Have you ever heard of Robert Murray McCheyne?
If you’ve read the foreword to My Utmost for His Highest you’ve seen his name.
Biddy’s foreword to the devotional reads like this:
Men return again and again to the few who have mastered the spiritual secret, whose life has been hid with Christ in God. These are of the old time religion, hung to the nails of the Cross.”
My Utmost for His Highest Foreword
Who was Robert Murray McCheyne?
Born May 21, 1813, he was a minister in the Church of Scotland.
McCheyne learned the Greek alphabet from his father at the age of four.
According to biographer, Alexander Smellie, McCheyne,”could consult the Hebrew of the Old Testament as easily as many ministered the Greek in the New Testament.”
Like Oswald Chambers who was born sixty years later, McCheyne attended the University of Edinburgh. Both men began in the art department.
Also like Chambers, McCheyne shifted from the art department to theology.
Unlike Chambers, McCheyne graduated from divinity school!
(Chambers attended a Bible college near Glasgow.)
Called to “the kirk of Scotland’s St. Peter’s Church in Dundee,” McCheyne moved to the new church in a growing town thirty-six miles from Edinburgh.
McCheney was twenty-three years old.
As Smellie noted:
“Tall, slender, of fair complexion, regular and handsome in feature, he was pleasant to look upon as a young David coming from the sheepfold to be appointed king.
“And behind the face and the words, the soul was more constraining and compelling.”
Robert Murray McCheney p. 69 by Alexander Smellie, DD.
Oswald Chambers and Robert McCheyne
Both tall thin lovers of poetry, the men loved their God.
I can’t find where Chambers read the McCheyne sermon collections or even his biography, all published within a few years of McCheyne’s 1843 death.
We do know Chambers quoted McCheyne in his “Notes on Jeremiah,” part of a series of lectures Chambers gave at the Bible Training College in 1912 and 1913.
Out of his final lecture in the series on Jeremiah 29:24-32 and 2 Peter 3:11, Chambers commented,
“the background of personal and of national life determines its outlook. The false prophets had as the background of their life the idea that they were the people of God and He would never punish them.”
Notes on Jeremiah p 1436-67; The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers.
Chambers’ point was those in authority need to live up to the beliefs they espoused.
(An excellent point for today, as well).
Chambers quoted McCheyne at the end of Jeremiah teaching series:
“But how many there are among our ministers, and how many there will be, eager on all questions of the day, frank and friendly and fearless, active and kind, but with very little about them that suggests the power of the world to come.
“They die and are mourned, but their places are soon filled and they are forgotten. But men return again and again to the few who have mastered the spiritual secret, whose life has been hid with Christ in God.”
Notes on Jeremiah p. 1436-67; The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers.
Chambers, who didn’t believe in taking any more funds than he needed, lived out McCheyne’s words.
What happened to McCheyne?
McCheyne’s health was never robust and the years of selfless toil in this Scottis parish took their toll.
While recupperating from an illness, McCheyne became interested in the plight of the Jews–God’s chosen people.
In 1839, the Scottish kirk’s General Assembly sent McCheyne and a small group of others on a six-month tour of Asia Minor to examine the lives of the area Jews.
While they traveled, a revival broke out in his Dundee Parish. Thrilled, McCheyne hurried home to oversee the good news and continue the ministry.
He died on March 25, 1843, in Dundee during a typhus epidemic. Over 6000 people attended his funeral services.
You can read more about him, and learn about his Bible Reading Plan, here.
Why did Biddy chose his quote to describe Chambers?
By the time Biddy Chambers compiled My Utmost for His Highest, she’d received countless letters from friends, soldiers, YMCA personnel, and others who had benefited from hearing Chambers teach.
Many people wrote to her about his influence on their lives. Many people read the books she put together of his thoughts and sermons.
Ten years after Chambers’ death, people continued visiting her with their stories.
She knew her late husband’s words were important since, as Reader Harris wrote, “the most lasting of all preaching is with the pen.”
Biddy Chambers used McCheney’s words to help others assess and appreciate Oswald Chambers’ words, thoughts, and even his deeds.
I think they’re apt, don’t you?
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