Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 108:431 (Jul 1951)
Article: Editorials
Author: Anonymous

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BSac 108:431 (Jul 51) p. 257

Editorials

A Ministry from McCheyne

I should like you to consider together with me, dear fellow labourer in the work of the Lord, this very suggestive, searching word from the pen and heart of that saint of former days, Robert Murray McCheyne: “Today missed some fine opportunities of speaking a word for Christ. The Lord saw I would have spoken as much for my own honour as for 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 himself, and seeks to attract them to Christ. Lord, give me this!”

Quite a searching sentence, and quite rare is the servant who can thus write with so fine and holy a measure. “Christ, for Christ’s sake.” That will always be far more than what can be expressed by an outward penning. That is a business to be laid firm hold upon by all of the penetrating power of the Holy Spirit of God, and driven into the very “stakes of the soul,” overturning and creating what might best be called a “holy havoc.” And after the work is finished, there shall be the emergence of a minister, a servant, a witness, who has reached that divine center-point, where in all flaming truth everything radiates around the reality of this: “Christ, for Christ’s sake.”

I may well suppose that, because of such a word, saintly McCheyne would find “cool welcome” in some of our churches. Of course, there is a good deal of religious work being wrought, but withal it becomes so seemingly hard to obtain the clear, single view of His precious Person. There may be the “special rallies,” with their “renowned speakers” and “talented soloists.” But beneath a good deal of that, the array on the platform will be meaningfully matched by a kind

BSac 108:431 (Jul 51) p. 258

of spiritual agony in the pew. Not only Greeks of Gospel days have been left to sigh, “Sir, we would see Jesus.”

Let us make no mistake. Beneath everything, there is a deep longing for the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in all the glory of His grace, in all the marvel of His mercy, in all of the luminosity of His love. And it is more than tragic when the labourers of the Lord miserably manage to get in the way of “the Way.” After all, brethren, to whom shall be the honour? Doctrinally we are always quick and ready to answer, but…

McCheyne said of the Lord that He “therefore shut my mouth.” A deep spiritual lesson is surely written therein. Under the sovereign hand of the Lord, there may come the surprising necessity for even missing of opportunities. There need be the impression of those hidden lessons which can never be lightly learned, but which are the tokens of deeper communio...

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