John R. Macduff

“ His is no fitful companionship—present in prosperity, gone in adversity. He never changes. He is always the same,—in sickness and solitude, in joy and in sorrow, in life and in death. Not more faithfully did the pillar-cloud and column of fire of old precede Israel, till the last murmuring ripple of Jordan fell on their ears on the shores of Canaan, than does the presence and love of Jesus abide with His people. Has His word of promise ever proved false? Let the great cloud of witnesses now in glory testify. ”

“ Believer! art thou solitary and desolate? Has bereavement severed earthly ties? Has the grave made forced estrangements,—sundered the closest links of earthly affection? In Jesus thou hast filial and fraternal love combined; He is the Friend of friends, whose presence and fellowship compensates for all losses, and supplies all blanks; “He setteth the solitary in families.” If thou art orphaned, friendless, comfortless here, remember there is in the Elder Brother on the Throne a love deep as the unfathomed ocean, boundless as Eternity? ”

“ Believer, be still! The dealings of thy Heavenly Father may seem dark to thee; there may seem now to be no golden fringe, no “bright light in the clouds;” but a day of disclosures is at hand. “Take it on trust a little while.” An earthly child takes on trust what his father tells him: when he reaches maturity, much that was baffling to his infant comprehension is explained. Thou art in this world in the nonage of thy being—Eternity is the soul’s immortal manhood. There, every dealing will be vindicated. It will lose all its “darkness” when bathed in the floods “of the excellent glory!” ”

“ The soul may be saying to itself, “Peace, peace;” but, like the writing on the sand, it may be obliterated by the first wave of adversity. BUT, “Not as the world giveth!” The peace of the believer is deep—calm—lasting—everlasting. The world, with all its blandishments, cannot give it. The world, with all its vicissitudes and fluctuations, cannot take it away! [Pg 78] It is brightest in the hour of trial; it lights up the final valley-gloom. “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.” ”

“ Tried believer, has He ever failed thee? Has His yoke been too grievous? Have thy tears been unalleviated—thy sorrows unsolaced—thy temptations above that thou wert able to bear? Ah! rather canst thou not testify, “The word of the Lord is tried;” I cast my burden upon Him, and He “sustained me?” How have seeming difficulties melted away! How has the yoke lost its heaviness, and the cross its bitterness, in the thought of whom thou wert bearing it for! There is a promised rest in the very carrying of the yoke ”

“ The word of Jesus to you now is, “Only believe.” The word of Jesus in eternity (every inner meaning and undeveloped purpose being unfolded) , “Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest but BELIEVE, thou shouldst SEE the glory of God?”—Are you fearful and agitated in the prospect of death? Through fear of the last enemy, have you been all your lifetime subject to bondage?—“Only believe.” “As thy day is, so shall thy strength be.” Dying grace will be given when a dying hour [Pg 71] comes. In the dark river a sustaining arm will be underneath you, deeper than the deepest and darkest wave. ”

“ Yes! how often is the believer’s deathbed like the deep calm repose of a summer-evening’s sky, when all nature is hushed to rest; the departing soul, like the vanishing sun, peacefully disappearing only to shine in another and brighter hemisphere! “I seem,” said Simeon on his deathbed, “to have nothing to do but to wait: there is now nothing but peace, the sweetest peace.” ”

“ The letter of an absent brother, cheering and consolatory as it is, is a poor compensation for the joys of personal and visible communion. The absent Elder Brother on the Throne speaks to you now only by His Word and Spirit,—soon you shall be admitted to His immediate fellowship, seeing him “as He is”—He Himself unfolding the wondrous chart of His providence and grace—leading you about from fountain to fountain among the living waters, and with his own gentle hand wiping the last lingering tear-drop from your eye. Heaven an everlasting home with Jesus! ”

“ Reader, you may be the chief of sinners, or it may be the chief of backsliders; your soul may have started aside like a broken bow. As the bankrupt is afraid to look into his books, you may be afraid to look into your own heart. You are hovering on the verge of despair. Conscience, and the memory of unnumbered sins, is uttering the desponding verdict, “I condemn thee.” Jesus has a kinder word—a more cheering declaration—“I condemn thee not: go, and sin no more!” ”

“ Believer, how often is there nothing but this grace of Jesus between thee and everlasting destruction! Satan’s key fitting the lock in thy wayward heart; but a stronger than the strong man barring him out;—the power of the adversary fanning the flame; the Omnipotence of Jesus quenching it. ”

“ Sheltered in Him, thou art safe for time, safe for eternity! There may be, and will be, temporary tossings, fears, and misgivings,—manifestations of inward corruption; but these will only be like the surface-heavings of the ocean, while underneath there is a deep settled calm. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace” (lit. peace, peace) “whose mind is stayed on Thee.” In the world it is care on care, trouble on trouble, sin on sin; but every wave that breaks on the believer’s soul seems sweetly to murmur, “Peace, peace!” ”

“ See to it that the calls of an engrossing world without, do not foster this procrastinating spirit within. It may be now or never with thee. Put not off thy sowing time till harvest time. Leave nothing for a dying hour, but to die, and calmly to resign thy spirit into the hands of Jesus. Of all times, that is the least suitable to have the vessel plenished—to attend to the great business of life when life is ebbing—to trim the lamp when the oil is done and it is flickering in its socket—to begin to watch, when the summons is heard to leave the watch-tower to meet our God! ”

“ Believer! do you know this peace which passeth understanding? Is it “keeping (literally, ‘garrisoning as in a citadel’) your heart?” Have you learnt the blessedness of waking up, morning after morning, and feeling, “I am at peace with my God;” of beholding by faith the true Aaron—the great High Priest—coming forth from “the holiest of all” to “bless His people [Pg 79] with peace?” Waves of trouble may be murmuring around you, but they cannot touch you; you are in the rock-crevice athwart which the fiercest tornado sweeps by. Oh! leave not the making up of your peace with God to a dying hour! ”

“ But whatever be the leading and the discipline, here is the grand consummation, “So He bringeth them unto their desired haven.” It might have been [Pg 75] with thee the moanings of an eternal night-blast—no lull or pause in the storm; but soon the darkness will be past, and the hues of morn tipping the shores of glory!
And what, then, should your attitude be? “Looking unto Jesus” (literally, looking from unto) ; looking away from self, and sin, and human props and refuges and confidences, and fixing the eye of unwavering and unflinching faith on a reigning Saviour. ”

“ Over the head of the dying felon is the superscription written for despairing guilt and trembling penitence, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” “He never yet,” says Charnock, “put out a dim candle that was lighted at the Sun of Righteousness.” “Whatever our guiltiness be,” says Rutherford, “yet when it falleth into the sea of God’s mercy, it is but like a drop of blood fallen into the great ocean.” ”

“ If it be a worthy object of ambition to be loved by the good and the great on earth, what must it be to have an eye of love ever beaming upon us from the Throne, in comparison of which the attachment here of brother, sister, kinsman, friend—all combined—pales like the stars before the rising sun! ”

“ Much, doubtless, there may and will be of a subordinate kind, to intensify the bliss of the redeemed; communion with saints and angels; [Pg 115] re-admission into the society of death-divided friends: but all these will fade before the great central glory, “God Himself shall be with them, and be their God; they shall see his face!” Believers have been aptly called heliotropes—turning their faces as the sunflower towards the Sun of Righteousness, and hanging their leaves in sadness and sorrow, when that Sun is away. It will be in heaven the emblem is complete. ”

“ Often is he left unbefriended to bear the brunt of the storm—his gourds fading when most needed—his sun going down while it is yet day—his happy home and happy heart darkened in a moment with sorrows with which a stranger (with which often a brother) cannot intermeddle. ”

“ There are indeed blessed moments of communion which the believer enjoys with His beloved Lord now; but how fitful and transient! To-day, life is a brief Emmaus journey—the soul happy in the presence and love of an unseen Saviour. To-morrow, He is gone; and [Pg 109] the bereft spirit is led to interrogate itself in plaintive sorrow,—“Where is now thy God?” Even when there is no such experience of darkness and depression, how much there is in the world around to fill the believer with sadness! ”

“ How does He quiet their fears and misgivings? As they stand panting on the bleak mountain side, He points His crook upwards to the bright and shining gates of glory, and says, “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you these!” What gentle words! What a blessed consummation! Gracious Saviour, Thy gentleness hath made me great! [Pg 53]
That kingdom is the believer’s by irreversible and inalienable charter-right—“I appoint unto you” (by covenant) , says Jesus in another place, “a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me.” It is as sure as everlasting love and almighty power can make it. ”

“ By the removal of prized and cherished earthly props and refuges, He would unfold more of his own tenderness. Amid the wreck and ruin of earthly joys, which, it may be, the grave has hidden from your sight, One nearer, dearer, tenderer still, would have you say of Himself, “The Lord liveth; and blessed be my Rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted.” “Thanks be to God, who always maketh us to triumph in Christ.” Yes! and never more so than when, stripped of all competing objects of creature affection, we are left, like the disciples on the mount, with “Jesus only!” ”

“ Ah, how many would not have their [Pg 47] wilderness-state altered, with all its trials, and gloom, and sorrow, just that they might enjoy the unutterable sympathy and love of this Comforter of the comfortless, one ray of whose approving smile can dispel the deepest earthly gloom? As the clustering constellations shine with intensest lustre in the midnight sky, so these “words of Jesus” come out like ministering angels in the deep dark night of earthly sorrow. We may see no beauty in them when the world is sunny and bright ”

“ Orphaned pilgrims, dry your tears! Soon the Morning Hour will strike, and the sighs of a groaning and burdened creation be heard no more. Earth’s six thousand years of toil and sorrow are waning; the Millennial Sabbath is at hand. Jesus will soon be heard to repeat concerning all his sleeping saints, what He said of old regarding one of them: “I go to awake them out of sleep!” ”

“ Though spoken originally by Jesus regarding temporal things, this may be taken as a motto for the child of God amid all the changing vicissitudes of his changing history. How it should lull all misgivings; silence all murmurings; lead to lowly, unquestioning submissiveness—“My Heavenly Father knoweth that I have need of all these things.”
Where can a child be safer or better than in a father’s hand? Where can the believer be better than in the hands of his God? We are poor judges of what is best. We are under safe guidance with infallible wisdom. ”

“ Even here we may enjoy, in the possession of holiness, some foretaste of coming bliss. Who has not felt that the happiest moments of their lives were those of close walking with God—nearness to the mercy-seat—when self was surrendered, and the eye was directed to the glory of Jesus, with most single, unwavering, undivided aim? What will Heaven be, but the entire surrender of the soul to Him, without any bias to evil, without the fear of corruption within echoing to temptation without ”

“ It is often those fruits that are unseen and unknown to man, ripening in seclusion, that He values most;—the quiet, lowly walk—patience and submission—gentleness and humility—putting yourself unreservedly in His hands—willing to be led by Him even in darkness—saying, Not my will, but Thy will:—the unselfish spirit, the meek bearing of an injury, the unostentatious kindness,—these are some of the “fruits” which your Heavenly Father loves, and by which He is glorified. ”