In Cameron's sermon, he came thirdly to the part in which he looked at what was required of those who were gathered at the conventicle at which he preached. What was required of them that were hearing this message? Let us pause for a word of prayer and then go to that. Our Father and our God, We would do an enactment today, but not for historical purposes so much as the revival of these thoughts in our hearts and our minds. We are, we, like Margaret, we suffer a tide in our own day, but not a tide of literal water, but a tide of unbelief. A tide of those who would attempt to get us to abjure or to forsake the great oaths that we have taken to follow Thee. Who do men say that I am? Thou hast said. We once said the Christ, the Son of the living God, but there are those who press upon us today and would have us move our boundary stakes from such proclamation to lesser things. We pray that we might be inspired by such a man as Richard Cameron and his message from thy word, especially these great verses from Psalm 46, and that we might be moved today to resolve ourselves. And we pray especially for some of the young people in the audience this afternoon. We pray for those who might not be able to endure long sermons yet because their minds are not quite as developed. We pray for those who are sleepy. We pray for those who might even have been distracted by worldly cares. We pray that thy spirit, O God, thy spirit, who is able to move so mightily upon our souls. We pray that thy spirit might move upon us, that we might Years later, hear tell of some of the young people that were here today that would have testimonies of how thy spirit did move upon them as they heard this history which they had claimed before but now came to see in a new and more powerful light. We pray for faith in the days that come. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. What is required of us by these words? Be still and know that I am God. We see that it is in the command form. Be still and know that I am God. Cameron spoke of three things that were required. First of all, a fixedness of mind and a steadiness of heart. We know that our minds are like the pilots of a ship, the man that has a hold of the wheel. That which we do not know, we cannot possibly be committed to. And so Cameron sought to alert his audience, to awaken his audience to the things that they knew, the great things that they knew of Christ. We can say that Christ is who he was. We can say that Christ is the Son of God. We can say that Christ is King. We can say that Christ came and was incarnate, that he died and was buried and resurrected. Do we say these things as passing newspaper headlines that might pass through our lives? Or do we claim them? Do they arrest our minds? Do we see the significance of them? The children that are here go through education and schooling and the six days of the week pass them by. They're being taught things. They're being caught up with various subjects. And then they come to the Lord's Day and they hear certain great things of the Lord. Will this seventh day be swallowed up? And all of your concentrations during the rest of the week, or will the great truths of the Lord's Day, the great truths of the scripture, will your mind be fixed upon them? Will they be stayed upon them? Our Lord spoke here in this 10th verse. He said, Be still, know that I am God. He wanted the mind of man to understand, to be fully persuaded that the Lord is God amongst all of the swirl and the cascades of this life, the mountains tumbling into the sea, metaphorically speaking. How often do we hear today from our great leaders of the greatness of God? How often do they prompt us and support us with such great things? Hardly ever. But the Bible speaks to us of these things. Be still and know that I am God, the God of the Bible. And so God wants us to know these things and he wants us to steady ourselves based upon what we know. If you study the Covenanters during this 30 year period, they were without pastors for most of the time. Well, one of the reasons that they found such conventicles exciting was because there they would get the ministry and the benefit of men who did preach the gospel, but maybe had been driven from their shores. Cameron and Cargo, both two of the last pastors of this period, came from offshore because the true pastors had practically been harried from the land. There were pulpits that were filled, there were sermons that were made, but they missed the main point. That it was Christ who had ascendancy. over all the other authorities of this world and over the kings and the princes who insinuated themselves into the office of Christ by what they were doing to the Church of Christ. So these men preached, but they left off the main point. But when Cameron and Cargill came back from the Netherlands, one for a few months, Cameron, the other for a year, Cargill, these men preached and hid. and hid and preached, preached and hid and hid and preached because they were committed to the themes of Psalm 46. Be still and know that I'm God. The mountains were cascading upon the Covenanters during this time. There were almost 300 because of the persecutions. There were almost 300 street people in this agrarian society because there's so many have lost their lands and were driven here and about starving. half naked in a sense, clothed barely in the weather of Scotland, which is very much akin to the weather that we have today and more inclement than this. And yet they persevered. Why? Because they knew. Be still and know that I am God. Somehow they persevered. Somehow, without their clergy, led by fathers who were brave and mothers who were brave, having lost their husbands and fathers, They persevered. So Cameron preached first. It requires a fixedness of mind and a steadiness of heart. He quoted in that sermon, thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusts in thee. Doesn't trust in an idea. He trusts in the living God who can strengthen our hearts and our souls. He also quoted the text, be not afraid of evil tidings. His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord, ye would do well to be much in putting up that request in prayer. And the Lord at this time, he preached. The second thing he mentioned was the composure of spirit that this called for. If we are still, if we know that the Lord is God, it calls us for a quietness, a composure of spirit. I know when Susan and I were in Scotland in 2010, we we lost our job quite precipitously. It came as a complete surprise to us. I remember getting the phone call and wondering if it if I'd heard correctly, because everything seemed to be going so well there. We tried as hard as we could in the next. We only had. eight weeks in which to try to find other employment over there. We tried so hard. We tried here and there, Scotland, Ireland, in the church and out, everything we could think of. But then it was clear that God was calling us back to America. And so we had to have a quietness of heart about it. We couldn't fret. We couldn't become all discombobulated. I know in Cameron's life he had been forced out of Scotland because the persecutions were so rife upon the pastors. There had been the Battle of Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge only a few weeks apart the previous year. There had been the indulgences which had quieted the clergy of Scotland and so a year after Bothwell Bridge, where the Covenanters had been defeated. They won at Drumclog. A few weeks later, they lost at Bothwell Bridge, which was more of a pitched battle there, southeast of Glasgow. As much as Drumclog had lifted the spirits of the Covenanters across the land, the defeat at Bothwell Bridge was almost more than many could endure. The Covenanters who were living in the Netherlands knew this. And so they called for Cameron to go back to Scotland to preach as long as he could, to rally the church, to help them to know that they were not forgotten. And so they Cameron did go back. He went back under the threat of great persecution, but he went back because he had composure of spirit. His mind was set on the great truth of the scripture and then his heart. Despite the fact that he was going back into almost certain death, he had great composure of heart. This is, to me, this is very hard to consider because I know in our day, it's hard just to stand against the tide. It's hard to be a man who sees above the fray, who sees above the times and the currents and the tides of our day and remains resolute and attempts to preach firmly. How much more than to have these physical persecutions that were so besetting and so threatening that one would know that if he were caught, If he were caught, it meant almost certain death. And to have a calm composure of heart. The people who listen to this Conventicle, when Richard Cameron was preaching, how the tears must have come to their eyes. Because they thought, here is this man who is living under the shadow of death, and yet he is preaching to us Christ. He has such composure of spirit. Here he is preaching to us about composure of spirit. while he himself lives under the worst kinds of pressures possible, pressing down upon the flesh. The third thing that Cameron emphasized here in terms of the things that were required. It's required that we have a steady mind and that we know the Scriptures. It's required that we have a composure of spirit. Be still, you see, Christ had commanded through this psalm. Be still and know that I am God. The third thing that was required was a submission to God's will. Not only in terms of those things that were passed, all of the persecutions, all of the loss of land, all of the loss of life, all of the hangings and the torture. Submission to these things, but also submission to the things that would come in the future. What was to come in the future? Verse 10 says, Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the heathen. I will be exalted in the earth. Is this not the great weakness of the church today? They cannot believe! amongst the headlines of the day, amongst the infrequent professions of faith that we hear. And we find ourselves a great minority, it would seem, today. And based upon that, it's far easier for people to believe the headlines than it is to believe the Bible. But the Bible says, Be still and know that I am God, despite the tumults that fall upon us, the mountains, the seas roaring and foaming. I will be exalted among the heathen, God says. That is amongst the unbelievers. Not amongst the believers. God here focuses on the unbelievers. I will be exalted especially by my enemies. By those who do not make profession today. That is the context of where my exaltation shall be most gladly and wonderfully seen. And so Cameron, in this conventicle, barely a week before he died, exhorted the people to submission to God's will, both for that which was past, but also for that which was to come. Oh, how wonderful such words are. We think of our own day where You can hardly get an academic post if you believe the things that Cameron believed. You can hardly receive in most churches committee assignments and any kind of congratulation if you believe in the sovereignty of God, if you believe in the great things of the Lord of which the Bible speaks. If you believe other things, then you can buy a ticket rather easily for advancement. But to claim the words of Christ That is much more difficult. But Cameron sang of other doctrines. And he called the people to resolution, to submit to God's will, past, present and future. And he held up these great tidings of hope that though the mountains fell on them in this day, though they were submerged beneath the tides like young Margaret was, Though these things might be happening, the words of God are much stronger than all of these kinds of things that we might see. And it was these kinds of words that stirred up our Covenanter forefathers, stirred them up and gave them such great hope to remain resolute. Now, we live today in a day where we need resolution too. We need resolution in the big things and we need resolution in the small things. To do your devotions, to read the word, to pray. It's hard for us to think that these things are as important as they are. But these people were able to keep themselves and survive because each person kept faith alive in their breast. They did not need great and famous preachers. They did not even, in some cases, need their fathers. These words that you've heard Margaret Wilson say, she said them all by herself. When death was imminent upon her, when the waters were already going over her head, she'd been lifted up by the soldiers and then put down again. But she made sweet profession of faith because she knew. That as soon as she closed her eyes on this side, as soon as she breathed her last breath here. The lungs of her soul would be filled with breath on the other side, and she would see the glories of the land seated upon his throne. We need such resolve today, brothers and sisters. Let us commit ourselves to this and let us be thankful for our forefathers. Let us close now by singing Psalm 46. This, as it says, was the text of Cameron's last conventicle. Even today, when scholars study Cameron, the comment that you'll often hear is that there are apologies made for him. Oh, he was too radical, they'll say. or maybe too radical, depending on their position. He believed in declaring Christ openly in a day when this was forbidden, and he believed in the right of self-defense. Those things will get you called a historical radical. But I will not. Let us sing together and let us confess our love for this great field preacher, Richard Camden, and the doctrines of Christ, as they were saying. in the Conventicles of Scotland in the latter part of the 1600s. will be exalted high, on earth will be exalted high. The Lord of hosts is on our side, our safety to secure. The God of Jacob is for us a refuge, strong and sure.