Robert Murray M'Cheyne — 1813-1843
I recall walking the streets of Dundee, Scotland, almost 30 years ago. I had just read James Alexander Stewart's biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne. I remember the emotion of being in the same town where this young man of God had ministered 130 years before, and where there still remained the fragrance of his life.
He was born in Edinburgh, on May 21, 1813, and died of Typhus two months short of his thirtieth birthday, on March 25, 1843. His only pastorate was at St. Peter's church in Dundee, and though his ministry spanned but seven and a half years, and though he wrote no books and rarely preached outside of Scotland, the impact of his life upon his own land, and the world, can only be explained in terms of the activity of God in a life fully yielded to Him. When he died it is said that all of Scotland mourned.
The focus and desire of his life was to be a holy man of God. Andrew Bonar, his closest friend, wrote that Robert's constant prayer was, "Oh God, make me as holy as it is possible for a sinner saved by grace to be." His diaries reveal the depth of his love for the Lord.
"How apt are we to lose our hours in the vainest babbling, as does the world! How can this be with those chosen for the mighty office of fellow workers with God . . .
My birthday. I have lived twenty-three years. Blessed be my Rock . . . Though I am a child in knowledge of my Bible and of Thee, yet use me for what a child can do, or a child can suffer. How few sufferings I have had in the year that is past, except in my own body. Oh! that as my day my strength may be. Give me strength for a suffering and for a dying hour."
And Robert needed God's strength, for he had lung problems, he suffered attacks of fever and palpitations of the heart. He would, at times, be bedridden for days, and at one point was sent to Palestine for several months to help him regain his health.
On another occasion he wrote: "Today I missed some opportunities of speaking a word for Christ. The Lord saw I would have spoken as much for my own honor as His, and therefore shut my mouth. I see a man cannot be a faithful minister until he preaches Christ for Christ's sake, until he gives up striving to attract people to himself, and seeks only to attract them to Christ. Lord, give me this . . .! Two things that defile this day in looking back, are love of praise running through all, and consenting to listen to worldly talk at all. Oh that these may keep me humble and be my burden, leading me to the cross."
In a letter to a student, he wrote: "Remember you are now forming the character of your future ministry. . . Above all else, keep much in the presence of God. Never see the face of man til you have seen His face who is our life, our all." To another he wrote; "Get your texts from God . . .your thoughts, your words, from God
. . .It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus." Several years after his death, a visiting preacher asked the custodian of St. Peter's church what he thought was the secret of Robert Murray M'Cheyne's ministry. The custodian led him to the vestry. He told the preacher to kneel down. He did. Then the custodian said, "Now weep. Raise your eyes to heaven and cry to God, O God bless me! O God use me! O God I cannot go to yonder pulpit until I know I have the mighty anointing of the Spirit resting upon me.'"
While in Palestine, what he had been praying so much to see in his church happened. God came in revival. When he arrived home, the church had been in three months of daily meetings. The church wept for joy at seeing their pastor again, for they knew this had been the longing of his heart for them. Though they had already had months of meetings, upon his return it seemed as though the revival reached even a greater level of intensity, and the daily meetings continued for another three months.
Murray M'Cheyne was greatly impacted by Baxter's book, "Call to the Unconverted." After reading it, he wrote the following poem.
Though Baxter's lips have long in silence hung,
And death long hushed that sinner-awakening tongue;
Yet still, though dead, he speaks aloud to all,
And from the grave still issues forth his "Call,"
Like some loud angel-voice from Zion Hill,
The mighty echo rolls and rumbles still.
O grant that we, when sleeping in the dust,
May thus speak forth the wisdom of the just.
So it proved true for the young prophet from Dundee.
So may it be for us all.
(A biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne by James Alexander Stewart, from which some of this information was taken, is available from Revival Literature, P.O. Box 6068, Asheville, NC 28816. For a free copy of Robert Murray M'Cheyne's powerful sermon, "Revival," phone, fax, or write our office.)