At times I’ve heard people say, “What a waste,” when a
person of great promise dies young.
When a life is cut short by a preventable tragedy, there is a particular sadness that seizes the mourners. On the other hand, I have been intrigued in
the past by remarkable Christian workers who died at a relatively young
age. This is the first in a series of
posts exploring some of these short lives that were not wasted.
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| Image taken from the website cited below |
Robert Murray
McCheyne was born in Scotland in the year 1813. He was a prodigy in his ability to learn the Greek alphabet at
age four, and he entered university at age 14.
Following the death of his elder brother, Robert began to take faith
seriously and entered seminary at the age of eighteen.
He became a pastor
who was known for the presence of the Holy Spirit in his preaching and way of
living. He spent time each day
personally reading the Scriptures, singing hymns and praying. His sermons were based on his careful study
of God’s Word. Although they were
considered long in his day, he was frequently invited to preach in other towns
besides his home base of Dundee.
McCheyne was
modest, delighting when a revival broke out in his church under the leadership
of an interim pastor, while he was away in the Middle East. In his journal he wrote of a time when
someone came to faith under his ministry, saying “I was but an adoring
spectator rather than an instrument.”[1]
In 1839 he was in
the Middle East to explore the possibilities of mission work to the Jewish
people living in Eastern Europe and the Turkish Empire. During this time, pilgrimages to the Holy
Land were rare due to dangers from the Turkish rulers. It is thought that he and his delegation
were the first members of the church of Scotland to visit Jerusalem. It made a deep impression on McCheyne to see
what the Psalmist saw and to walk where Jesus walked.[2]
Just two months
shy of his thirtieth birthday, Robert Murray McCheyne died at home, after a
two-week illness that may have been typhus.
Even when feverish he continued to pray and quote Scripture.
One of his
friends, Andrew Bonar gathered together McCheyne’s writings into The Memoirs
and Remnants of Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne. I would be pleased to find a copy of the 1966 edition of this
volume, so I could hear his words for myself.
“A man is what he is on his knees before God, and
nothing more.”
-attributed to McCheyne
[1] Warren W.
Wiersbe, 50 People every Christian should know (2009), page 83.
[2] http://www.biblebaptistelmont.org/BBC/library/mccheyne.html
gives more details about his life.
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