what true Presbyterianism is supposed to be, what we are to experience in it. It is the God-instituted, outward means by which we receive, embrace, and enjoy the life of Jesus in and with us. Dwelling by his Spirit, working by and with the Word in our hearts as it is administered faithfully by his servants in the church, Jesus himself shepherds his flock. From this central, vital, life-giving principle—that Christ works among us by his Word and Spirit, through officers appointed to serve in his kingdom of grace—Presbyterian government grows. This is the heart and soul of what a Presbyterian church is. This is the church we should pray to be. This is the church we should pray and work to provide for ourselves and our children. This is the church we could become, God helping us, someday.



King Jesus, have mercy on us. Enable us to do your will as your Spirit, working through and with your Word in us by those outward means of your appointment, establishes your rule in our hearts forever. Amen.

 

PROPHETS FALSE AND TRUE : A sermon preached by the Rev Dr J Greshsam Machen

                          

 

                         PROPHETS FALSE AND TRUE

 

 

And Micaiah said, As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak. I Kings 22:14

The text is a great text and it is taken from a great chapter. Some chapters of the Bible are cer­tainly greater than others, and it is by no means de­rogatory to the authority of Scripture to recognize their special greatness. The doctrine of plenary in­spiration does not mean, as its opponents often repre­sent it as meaning, that all parts of the Bible are equally valuable—it only means that all parts of the Bible are equally true. Even the least valuable parts of the Bible have, indeed, their place. Lovers of poetry love the level lines of Shakespeare; so we Christians cherish the great level, prose chapters of the Word of God. Even in the level pathways of Scripture we can walk with God and learn of Him. But then when we have passed through such a stretch in our reading of the Bible, where distant scenes are concealed, suddenly we emerge sometimes as we read, as upon the brow of some hill, and discern before us with wondering eyes a wide, free prospect of the world and destiny and human duty. And there, through the great expanse stretched out before, may be seen a narrow path that leads over hill and dale until in the dim distance it loses itself in the mys­terious brightness of the city of God.
Such a great chapter of the Bible, such a Pisgah height of vision, is found in the twenty-second chap­ter of the First Book of Kings. The two kings sat on their thrones at the gate of Samaria; the armies were marshalled before them for the battle. But before they went forth Jehoshaphat said unto the king of Israel: “Enquire, I pray thee, at the word of the Lord today.” And the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said unto them: “Shall I go against Ramoth-Gilead to battle, or shall I forbear?” And they said: “Go up; for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king.”
But Jehoshaphat was not satisfied. Why he was not satisfied I do not know. Perhaps it was because of conscience. He was doing that which he knew in his heart of hearts to be wrong—what part had he with the wicked Ahab? Perhaps, as men will do when conscience speaks, he sought ever further confirma­tion of that thing, really wrong, that he desired to do. Four hundred prophets had spoken, but their hub­bub had not quite succeeded in drowning the inner voice. So Jehoshaphat said: “Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might enquire of him?” And Ahab said: “There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the Lord; but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.” And Jehoshaphat said, “Let not the king say so.”
So Micaiah was brought and stood before the king. The messenger who brought him was his friend, and coached him as to what he should say. “Behold now, the words of the prophets declare good unto the king with one mouth; let thy word, I pray thee, be like the word of one of them, and speak that which is good.” But Micaiah said: “As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak.” So he came and stood before the king. And the king said unto him: “Micaiah, shall we go against Ramoth-Gilead to battle, or shall we forbear?” And he an­swered him: “Go and prosper: for the Lord shall de­liver it into the hand of the king.”
Do you think that Micaiah was untrue to the word of the Lord that was in him; do you think that he belied the brave words that he has just spoken to the officer who had brought him to the king? Oh no, my friends; the words of Micaiah were no denial of his sacred trust, but they were the words of a dev­astating scorn. “I will give you,” he said in effect, “the only prophecy that you deserve, the prophecy of a parrot that speaks only what others speak, the prophecy of a courtier who speaks only what will win the favor of men. Go and prosper: for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king.” Ahab agreed with our exegesis; Ahab knew well enough that he was being mocked. “How many times shall I adjure thee,” he said, “that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lord?”
And then came a surprising thing; then came, when it was least to be expected, in that unfavorable atmos­phere, a true word of the Lord. Even in form it was quite different from the words that had gone before. There was no more parrot-like repetition of optimis­tic words; there was no more vulgar shoving of imagi­nary Syrians with horns of iron. Instead, in the answer of Micaiah, we suddenly find ourselves in the region of high poetry where the great prophets move. “I saw all Israel,” said Micaiah, “scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd, and the Lord said, These have no master, let them return every man to his house in peace.”
The rest of the story is quickly told. The word of the Lord was unheeded; Micaiah went back to par­take of the bread of affliction and the water of afflic­tion; the kings went up into the battle; and the dogs soon licked the blood of Ahab by the pool of Samaria. Which kind of prophets will you be as you go out from this place? Will you be like Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah, pushing imaginary Syrians with horns of iron, speaking the word that others are speaking, speaking the word that men want you to speak? Or will you be prophets after the order of Micaiah?
In one sense, I admit, you cannot be prophets at all. A prophet was a man to whom God had directly spoken, who appealed to no external authority, but said simply, “Thus saith the Lord.” There are those who claim to be such prophets today. But few of us, I think, will be inclined to accept their claims. True prophecy, in the supernatural, biblical sense does not exist today; like other miracles it has ceased. Why it has ceased we may not perhaps be able to say; the ways of God with men in the Christian religion constitute not a scheme that we can work out accord­ing to principles of our own, but, as Chesterton says, for us at least, a story, a romance, full of strange, un­expected things. Perhaps, indeed, we may see a little way at this point into the purposes of God; we may perhaps understand a little of the reason why prophecy has ceased. There is a wonderful complete­ness in the revelation that the Bible contains. We have in the Bible an account of the great presup­positions that should underlie all our thinking—the righteousness and holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. And then we have an account of the way in which God saved man once for all by the redeeming work of Christ. That redeeming work was not partial but complete. It needs to be applied, indeed, by the Holy Spirit; but the redemption that is to be applied was accomplished once for all by Christ. It is hard to see, therefore, what need there is of supernatural revelation until that great day when the Lord shall come again to usher in His kingdom in final power.
But although no fresh supernatural revelation is given in the present age, it would be a great mistake to disparage the dispensation under which we are living. That dispensation is the dispensation of the Holy Spirit: even the absence of new revelations is itself in one sense a mark of glory; it is an indication of the wondrous completeness of God’s initial gift to His Church. In Old Testament times there was prophecy, because then God’s redemptive plan was still in the process of unfolding; but we are the heirs of the ages and have the Saviour Himself. Only one great act remains in the drama of redemption—the mighty catastrophic coming of our Lord in glory.
Meanwhile we have the Holy Spirit, and we have the Scripture of the Old and New Testaments that the Holy Spirit uses. Much mischief has been wrought in the Church by false notions of “the wit­ness of the Spirit”; it has sometimes been supposed that the Holy Spirit makes us independent of the Bible. Just the opposite is the case. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. He does not contradict in one generation what He has said in another. He does not contradict the Scriptures that He Himself has given. On the contrary, what He really does is to make the words of Scripture glow with a heavenly light and burn in the hearts of men. Those Scrip­tures are placed in your hands. You may not say with the prophets of old: “God has spoken directly and independently to me; I appeal to no external authority; when I speak it is ‘Thus saith the Lord.’” But you can do something else. You can mount your pulpit stairs; open reverently the Bible on the desk; pray to the gracious Spirit to make plain the words that He has spoken; and so unfold to needy people the Word of God.
Do you think that that is a low function? Do you think that it involves a slavish kind of dependence on a book? Do you think that it means that advance and freedom are to be checked? The history of the Church should be the answer. Again and again his­tory has shown that the Bible, when accepted in the very highest sense as the Word of God, does not stifle life but gives life birth; does not enslave men, but sets them free. Those who talk about emanci­pating themselves from the slavish doctrine of what they call “verbal” inspiration are not really emanci­pating themselves from a tyranny, but they are tear­ing up the charter upon which all human liberty de­pends.
And so, after all, you can say in a high, true sense, as you draw upon the rich store of revelation in the Bible: “Thus saith the Lord.” If you accept the Bible as the Word of God you will have one qualifica­tion of a preacher. Whatever be the limitations of your gifts, you will at least have a message. You will be, in one respect at least, unlike most persons who love to talk in public at the present time; you will have one qualification of a speaker—you will at least have something to say. But what is it that you will have to say? What will be the kind of message that God has given you to proclaim?
In the first place, it will unquestionably be a mes­sage of warning; you will be called upon to tell men of evil that is to come. That will no doubt make you unpopular. Men like encouragement; they like to be told, with regard to the Ramoth-Gilead of their pet projects, to go up and prosper, for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king; they do not like to see gloomy visions of all Israel scattered upon the hills as sheep that have not a shepherd. It is not Micaiah the son of Imlah but Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah that often has the favor of the crowd.
I am going to venture, however, to say a brief word in defense of pessimism. There are times when pessimism is a very encouraging thing. Last summer I took a voyage down the New England coast one foggy afternoon and night; it was one of the thickest nights that I have ever seen even on those fog-bound waters. Now I am glad to say that the captain of each of the two boats on which I traveled was a thorough pessimist. For a time the boat would plow along at full speed; but then, for no apparent reason, she would stop and rock quietly upon the gentle swells, and then proceed at a snail’s pace. Presently the mournful sound of a buoy would be heard and then the buoy would come into sight. The buoys were usually exactly where the captain expected them to be; but unless he saw them he took a thoroughly pessimistic view as to their whereabouts. The result of such pessimism was good. The sound of the fog­horn was, indeed, lugubrious and hardly conducive to repose; but at least we got safely into Boston in the morning.
There are ship-captains who are less pessimistic than the captain of that boat. Such an one, for ex­ample, was the captain of the ill-fated Titanic. He hoped that all was well, and kept the engines going at full speed. I am certainly not presuming to blame him. Perhaps every other captain not gifted with superhuman vision would have been as optimistic as he. But, whether excusably or not, optimistic he cer­tainly was; and his optimism was fatal to many hun­dreds of human lives. The great ship plowed onward through the night; and now she lies at the bottom of the sea. Oh, that no mere weak mortal but some true prophet of God had been upon the bridge that night!
That disaster is a figure of what will come of opti­mism in the churches of today. Superficially our ecclesiastical life seems to be progressing as it always did: the cabins are full of comfortable passengers; the orchestra is playing a lively air; the rows of lighted windows shine cheerfully out into the night. But all the time death is lurking beneath. In this time of deadly peril there are leaders who say that all is well; there are leaders who decry controversy and urge peace, declaring that the Church is all per­fectly loyal and true. God forgive them, brethren! I say it with all my heart: may God forgive them for their terrible guilt; may God forgive them for the evil that they are doing to Christ’s little ones; may the Holy Spirit open their eyes while yet there is time! Meanwhile, in the case of many of the churches, the great ship rushes onward to the risk, at least, of doom.
Yes, my friends, if you be true prophets like Micaiah, you will be called upon to warn the Church. But you will also be called upon to warn individual men and women. And the thing about which you will be called upon to warn them is sin. In warning men of sin you will of course often have to cast popu­larity aside. Like some good physicians, you will be laughed at as alarmists and hated as those who take the pleasure out of life. Men love to be encouraged by false hopes; the world is full of quack remedies for sin. In this spiritual sphere, moreover, there is no protection against quacks; there is no paternalistic state legislature to regulate medical practice and pro­tect the unwary from their fate. In such a world of quackery and of false optimism you will have to come forward with your terrible diagnosis of sin.
You will come, indeed, not merely with a diagnosis but also with a cure. Only, the cure is no light, merely palliative, thing, but one that enters into the very depths:

There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.

I am perfectly well aware that many men do not like that hymn; it offends their sensibilities; they are omitting it, I believe, from their hymn-books. Now I am perfectly ready to confess that I myself do not like it so much as I do some other hymns. Possibly its imagery is too bold and too fully carried out; possibly it spreads a little too unreservedly in the light of day what would better remain hidden in the depths of the Christian heart. I do not know. I prefer to it, I think, that hymn of Isaac Watts:

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

And if I want bold imagery I turn to the original fourth verse of that hymn:

His dying crimson like a robe
Spreads o’er his body on the tree,
Then am I dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.

I quite agree with Matthew Arnold in holding that that hymn is the greatest of all. But I love Cowper’s hymn too; I love all those hymns that go to the depths in presenting the remedy for sin.

There are those, I know, who tell us that we ought not to place such emphasis upon the cross. They talk to us—these men who belittle the cross of Christ, these men who trouble its divine simplicity with the wisdom, or rather the folly, of this world—they talk to us about having a living Christ and not a dead Christ. Well, my friends, I think we certainly ought to have a living Christ. Without a sweet, intimate communion with Him there is no Christian experi­ence; without service of Him as a present Compan­ion and Helper and Judge, as we go about our labors from day to day, there is no Christian life. Yes, we certainly ought to have a living Christ. But let us never forget one thing—that living Christ with whom we have communion bore in His hands the print of the nails. Oh, no, my friends; only at the foot of the cross is there a remedy for sin; there only is peace; there only do we find our first communion with the Christ with whom then we shall live forevermore.
Certainly if you preach this gospel of the cross, you will have to bear reproach. If you preach this gospel faithfully, you will see men whom you have called your friends, men whom you have served in the hour of need, turn against you and join the general hue and cry; you will be subjected to misrepresenta­tion and slander of all kinds; you will bear both ridicule and abuse; you will be attacked behind and before. But there are some compensations in the prophet’s life. Many will speak ill of you; but there is One who will say: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Men sometimes think that the day of Christian heroism is over. I do not believe it. There may come, sooner than we think, even physical persecu­tions. Around us there is slowly closing in the tyranny of a democratic collectivism which is far more inimical to liberty of conscience than the compara­tively ineffective despotisms of the past. But how­ever that may be, even now you will be called upon to endure hardness for the cross of Christ. You will face in subtle forms the age-long temptation to mitigate the exclusiveness of the gospel—to preach it as one way of salvation without denying that other ways may lead to the same end, to make your preach­ing, as Satan persuasively puts it, “positive and not negative,” to be “tolerant of opposing views,” to work contentedly in the Church with those who reject the cross of Christ, to preach Christ boldly in your pulpit (where preaching Him may cost you nothing) and then deny Him by your vote in Church councils and courts. But God grant that you may resist the Tempter’s voice; God save you from the sin of par­ing down the gospel to suit the pride of men; God grant that you may deliver your message straight and full and plain. Only so, whatever else you may sacrifice, will you have one thing—the favor of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And only so will you be the instrument in saving souls. Do you think men’s souls are satisfied by the current preaching of the day, with its encourage­ment of human pride? It might seem so. The churches are crowded where Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah and his associates hold forth; one can sometimes in those churches scarcely obtain a seat; hundreds are turned away at the doors. But let us not be deceived by appearances. Among those crowds—contented though they may seem to a superficial observer to be—there are many hungry hearts. De­spite all the apparent satisfaction of the world with this “other gospel” of a non-doctrinal Christianity, this “other gospel” that is dictated by human pride, there is deep down in the human heart a hunger for the Word of God. Despite all the efforts of modern prophets to promote confidence in human resources, despite all that Zedekiah and his far more than four hundred associates can do, despite the hubbub of modern optimism, you will find, here and there at least, in this modern world, listening to these modern preachers, those who say, after listening to it all: “Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might enquire of him?”
And then, when you find such persons, you will have your chance; then, while angels look on, you will have your moment of glorious opportunity—the moment when you can speak the word that God has given you to speak. It will be a word of warning; false hopes must be ruthlessly destroyed. But it will also be a word of wondrous joy. What can be com­pared, brethren, to the privilege of proclaiming to needy souls the exuberant joy of the gospel of Christ? Can all the plaudits of the world, the false reputation of breadth and tolerance, the praise of those who know not Christ? I think not, my brethren. I think that those things, when we come to face the great issues of life and death, will seem more worthless than the dust of the streets. There is one thing and one thing only that is worth while; it is to be faithful to Him who loved us and gave Himself for us; it is to be faithful to Him who is Judge and Ruler of all, and to speak His word for the salvation of dying men.
Pray God that you, whom we have come during your stay here to know and love, may be thus faith­ful; pray God that you may be true prophets after the order of Micaiah; pray God that you may say to those who would persuasively turn you aside from your true calling, who would urge you to trust in human influences for the success of your labors, who would urge you to speak the words that others speak, who would say: “Behold now, the words of the prophets declare good unto the king with one mouth; let thy word, I pray thee, be like the word of one of them, and speak that which is good”—pray God that you may say to them, with Micaiah, after you have been at the foot of the cross: “As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak.”