For our pastoral staff meetings, we have been reading some letters written in 1839. Robert Murray McCheyne wrote these to his congregation when health constraints removed him from them for a season. Reading these letters makes me feel like I am not a Pastor at all. I have so far to go! It is good for me to be forced into close contact with an example like that of McCheyne. Pray for me. Pray for all of our pastors. Pray that God would break us and rebuild us by His grace and for His glory.
Taken from MEMOIRS OF MCCHEYNE
Eighth Pastoral Letter
Edinburgh, March 20, 1839.
TO all of you my dear flock, who are dearly beloved and I longed for, my joy and crown, your pastor wishes grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
In my last letter I showed you that, in all human probability, there are many of you to whom I have preached the gospel of salvation, to whom I shall never preach it again face to face. I cannot be blind to the many dangers that accompany foreign travel—the diseases and accidents to which we shall be exposed; but if, through your prayers, I be given to you again, how many blanks shall I find in my flock! How many dear children of God gone to be “where the weary are at rest,” where the imperfect “are made perfect!” How many of you that have stood out against all the invitations of Christ, and all the warnings of God, shall I find departed, to give in your account before the throne! It is to these last I wish now to speak.
For two years I have testified to you the gospel of the grace of God. I came to you in “weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling;” and if the case of the children of God and of backsliding souls has often lain heavy at my heart, I can truly say that your dreadful condition—“settled like wine upon her lees,” when you are about to be “turned upside down, as a man turneth a dish and wipeth it”—has been a continued anxiety to me; and sometimes, when I have had glimpses of the reality of eternal things, it has been an insupportable agony to my spirit. I know well that this is a jest to you, that you care not whether ministers go or stay; and if you get a short sermon on the Sabbath day that will soothe and not prick your conscience, that is all you care for. Still, it may be the Lord who opened Manasseh’s heart will open yours, while I go over solemnly, in the sight of God, what appear to be the chief reasons that, after my two years’ ministry among you, there are still so many unconverted, perishing souls.
One cause is to be sought in your minister. In Malachi 2:6 you will find a sweet description of a faithful and successful minister: “The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity.” This is what we should have done; but the furnace brings out the dross, and afflictions discover defects unknown before. Oh, that I could say with Paul: “That I have been with you at all seasons serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears!” Ye are witnesses, and God also, “how holily, and justly, and unblameably, we behaved ourselves among you that believe.” I am indeed amazed that the ministry of such a worm as I am should ever have been blessed among you at all; and I do this day bewail before God every sin in my heart and life that has kept back the light from your poor dark souls. Oh, you that can pray, pray that I may come back a holy minister—a shepherd not to lead the flock by the voice only, but to walk before them in the way of life.
Looking back over my pulpit work, alas! I see innumerable deficiencies. I always prayed that I might “not keep back anything that was profitable,” that I might not shun to declare the whole counsel of God, “that I might decrease, and Christ increase.”
Still, alas! alas! how dimly I have seen and set before you “the truth as it is in Jesus!” How coldly have I pleaded with you to “save yourselves from this untoward generation!” How many things I have known among you “besides Christ and Him crucified!” How often have I preached myself, and not the Savior How little I have “expounded to you in all the scriptures the things concerning Jesus!”
One error more has been in my private labors among you How much fruitless intercourse have I had with you! I have not been like a shepherd crying after the lost sheep, nor like a physician among dying men, nor like a servant bidding you to the marriage, nor like one plucking brands from the burning! How often have I gone to your houses to try and win your souls, and you have put me off with a little worldly talk and the words of salvation have died upon my lips! I dared not tell you, you were perishing, I dared not to show you plainly of the Savior! How often I have sat at some of your tables and my heart yearned for your souls, yet a false shame kept me silent! How often I have gone home crying bitterly, “Free me from blood–guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation!”
I turn now to the causes in you, dear children of God. You also have hindered in great measure God’s work in the parish. First, by your want of holiness. “Ye are the light of the world.” I have often told you that a work of revival in any place almost always begins with the children of God. God pours water first on “him that is thirsty,” and then on the dry ground. But how little has “the word of the Lord sounded out from you!” I do not mean that you should have been loud talkers about religious things. “In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin, and the talk of the lips leadeth to penury.” But you should have been “living epistles, known and read of all men.”
You know that a lighted lamp is a very small thing, and it burns calmly and without noise; yet “it giveth light to all that are within the house.” So, if you had day by day the blood of Christ upon your conscience, walking a forgiven and adopted child of God, having a calm peace in your bosom and a heavenly hope in your eye, having the Holy Spirit filling you with a sweet, tender, chaste, compassionate, forgiving love to all the world—oh! had you shone thus for two years back, how many of your friends and neighbors that are going down to hell might have been saying this day, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God!” Think, my beloved friends, that every act of unholiness, of conformity to the world, of selfishness, of whispering and backbiting, is hindering the work of God in the parish and ruining souls eternally.
Second, you have hindered God’s work by your want of prayer. When God gives grace to souls, it is in answer to the prayers of His children. You will see this on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2); Ezekiel 37:9 shows, that in answer to the prayer of a single child of God, God will give grace to a whole valley full of dry and prayerless bones. Where God puts it into the heart of His children to pray, it is certain that He is going to pour down His Spirit in abundance. Now, where have been your prayers, O children of God? The salvation of those around you depends on your asking, and yet “hitherto ye have asked nothing in Christ’s name.” Ye that are the Lord’s remembrancers, keep not silence, and give Him no rest. Alas! you have given God much rest—you have allowed His hand to remain unplucked out of His bosom.
Last of all, think of the causes in yourselves, O unconverted souls! Be sure of this, that you will only have yourselves to blame if ye awake in hell. You will not be able to plead God’s secret decrees, nor the sins of your minister, nor the carelessness of your godly neighbors—you will be speechless
To sum up all. The great cause that I leave you hardened s that you “despise the Son of God.” You see no beauty in Him that you should desire Him. You lightly esteem the Rock of your salvation. You have not had a soul–piercing look at a pierced Savior! You have not seen the infinite load of sins that weighed down His blessed head. You have not seen how open His arms are to receive, how often He would have gathered you. You have not heard that sweet word whispered of the Spirit, “Behold me, behold me,” which, when a man once hears, he leaves all and follows. You have trampled under foot the blood of the Son of God. Farewell, dear, dear souls. God knows that my whole heart prays that you may be saved.
Dear children of God, I now cast you on Him who cast you on me when I was ordained over you. He said to me, “Feed my sheep. . . feed my lambs. . . feed my sheep.” Now, when He sends me away, I would humbly return His own words to Him, saying, “O Shepherd of Israel, feed my sheep, feed my lambs, feed my sheep.” Little children, love one another. Keep yourselves from idols. Bear me ever on your hearts. Pray that when I have preached to others, I may not be a castaway. Pray that I may save some.
“Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”