When we study the lives of people in church history, we most often review people who were great preachers, or missionaries, or writers, or people who did great works of faith, who were especially used of God, or who went onto the mission field, or who were imprisoned or even killed for their faith. Their great works, their heroism, their bravery is what makes them stand out.

All the stranger that the person we consider today was not a martyr, he was not a great writer, nor a preacher who drew thousands, a missionary, or someone imprisoned for his faith. And yet, when it comes to Christian biographies, his name keeps coming up.

Robert Murray Mçheyne was simply a pastor of a church in Scotland for seven years, from 1836 to 1843. And like missionary David Brainerd, who died at 29, like Jim Elliot who died at 28, like Henry Martyn, who died at 31, Robert Murray Mçheyne was taken from this world at the tender age of 29. His remarkable life, that left its imprint on church history, was really a Christian life of just 11 years.

But was has set Mçheyne apart is that in those 11 years, he developed such a walk with God, such a closeness of communion with God, that it fragranced his prayers, his preaching, his ministry. And it is not so much an event in his life, as the collected writings about Christ, about prayer, about devotion, that have come to become permanent fixtures in the mind of the church.

In his short years, it was his holiness of life, his evident communion with God that gripped others. Duncan Matheson, the Scottish Evangelist, an eye-witness of M‘Cheyne’s preaching, wrote the following: “He preached with eternity stamped on his brow. I think I yet can see his seraphic countenance, and hear his sweet and tender voice. I was spell-bound, and would not keep my eyes off him for a moment. He announced his text – Paul’s thorn in the flesh. What a sermon! I trembled, and never felt God so near. His appeals went to my heart, and, as he spoke of the last great day in the darkening twilight, for once I began to pray.”

Isabella Dickson, who became Andrew Bonar’s wife, heard McCheyne preach when she was still and unbeliever and wrote,

There was something singularly attractive about Mr. McCheyne’s holiness. . . . It was not his matter nor his manner either that struck me; it was just the living epistle of Christ—a picture so lovely, I felt I would have given all the world to be as he was, but knew all the time I was dead in sins.

So much so, that one of his close friends, Andrew Bonar, collected his writings, and wrote his biography which went on to ignite a heart for God in people around the world. Regarding the larger volume of M’Cheyne’s memoirs, Spurgeon said, “This is one of the best and most profitable volumes ever published. Every minister should read it often.”

Mçheyne was born in 1813 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father was a lawyer, and he had two brothers, David and William, and one sister, Elizabeth. His parents were part of the Church of Scotland, part of a group known as Moderates. The Moderates elevated human reason, and morality, and downplayed the need for regeneration and the supernatural work of the Spirit.

He was raised with these high moral standards, but in His own words, he was ‘devoid of God’.

He went to the University of Edinburgh when he was 14 to study the classics, where he gave himself over to pursuing the pleasures of poetry and society. One of his professors called him ‘ a fine specimen of the natural man’.

The major turning point in his life, was the death of his brother in 1831, when M’Cheyne was 18. His brother had not been well, physically or spiritually. He slipped into a deep depression. But before dying, David embraced Jesus Christ, and in the days before his death, had a profound change, described as “joy from the face of a fully reconciled Father above lighted up [David’s dying] face.” McCheyne saw it, and everything began to change.

A year after David died, M’Cheyne wrote, “On this morning last year came the first overwhelming blow to my worldliness; how blessed to me, Thou, O God, only knowest, who hast made it so.” From this day forward his friends and family noticed a change in him. On a later anniversary of this day he wrote, “This day eleven years ago, I lost my loved and loving brother, and began to seek a Brother who cannot die.” Every year he marked the day as one to be remembered.

The same year of David’s death was when M’Cheyne enrolled as a student at the Divinity Hall of Edinburgh University. He studied under the great Thomas Chalmers, the once Moderate who turned Evangelical. He became fluent in Hebrew, the language of the OT.

The next year, he was reading The Sum of Saving Knowledge, generally appended to the Westminister Confession of Faith brought him to a clear understanding of the way of acceptance with God. It was then that he wrote the hymn he is most known for: Jehovah Tsidkenu. Here he used his love of Hebrew along with a personal testimony to describe his conversion.

I once was a stranger to grace and to God,
I knew not my danger, and felt not my load;
Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree,
Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me.
I oft read with pleasure, to sooth or engage,
Isaiah’s wild measure and John’s simple page;
But e’en when they pictured the blood sprinkled tree
Jehovah Tsidkenu seemed nothing to me.
Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll,
I wept when the waters went over His soul;
Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree
Jehovah Tsidkenu—’twas nothing to me.
When free grace awoke me, by light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;
No refuge, no safety in self could I see—
Jehovah Tsidkenu my Saviour must be.
My terrors all vanished before the sweet name;
My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came
To drink at the fountain, life giving and free—
Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me.
Jehovah Tsidkenu! my treasure and boast,
Jehovah Tsidkenu! I ne’er can be lost;
In thee I shall conquer by flood and by field,
My cable, my anchor, my breast-plate and shield!
Even treading the valley, the shadow of death,
This “watchword” shall rally my faltering breath;
For while from life’s fever my God sets me free,
Jehovah Tsidkenu, my death song shall be.

At university he studied under Thomas Chalmers. And in Chalmers he encountered what might be called experiential Calvinism – a deep rootedness in God’s sovereignty and greatness, alongside a deep desire to experience God and love Him from the heart. One of Chalmer’s best known writings was “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection”.

Chalmers felt great compassion on the slum-dweller of Edinburgh. He established the Visiting Society, and recruited McCheyne and his friends to join. This threw McCheyne into a world he had never seen as an upper-middle-class university student.

M’ Cheyne completed his studies in 1835. He studied from age 14 to 22, just over seven years, and he would only live for another seven years. Were those years of studying a waste? It seems his fruitfulness in the years that followed shows that it was worthwhile to give himself to that kind of study.

For one year, he was the assistant pastor at what was the double parish of Larbert and Dunipace, and then he was called to St. Peter’s Church in Dundee, where he would serve for six and a half years till his death.

1836 November 24 Ordained as the minister of St. Peter’s Church of Scotland, Dundee. His first sermon was on Isaiah 61:1-3, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me; because the Lord hath appointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives.” This text was one he returned to on each anniversary of his induction.

Dundee at this period was a growing industrial town with a modern harbour. Spinning and weaving were two of the main economic drivers. In 1836, it had a population of about 51,000. The steam engine had transformed old mills into new factories where linen, rope and above all, jute were manufactured. Many of the factories were unsafe and unhealthy. Women and children were employed as well as men.

And McCheyne was a man with a deep heart of compassion – for all. He would try to visit as many houses as he could, preaching the gospel, teaching, comforting. His preaching resulted in frequent conversions.

Remarkable combination of dead-earnest conviction with gentle encouragement. The true secret of his success in the pulpit was his combination of faithfulness to the word of God with tenderness for the souls of men. “No man could exhort the guilty in more searching or tremendous terms; no man could address the troubled in more gentle or persuasive tones.” [Loane]

I remember on one occasion, when we met, he asked what my last Sabbath’s subject had been. It had been, ” The wicked shall be turned into hell.” On hearing this awful text, he asked, ” Were you able to preach it with tenderness?”

His six years in the pastorate really only had one significant event, or at least two that occurred at the same time. In 1839, it was proposed that M‘Cheyne be included in the party of ministers of the Church of Scotland that was to visit Palestine with a view to finding out the condition of the Jews and the opportunities for future Gospel mission to them.

Many would say that this trip was the beginning of modern Jewish evangelism. They wrote of their journey in a book called Mission of Discovery, which has detailed accounts of their visits to synagogues and conversations with the Jews they met during their journeys.

M’Cheyne would after that often write of the importance of witnessing to the Jewish people.

• “To seek the lost sheep of the house of Israel is an object very near to my heart, as my people know it has ever been. Such an enterprise may probably draw down unspeakable blessings on the Church of Scotland, according to the promise, ‘ They shall prosper who love thee.’ “
• “I now see plainly that all our views about the Jews being the chief object of missionary exertion are plain and sober truths, according to the Scripture.”
• “I feel convinced that if we pray that the world may be converted in God’s way, we will seek the good of the Jews ; and the more we do so, the happier we will be in our own soul. You should always keep up a knowledge of the prophecies regarding Israel.”
• ” We should be like God in his peculiar affections ; and the whole Bible shows that God has ever had, and still has, a peculiar love to the Jews.”

After his return to Scotland, M‘Cheyne travelled extensively to not only preach the gospel as an evangelist, but also to make known the spiritual needs of the Jews and the importance of preaching the Gospel “To the Jew first”. That is the theme of the sermon that he first preached on Nov. 17, 1839, after returning from the Mission to the Jews, under the title “Our Duty to Israel”. It is based on Romans chapter 1 verse 16.

The other event that was significant in his pastoral ministry was that while he was away on this mission, a kind of awakening swept through his church. He spent the rest of his years really harvesting and enjoying the fruits of that revival.

But what was at the heart of M’Cheyne’s usefulness to God? In the end, it was rooted in his life of communion with God. M’Cheyne wanted to know and grow in the art of communing with God, not only at set times, but continually. And this devotion to God came out in his writings. It is his writings and quoted sayings about love for God and communion that continue to encourage and call Christians everywhere to a life of deeper devotion.

” If thou meanest to enlarge thy religion, do it rather by enlarging thine ordinary devotions than thy extraordinary.” This advice describes very accurately the plan of spiritual life on which Mr M’Cheyne acted. He did occasionally set apart seasons for special prayer and fasting, occupying the time so set apart exclusively in devotion. But the real secret of his soul’s prosperity lay in the daily enlargement of his heart in fellowship with his God. And the river deepened as it flowed on to eternity ; so that he at least reached that feature of a holy pastor which Paul pointed out to Timothy (iv. 15) : ” His profiting did appear to all.”

He did not think of his morning devotions as “laying up a stock of grace for the rest of the day, for manna will corrupt if laid by—but rather with the view of ‘giving the eye the habit of looking upward all the day, and drawing down gleams from the reconciled countenance.'”

In other words, all of McCheyne’s scheduled disciplines aimed at fixing the habit in his heart of living in constant communion with Christ. He had formed the habit of rising early to read the Scriptures and pray, and he tried to maintain this to the end of his life. He loved to meet Jesus early.

He journaled, “Rose early to seek God and found him whom my soul loveth. Who would not rise early to meet such company?”

One of the measures that McCheyne used to discern if he was too much in love with the world was by noticing the effect it had on his prayer and Bible reading: “Brethren, if you are ever so much taken up with any enjoyment that it takes away your love for prayer or for your Bible. . . . then you are abusing this world. Oh! Sit loose to this world’s joy: ‘the time is short.’”

I ought to pray before seeing any one [in the morning]. Often when I sleep long, or meet with others early, and then have family prayer, and breakfast, and forenoon callers, often it is eleven or twelve o’clock before I begin secret prayer. This is a wretched system. . . . Family prayer loses much of its power and sweetness; and I can do no good to those who come to seek from me. The conscience feels guilty, the soul unfed, the lamp not trimmed. Then, when secret prayer comes, the soul is often out of tune. . . .

It is far better to begin with God—to see his face first—to get my soul near Him before it is near another. “When I awake I am still with Thee.” If I have slept too long, or am going on an early journey, or my time is in any way shortened, it is best to dress hurriedly, and have a few minutes alone with God, than to give it up for lost. But in general, it is best to have at least one hour alone with God, before engaging in anything else. . . .

” I ought to spend the best hours of the day in communion with God. It is my noblest and most fruitful employment, and is not to be thrust into any corner. The morning hours, from six to eight, are the most uninterrupted, and should be thus employed, if I can prevent drowsiness. A little time after breakfast might be given to intercession. After tea is my best hour, and that should be solemnly dedicated to God, if possible.

” I ought not to give up the good old habit of prayer before going to bed ; but guard must be kept against sleep : planning what things I am to ask is the best remedy. When I awake in the night, I ought to rise and pray, as David …did.

“Study universal holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, for your sermons last but an hour or two; your life preaches all the week. If Satan can only make a covetous minister a lover of praise, of pleasure, of good eating, he has ruined your ministry. Give yourself to prayer, and get your texts, your thoughts, your words from God. Luther spent his best three hours in prayer.”

“Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely . . . . Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in his beams. Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love. And repose in his almighty arms.”

“Unfathomable oceans of grace are in Christ for you. Dive and dive again, you will never come to the bottom of these depths.”

“It is a sure mark of grace to desire more.”

“Lord make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be.”

“Oh how sweet to work for God all day, and then lie down at night beneath His smile.”

“A man who loves you the most is the man who tells you the most truth about yourself.”

Listen to the simple, pastoral advice he gave someone in a letter about reading the Bible and praying.

” You read your Bible regularly, of course ; but do try and understand it, and still more, to feel it. Read more parts than one at a time. For example, if you are reading Genesis, read a psalm also ; or, if you are reading Matthew, read a small bit of an epistle also. Turn the Bible into prayer. Thus, if you were reading the 1st Psalm, spread the Bible on the chair before you, and kneel, and pray, ‘ Lord, give me the blessedness of the man,’ etc. ‘ Let me not stand in the counsel of the ungodly,’ etc. ‘This is the best way of knowing the meaning of the Bible, and of learning to pray.

It was from the overflow of this walk with God, that hundreds of people came to Christ in Dundee. But perhaps more significantly, it was his communion with God that led his friends to write of his life, collect his writings and publish them after his death, inspiring millions of Christians to desire God more.

But as with all saints used greatly, there is also deep pain. In 1838, his cough had begun to sound unmistakably like that of tuberculosis. Early in 1839, he wrote, “My sickly frame makes me feel every day that my time may be very short.” And to his own congregation, he said early in 1843, “I do not expect to live long. I expect a sudden call someday, perhaps soon, and therefore I speak very plainly.”

It is blessed to be like Him in everything, even in suffering. There is a great want about all Christians who have not suffered. Some flowers must be broken or bruised before they emit any fragrance. All the wounds of Christ send out sweetness ; all the sorrows of Christians do the same. Commend me to a bruised brother, — a broken reed, — one like the Son of man. The Man of Sorrows is never far from him. To me there is something sacred and sweet in all suffering ; it is so much akin to the Man of Sorrows.”

In March of 1843, he was laid low with fever, which worsened. He was not able to rise, and many prayer meetings were held for him. When a member visited him and told him that she missed his preaching, he said to her, I am preaching the sermon that God would have me to do. On the 25th of March in the morning, with several around his bedside, he raised his hands once and died. The funeral brought over 6000 people, weeping deeply for the loss of a man who had loved them.

Bonar wrote, ” Hundreds of souls were his reward from the Lord, ere he left us ; and in him have we been taught how much one man may do who will only press farther into the presence of his God, and handle more skilfully the unsearchable riches of Christ, and speak more boldly for his God.”

Perhaps we can summarise this life with his words, ” An hour should never pass without our looking up to God for forgiveness and peace. This is the noblest science, to know how to live in hourly communion with God in Christ.”