Let's just bow briefly in prayer.
The words of Isaiah chapter 61 in the
verse 1 has been the testimony of Robert
Murray MacShane.
From the outset of his ordination and of
course his ministry for those short years, he
had the testimony, the Spirit of the Lord
is upon me because he hath anointed me
to preach.
And that was the secret of MacShane's great
success.
He had known the anointing of God to
preach.
What a blessed ministry he has.
He being dead, yet speaketh.
Let's pray.
Father in heaven, as we now come to
consider briefly some aspects of the life of
the saintly man of God, Robert Murray MacShane,
we thank thee, our God, that the memory
of the just is blessed.
We praise thee, O God, that the righteous
shall be in everlasting remembrance.
And we thank thee, our Father, for what
he accomplished by grace and under God in
the short time he had to serve thee
upon earth.
We rejoice, O God, in the influence that
he has left behind him.
We thank thee for his piety.
We bless thee for his love for Christ.
And we rejoice, O God, that as we
study his life, what a challenge he has
been to us.
And we ask today, O God, that thou
wilt come nigh and meet with us and
speak to us again.
Lord, challenge our hearts.
Encourage our souls.
Lift up the hands that have fallen.
Strengthen the weak knees.
Lift up our head, we beseech thee.
And O God, stir up our hearts and
bless our souls to this end.
I would ask help of God personally.
I pray, Lord, for the infilling of the
blessed Spirit of God and ask that today
thy word will be clothed with power and
that I may experience the words that were
properly fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ and
then again in the ministers of Christ, that
the Spirit of the Lord may be upon
me because thou hast now anointed me to
preach.
So, Father, hear and now answer prayer because
we offer it in our Saviour's precious and
worthy name.
Amen.
Last Saturday, I was greatly privileged to be
in the city of Dundee for the ordination
of another minister to our denomination, the Reverend
Gregory McCammon, ordained last Saturday afternoon in Dundee
University in the Conference Hall.
We had, at the start, decided that they
would go to the St. Peter's Church for
the ordination.
The minister agreed to that and whenever the
minister went on holiday for a few days
or a week or so, the session of
that church met and they heard that Dr.
Paisley would be present at that meeting and
they thought that it would not do well
for ecumenical relations to have such a man
as they term present in St. Peter's Church
and so they closed the door to our
ordination.
But that did not dampen the spirit of
those who were present that day.
In fact, that only encouraged us to realise
that we need to be more faithful to
God in these days when we see the
declension, the departure, and we need to rediscover
the spirit of McSheehan and Bonner and Knox
and many giants in the land there of
Scotland and, of course, across the world.
I was also privileged to visit St. Peter's
Church in Dundee.
It has not only the hallowed memories of
God's servant but his remains lie in the
graveyard.
Adjacent to the church is the grave of
Robert Murray McSheehan and also a monument set
up in his memory, etched out his short
life, 29 years is all he spent upon
the earth, seven years is all he had
as an ordained minister of Christ and yet
in such a small space of time, short
space of time, this man accomplished more for
the Lord than perhaps I have ever done
in my life.
It was a special occasion for me personally
because I do have an interest in this
man's life.
I do have, I believe, a desire to
look over his life and I've been doing
that at present.
I've been reading through the memoirs and remains
of McSheehan by Andrew Bonner and could I
recommend that volume to all of God's people.
It follows his life, it follows his ministry,
it's like a diary.
It has some of his sermons and some
of his letters and some of his thoughts
and the battles that he had been through
and I tell you this, it will do
your heart good if you can get your
hands upon that volume and it's simply entitled
McSheehan's Memoirs and Remains by Andrew Bonner.
Banner of Truth will provide you with that.
But standing at McSheehan's Memorial Church, let me
explain, it's a different church.
It's not St. Peter's, the one he was
ordained to and was a minister in, but
whenever McSheehan left to go to a visit
to Palestine and Israel in order to set
up a mission to the Jews, the Reverend
Burns was ministering in his place and under
the Reverend Burns' ministry, there was a revival
in Dundee.
So much so that after McSheehan's death, they
had to build another church to accommodate the
overflow.
See it's first and preached in that church.
It's simply called McSheehan Memorial Church.
There's a granite stone in a memorial and
you can read right down all that it
was built for and so on and so
on.
But whenever Spurgeon preached in that church, there
were thousands outside who couldn't come in and
so we were looking for St. Peter's Church
and we found this memorial church.
We went into the local library.
Now that library should have been given over
at least to the history of Dundee and
we said we were looking for McSheehan's grave
and not one single person of the staff
of that library could direct us to where
it was.
And you know something, the memory of the
just is wiped out in Dundee.
Ecumenism has done its dirty work and now
the memory of evangelical, Christ-centred, Bible-believing
preaching and teachers of the Bible are all
forgotten in a city that was favoured by
God.
It was not only a special time, but
as I gazed at that memorial stone, and
this is why I mention it, I noticed
the date, the 24th of November, 1836.
And I thought to myself, well that's next
Sunday and it was the anniversary of the
ordination to the Christian ministry of Robert Murray
McSheehan.
166 years ago, this man was ordained to
the Christian ministry and I thought it would
be a good thing to survey his life,
look over some aspects of his life for
our own people because I was greatly challenged.
And I want to tell you a little
later on as I preach, some of the
experiences I've had looking over the places where
he had been.
And so this morning, very briefly, I know
we can't go into great detail, I want
to look at the life of Robert Murray
McSheehan.
Robert Murray McSheehan, his salvation.
He was born on the 21st of May,
1813.
He was educated at the university and the
high school in Edinburgh.
And here he was eminent among his schoolmates.
And everyone would have seen in McSheehan that
he had an intellect, that he was a
genius.
He was a man of study, a young
man of education.
The remarkable thing was he also suffered many
bouts of sickness.
I shouldn't say this to the principal of
the college, he's not here this morning, Dr.
Douglas, but McSheehan, whenever he was four years
of age, he had learned the Greek alphabet.
Not only to name it, but also to
write it.
And he did it all in one single
week.
It was said of McSheehan, as a young
boy, that he could memorise the cadetism.
He could quote large portions from the Psalms
and passages of the Bible, but written out
throughout his young days were the words, like
Samuel, he knew not the Lord.
That's amazing.
The Greek alphabet at four.
Not only to name it, but also to
write it.
Large portions of scripture, memorised, quoting word for
word, the cadetism.
He was baffling those who were his teachers
by his knowledge and his ability to recite
every single one in the child and the
shorter cadetism.
But he knew not the Lord.
And could I speak to our young people
this morning?
Because I've given much consideration to this.
You might be able, through Sabbath school, to
memorise your cadetism.
You may even receive a certificate, get your
photograph taken and placed into the Truth for
Youth as one who has memorised the questions
and the answers to the 107 questions there
in that shorter cadetism.
You may be able to lift your Bible
this morning and quote large sections of the
word of God.
And I know my own children can do
the same.
The Psalms, John 14, John 10, Psalm 1,
Psalm 127 and so on and so on.
Large portions they can quote since they were
four or five years of age.
And I have to say this to you.
That may be your experience this morning.
But young person, you do not know the
Lord.
You're not saved.
And it's the burden of your parent.
It's the burden of your minister.
It's the desire of the session of this
church that you, young person, might come to
know the Lord as your own and personal
saviour.
You may say, well, listen, my Bible knowledge
is good.
It is well with my knowledge of the
Bible.
But is it well with your soul?
Young person, you may say to me, well,
I know about Christ, all about Christ, all
his life, all the history of the Gospels.
I can tell you about his miracles, his
healings, and I can speak about his sermon
on the mouth and all that Christ has
done.
But do you know him?
Because that's what it's all about.
You know, we're wasting our time.
If all we're doing is educating you about
Christ, in that sense, is that all we
accomplish?
Is that all we achieve?
No, there needs to be the application of
your knowledge.
Wisdom is that knowledge put into practice.
And young person, I say to you, you
could be like McShane.
You could be skilled.
You could have the praises and the applause
of this church and your whole family as
an eminent young person.
You could be well educated in the spiritual
world.
But what is it?
You're not saved.
Tell me, do you know the Lord?
Are you saved, young person?
Are you sure it's well with your soul?
Don't be arguing against the preacher.
It's the word of God.
The Bible says you must be born again.
You say, well, my mother saved.
I'm not asking you that.
You say, well, my daddy saved and my
brother and my sister are saved and my
grandmother and grandfather are saved.
I'm not asking you that.
Are you saved?
Have you saved, young person?
Do you know the Lord?
Have you repented of your sin?
Have you sought the Lord?
Or can it be said of you, but
as yet, you know not the Lord.
I say to you, young person, McShane was
the same.
Well educated, intellectual, had the best teaching and
preaching he could have, but he knew not
the Lord.
See, it doesn't matter.
What really counts is knowing the Lord, being
right with God.
It was the witness of his elder brother,
David.
David was an eminent lawyer.
He was a man who had integrity and
sanctity about him.
He loved Christ and he began to impress
upon the mind of his younger brother, Robert.
He says, Robert, you need Christ.
His witness to his brother brought strong convictions
and realised in McShane's life the necessity of
conversion and of salvation.
Could I say to young people who are
saved, you should witness to your family.
You should witness to your brother.
The first person I witnessed to after I
was saved was my brother, David.
The moment I was saved, I not only
sought him out to tell him that I
was saved, but every day of his life,
whenever I met him in the prison, I
opened up God's word and I witnessed to
my brother.
And listen to me, young person, you who
are saved, witness to your brother.
Witness to your sister.
Tell them about the Lord.
Witness to your mother, your father.
Because it was the witness in the home,
not in the church or in the pulpit
or outside, the witness in the home that
won McShane's heart over to Christ.
He suffered loss.
David, who had high hopes in this world,
suddenly passed away.
And McShane says the impression left upon his
life and testimony and his death touched his
heart so much that McShane was brought to
know Christ in his 18th year.
Now, some people will say, well, we're not
sure of the date of his conversion, but
reading through his diary, listening to what he
says about the death of his brother David,
those first signs of conviction, that troubling of
soul and that peace with God he experienced
later on is evidence that at 18 years
of age, Robert Murray McShane sought and found
Christ.
But I have to say this.
The Lord had to do something in his
life before he found Christ.
The Lord had to take his brother David
away before McShane was brought to know the
Lord.
And let me apply that to you.
Not just young people, but older people.
What has the Lord got to do in
your life to bring you to Christ?
What has he got to do?
I have to say this to some.
What more has he got to do?
The Lord has already been doing things in
your life.
Maybe ill health, the death of a loved
one, the death of a neighbor or a
friend or some other sickness or some other
tragedy in the home.
What has God got to do in your
life before you'll come to Christ?
Think of it.
Look what the Lord had to do.
And the Lord saved McShane.
McShane penned the words of that hymn we
were singing, 324.
He says, I once was a stranger to
grace and to God.
That's before his conversion.
He says, I knew not my danger, I
felt not my load.
Again it says, O friends, spoke in rapture
or joy of Christ on the tree.
Jehovah's akin you was nothing to me.
And then comes his conversion when free grace
awoke me with light from on high.
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to
die.
No refuge, no safety.
In self could I say, Jehovah's akin you,
my Savior must be.
McShane, his salvation.
McShane, his service.
What struck me about that memorial stone that
day as I stood there were the shortness
and brevity of his life.
18 and 13 to 18 and 46.
Robert Murray McShane, born in 18 and 13,
passed into the immediate presence of God on
the 25th of March 18 and 43 at
29 years of age.
Where did he get his sickness?
I'll tell you where he got it.
He visited the sick in Dundee and he
contacted the disease that killed him when he
was visiting his parishioners.
And that fever left him not only weak
of body, but brought a young man of
29 years down into the grave.
And as I looked and as I stood
at that memorial stone, I thought 29 years
and yet he accomplished so much for God.
He was saved only when he was 18.
He was ordained and for seven years only.
Seven years.
What is that?
I'm into my seventh year from a student
to now in Lisburn.
And I have to say, I've accomplished very
little when you consider what McShane did.
He was but a short time upon the
earth.
His motto in life was this.
John 9 and verse 4, the night cometh.
And whenever he penned a letter to you,
if he was to write to a minister,
if he was to write to anyone in
this congregation, the letterhead was always signed or
else started with the words, the night cometh.
Some people tell us, and I'm going by
what I've been told, that he had a
watch inscribed with those very words, the night
cometh.
His motto for life, no matter what he
did, when he rose in the morning, he
thought cometh the night.
And he says the night cometh when no
man can work.
And so he was busy for the Lord.
That was his motto in life.
McShane said these words, and I quote, oh,
how sweet to work for God all day
and then lie down at night beneath his
smile.
Oh, how sweet it is to work for
God all day and then lie down at
night beneath his smile.
Oh, tell me, what are we doing at
present for the Lord?
Let me speak again to young people.
If McShane would have left his time for
service until he was 30, think of it.
And there's the current saying, look, Robert, you
have plenty of time.
Look, whenever you're 30, whenever you've got yourself
a good education, whenever you're settled in life,
right about 30 is a good mature year
for you to start serving the Lord.
You imagine if he had left it until
he was 30.
It would have been too late for he
perished and died in his body, 29 years
of age, two months before his 30th birthday.
Young person, what are you doing for the
Lord?
Older person, some of us are well beyond
30 years.
Who knows how long we have got left?
We were singing the hymn, I have only
one life on this earth.
And as vapour is passing away, I must
labour for treasures of worth or toil ends
at the close of the day.
Only one life to give.
I could never withhold it from God.
Only one life to give, to live.
I must not miss the well done of
God.
How many are holding on to their lives?
How many are grasping their lives and their
talents and keeping them for themselves and not
releasing them into the hand of God?
What years you have left will you dedicate
them to Christ?
Some people have spoken to me this past
while and they've become disillusioned with this thing
and disillusioned with that thing.
And I've spoken to people this past while
at length about certain matters.
And I says for 30 years, you have
channeled your energies and your efforts into something
else.
Now how different that would have been, and
these are Christians, if you had channeled your
energies and your efforts into the things of
God.
And there's many people today, and we have
to say this with love on our hearts
for God's people, they are not challenging their
energies into the things of God.
Or they'll give themselves to worldly pursuit.
They'll give themselves to political things.
But what about the church?
What about Christ?
What about putting posters up for gospel campaigns?
What about giving leaflets out around the district?
Listen to me.
I've done both and I know only one
life will soon be passed.
It's only what's done for Christ will last.
The Lord speaks to us all.
God speaks to me.
And the Lord says, my son, give me
thine heart.
Give me thine heart.
Don't give it to anyone else.
And Maxine obeyed God and he gave his
heart to the Lord.
He had nothing else.
And he says, Lord, my heart is thine.
And he gave his all.
Does the Lord have our hearts?
Maxine, his salvation.
Maxine, his service.
But I want you to notice thirdly, Maxine,
his sympathy.
For he had a tender love for sinners.
He was a man that I would have
loved to have lived for a little time
with, walked about with him, listened to him
praying, listened to him preaching.
I would have loved to have gone into
a minister's room as he counseled a sinner
or a backslider.
He had a tenderness, a gentleness that some
ministers and myself included perhaps have never known.
And I've been greatly challenged over the past
few weeks about the tenderness and gentleness and
piety of the life of Robert Murray Maxine.
Long before I had gone to Dundee, I
was reading about him, his tender love for
the souls of men.
And I was rebuked in my heart how
aggressive I've been and how unloving I feel.
Sometimes I've preached the subject of hell and
many other things instead of pampering it with
love and gentleness.
And while the gospel does have warnings, while
it does have entreaties, while it also proclaims
good news, that we ought to speak the
truth in love and have that gentle spirit.
Once when speaking to Andrew Bonner, Maxine said
to him, which text did you preach upon
on the Lord's day past?
And Andrew Bonner took great delight in telling
Maxine, I preached on the Psalm 9 and
the verse 17, the wicked shall be turned
into hell and all the nations that forget
God.
And Maxine said to Andrew Bonner, did you
preach it tenderly?
And I thought about it and I thought
of the times I've preached on hell and
I have to say there's been very little
compassion, very few tears.
I stood in Dundee Square.
Dundee, by the way, is a remarkable city.
It's a great city for shopping for the
ladies and I mean that.
I've gone round at various shopping malls.
It's a terrific place, absolutely.
You could spend two days, never mind a
day, just going round the shops.
Absolutely recommended.
But I stood in Dundee Square.
It's a picturesque square and there were hundreds
of people just walking about that square going
to and fro and we were walking with
the flow of people and the Reverend Ian
Cheney said to me, he says, is this
not the square where Maxine said as he
was crying as a little boy and his
mother went on and his mother returned and
asked him what he was crying about and
he says to his mother, can you not
hear it?
And his mother says, hear what?
And he said these words, the tramp, tramp,
tramp of Christless feet going to a lost
eternity.
And the Reverend Cheney said to me, can
you hear it?
And we stood still and we listened, there
it was, eerie, echoing, emotional, the tramp of
Christless feet going to a lost eternity.
But you know something?
You'll never hear it if you go with
the flow of the people.
You will never hear it unless you stand
still.
You will never hear it as you're walking.
You will never hear it as you're rushing
about and hastening on to do your business.
No, you have to stand still in order
to hear it.
And I'm going to ask you a question,
child of God.
Did you hear it?
Did you hear it this week?
The tramp, tramp, tramp of Christless feet going
to a lost eternity?
Did you hear it in your home?
Did you hear it in this community?
Did you hear it in the church courts?
The tramp, tramp, tramp of Christless feet going
to a lost eternity?
Well, you say, preacher, I haven't stood still.
And I'm as busy as you are.
But God told me to stand still.
And I can tell you something.
I did hear it.
Among my own loved ones, I heard the
feet.
In this town of Lisburn, in these church
courts, over in Ballygan and other places, I
heard it.
And it's touched my heart.
Have you heard it?
Hastening on to your work, running on to
your interests, chasing after worldly pleasures, you'll never
hear it.
You must stand still.
You must stop.
Get alone before God.
Hear the tramp of Christless feet.
And then go out with love to win
them.
Seek after the lost.
What is wrong with our services in these
days?
If we had a church court, as it
were, and we examined ourselves before God, and
we all met in the honesty of our
hearts, and we said, what's wrong with our
services today?
I'm sure we would have a variety of
answers.
And I would say something.
We would all touch on some aspect of
truth that could be wrong.
Some might say, well, there's not as much
love among God's people.
Some would say, well, it's power.
There's no power in the pulpit anymore.
And I'd stand up and take the blame,
if I'm to blame.
You say, well, well, perhaps it's just infighting.
Maybe there's a bit of disunity.
Maybe there's discord.
Maybe there's something wrong.
I don't know.
But I do believe I have the answer.
What is wrong with our prayer meetings today?
What is wrong with our services today?
There's no tears.
That's what's wrong.
No tears over the lost.
No weeping.
No crying.
There's no burden of heart.
And we have to say that it's true.
We could go through the year without shedding
one tear.
People could perish.
We could stand at their grave and yet
not once weep for that soul.
Or we might shed tears over some loved
one, because they're near and dear to us.
A mother may cry over her child.
A father may cry over his wife.
And so on.
But how many of us shed tears over
the lost?
Tell me, when was the last time?
And listen to me.
I'm not preaching at you this morning.
I'm speaking to you.
I'm not here to point the finger.
I'm speaking and I've spoken to my own
heart first.
When was the last time we shed a
tear?
When was the last time we cried over
the lost?
Be honest.
It's not our tears.
Not our tears that'll save a sinner.
But I believe our tears will open up
the windows of hell.
In the Presbyterian church many years ago, they
had, as it were, the session, a little
meeting.
And they says, well what's going on here?
We're evangelical.
We're orthodox.
There's good preaching.
And we're having good times in the prayer
meeting.
The people are coming.
Yes, there's a few lapsed members, but they
noticed that there was a little decline in
the prayer meeting.
And they were anxious, and rightly so.
And they says, well what's to be done?
They says, well we need to get together
on our prayer meeting night and tell our
people that we're handing the church over to
the Lord.
We've got to get our people together again
and the ones that are coming, pray for
those lapsed members and pray for those sinners
and start naming people specifically.
And so that's what they started to do.
They started to pray for the church.
They started to pray for the work.
They started to pray for lapsed members.
And they started to pray for people individually,
specifically.
And God was stirring their hearts.
But one man stood up in that meeting,
and it was his prayer, a simple prayer,
that they say was the channel of blessing
in that church.
The man stood up, and he says, Lord
give me back my tears.
And sat down.
And the Lord, after three months, started to
work.
Big sinners from the district came in.
Men that they hadn't even invited.
Sat themselves in the church, and during the
appeal, men walked up the aisle and sought
the Lord for salvation.
The tears came back to the congregation.
And then the floodgates of heaven opened.
And God sent a revival to that Presbyterian
church.
Lord, give me back my tears.
Will you pray that?
We're not asking for crocodile tears.
We don't believe in hyping up emotions.
We don't believe it.
But we believe in a compassion and a
sympathy that melts our heart to tears.
That's the kind of tears we need.
Christ had them.
If my Savior shed tears over the lost
city of Jerusalem, at the place of death,
at Lazarus' grave, and other places, then I
must shed them too.
Lord, give me back my tears.
His salvation, his service, his sympathy, quickly his
supplication.
He was evidently a man of prayer.
Someone once said, and again, I'm going by
what I've been told here, so I'm only
simply quoting what I have already been told.
I couldn't find it in all the different
things I searched through this week.
And believe me, I've had a very busy
week searching and trying to get these things
together.
But I couldn't find the reference to it,
and I would have liked to.
So I'm going by what I was told.
There was a little table and chair in
the basement of Dundee, and that's St. Peter's
Church.
And there Maxine would have sat.
And there with his hands over his face,
with his elbows on that table, he would
have wrestled with God for messages for his
people.
There he would have got the message burning
in his heart, and he would have come
out of that place with a message burning
in his soul to preach it to his
people.
I was at a funeral not so long
ago, and a man out of a church
here in this town of Lisburn, he'd come
up to me and he says, I want
you to take some advice.
And I thought, well, here we go.
He's going to say about the sermon.
He's going to say about your mannerism or
your grammar.
But no, he says, will you do something?
Get alone with God.
Get your messages from the sanctuary and in
the holy place with God.
Let God burn his word into your heart
and then come out and God will burn
it into the heart of your people.
And you know, I've never forgotten that.
And from that day, although I do seek
God for messages, I ask God to burn
them into my heart.
And as I read Maxine's experience, I realized
that there he was with his hands on
his face, his elbows on the table.
He was wrestling with God in prayer.
He was praying for the lost.
He was shedding tears over his people.
And one reporter was brought into the basement
and told to sit down at the chair.
And he says, now put your elbows on
the table and put them into the little
grooves that have been worn out.
He says, there you'll find the secret of
his power.
He was eminently a man of prayer.
He'd worn out little grooves on the table
with his elbows as he wrestled with God
and torments and agonies of soul.
Listen to what he said.
He says, a man is what he is
on his knees before God and nothing else.
I ought to pray before seeing anyone.
And listen to this.
Often when I sleep alone or meet with
others early, it is 11 or 12 o
'clock before I begin secret prayer.
This is a wretched system.
It is unscriptural.
I ought to meet early with God, for
Christ rose early to meet with his Father.
David said, early will I seek thee.
And again the psalmist said, my voice shall
thou hear early.
And he says, the conscience feels guilty.
The soul is unfed.
The lamp is untrimmed.
If I do not meet early with God,
and how true it is, we need to
meet with him.
Tell me, did you speak to the Lord
today?
Already we're coming to 25 minutes to 1.
Did you meet with the Lord?
Did you speak to the Lord today?
Or you say, well, I was coming to
church.
It doesn't matter.
There's no substitute for communion with God.
Did you meet with him?
Did you speak to the Lord?
Are you on praying ground today?
How long has it been since you talked
with the Lord?
Since you told him your heart's hidden secrets?
How long has it been?
How long does it seem since you knew
that he cared for you?
We miss so much, you know, when we
don't pray.
I told you I wasn't preaching to you.
I'm not preaching at you.
I'm speaking simply with you.
We miss so much when we pray.
The sun and the moon stood still one
day because a man prayed.
The heavens withheld their rain and gave their
rain three and a half years later because
a man prayed.
And D.
L.
Moody said these words.
It's remarkable.
What a statement.
D.
L.
Moody, the greatest evangelist that this world has
seen, apart from our Lord Jesus Christ, he
said these words.
Every great movement of God can be traced
to an healing figure.
Every great movement.
Therefore, ye that make mention of the Lord,
keep not silence.
There's one final thought, and it's this.
His sanctification.
Robert Murray McShane, the greatest challenge I've ever
received from any man has been his piety,
his love, his gentleness, his tenderness, his holiness
of life, his godly walk, his Christ-likeness.
Listen to this.
Whenever Robert Murray McShane died, the local newspaper,
an ungodly paper, penned these words.
In the person of the Reverend Robert Murray
McShane, Jesus Christ walked the streets of Dundee.
And I thought to myself, that's not me.
Could it ever be me?
And I thought of what he accomplished in
such small years.
Jesus Christ walked the streets of Dundee.
Does Jesus Christ walk the corridors of your
house, Father?
Do the children see Christ in you, Mother?
Do the children see the Lord Jesus in
your walk, in your manner, and how you
treat the children when you're having a bad
off day, and perhaps the temper is a
wee bit short, and things are wearing thin.
Do they see Christ?
Can the children say, I've seen Jesus first
in my mommy, in my daddy?
Tell me.
Whenever you go into the workplace, do the
workmates see Christ?
Whenever you go out into the community, and
it's so easy, believe me, it's so easy
to sin against the Lord, to let the
guard down.
I don't even go into the experiences this
past while that the devil has come against
me with people, ungodly people, and the authorities
coming strongly against you, and in a moment
of time, you could have brought not my
testimony, for I haven't got one.
I'm only a sinner.
That's all I am.
Fit firewood for hell.
No matter what you think about yourself, I'm
only a sinner.
But I'll tell you this, it's the testimony
of the Lord.
That's what counts more than mine.
And so people can do certain things to
me.
I'm not saying I'll never snap.
I could have, very easily, but I've been
greatly challenged.
Most of God's people, Maxine said this, I'll
quote it, and we're nearly finished.
Maxine said these words, most of God's people
are content to be saved from the hell
that's without, and so we are.
And I don't know about you this past
while, but I have been greatly burdened about
hell, definitely moved by God to contemplate what
I've been saved from.
And I am content.
I'm happy.
I'm joyful.
Even this morning, I rejoiced that I'll never
be in hell.
But what of the hell inside me?
That's what Maxine said.
We're content to be free from the hell
that's without, but we're not so concerned about
the hell that's within.
The old nature that's warring against the spirit.
The old man that's desiring the things of
the flesh, that will bring the testimony of
the Lord into the gutter.
Whether you're a minister, whether you're a pastor,
whether you're an evangelist, a missionary, a Sabbath
school teacher, or just as we would call
them, an ordinary Christian coming to church.
The testimony of the Lord is all important.
And Maxine had a Christ-like spirit.
It would have been a joy and a
delight to walk with him.
He would have challenged you about holiness of
life.
That's a lost doctrine on the church, isn't
it?
Holiness of life.
Oh, you're getting old-fashioned now, preacher, am
I?
It's right up to date.
Be ye holy, for I am holy, saith
the Lord.
This is the will of God for you,
your sanctification, that you may be set apart,
that you may die unto sin and live
unto God in righteousness.
You're to be sober, holy, and just, and
righteous in this present evil world, but in
the world to come.
I know we'll never be perfect.
We'll never know sinless perfection.
We'll never be those people who never sin
from the day we're saved until the day
we die.
We will never be perfect.
We do not believe in sinless perfection.
No child of God this side of eternity
will ever be sinlessly perfect.
No child of God this side of eternity
will be sinless, but we do believe a
child of God should sin less.
More and more we should die to the
old nature, and we should fight the hell
that's within our own hearts.
We're too interested in fighting others, aren't we,
and looking at others' faults and criticizing them,
but what about ourselves?
If it begins there, the Lord says, take
the beam out of your own eye.
You'll be able to see more clearly to
take what?
The mote, the tiny speck, and believe me,
the tiny speck is nothing.
It's the beam.
A woman was cleaning or sitting looking out
her window one time, and she complained about
her neighbor, and she says that her neighbor's
windows were filthy, and whenever she cleaned her
window, she says, oh, I see the neighbor
has cleaned hers.
She was looking through her own filth, looking
through her own dirt, and couldn't see that
the dirt wasn't on the neighbors.
It was on her own.
Judgment begins with ourselves.
Don't be too hasty to judge others, and
don't be too hasty to listen to criticism
of others.
If people are criticizing Christians in your company,
don't you listen to them.
You rebuke them, and say, listen, look after
yourself, because that's what the Lord did to
Peter.
Peter says, what about John?
What's he going to do?
And the Lord says, never you mind him.
Follow thou me.
The Spirit of God is given to us
to make us holy, and as we are
daily filled with that Spirit, anointed with that
Spirit, and given over to the control of
the Holy Ghost, then we'll be able to
live a holy life.
I haven't time to go on and going
to preach on holiness of life, as God
gives me help very soon, and so I
not labor the point.
I'll be able to bring it later on.
Today I trust, as we have studied McShane's
life, not in detail I know, but some
aspects of it may it be a blessing
to all of your hearts.