A Good Word in the Great Court

Kenny Chumbley
04/13/14 - Assurance

Near the end of the nineteenth century, Ian Maclaren wrote some wonderful stories about life in the mythical Scottish village of Drumtochty. In Afterwards and Other Stories, the last chapter is titled, "Dr. Davidson's Last Christmas." Dr. Davidson was the minister of the kirk (church) in Drumtochty, and for several generations had been the spiritual guide of the village—the one to whom people brought their sorrows and fears and hopes and were sent on their way with comfort and correction and courage.

And now it was Christmas Day, a Sunday, a day that would be Dr. Davidson's last. After preaching in the morning, he trudged through heavy snow to wish a merry Christmas to several he thought were feeling lonely or desolate, and then he returned home to entertain his old friend Drumsheugh.

"'You and I, Drumsheugh, will have to go a long journey soon, and give an account of our lives in Drumtochty. Perhaps we have done our best as men can, and I think we have tried; but there are many things we might have done otherwise, and some we ought not to have done at all … We shall wish for mercy rather than justice, and'—here the doctor looked earnestly over his glasses at his elder—'we would be none the worse, Drumsheugh, of a Friend to say a good word for us both in the Great Court.'"

"A Friend to say a good word for us in the Great Court" is something we all need. Robert Murray McCheyne, a great man who died way too young, articulated something I have often felt. "I am ashamed to go to Christ," he said. "I feel, when I have sinned, that it would do no good to go. It seems to be making Christ a Minister of Sin to go straight from the swinetrough to the best robe."

But no matter how unworthy our sins make us feel, there is no other way to deal with them than to go to Christ.

And what do sinners find when they turn toward heaven? Not a God with a face like thunder that dares the sinner to draw near, but a God who pardons iniquity and passes over transgression, who doesn't retain His anger forever, because He delights (you read it right, delights!) in mercy (Mic. 7.18). And if that's not enough, there's also One ready to say a good word to this merciful God for us—One who is an advocate for the guilty, whose word is so efficacious that even after the Judge has heard the damning evidence against us, the verdict rendered is, "You're free to go, case dismissed" (1 Jn. 2.1–2, Zech. 3).

In the evening, as Dr. Davidson was getting ready for bed, his servant overheard him talking to his pet dog, Skye. "Ye never heard o' God, Skye, or the Saviour, for ye're just a poor doggie; but your master is minister of Drumtochty and—a sinner saved by grace!"

The next morning, Dr. Davidson was found to have slipped away in the night. But his last words spoke a great truth—he was a sinner saved by grace. And that because of a Friend ready to say a good word for him in the Great Court.