By the Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne
This article by Robert Murray McCheyne (1813 – 43), which describes the benefits of frequent, thoughtful and prayerful consideration of Christian missions, originally appeared in the Scottish Christian Herald in 1836, and is reprinted (in somewhat abbreviated form) from an early issue of The Free Presbyterian Magazine.
THE advantages which the Christian mind derives from a constant intercourse with missionary subjects are very many and very great.
First: a spirit of intercession on behalf of the heathen is encouraged.
It was when Jesus “saw the multitudes,” that “He was moved with compassion on them,” and bade His disciples, “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest,” (Matt. 9:36-38). This shows how completely the Son of God was also the Son of Man, for with men it is always the sight of the object that calls forth the emotion. We come, we see, we are conquered. It was when Paul “saw the city wholly given to idolatry” that “his spirit was stirred in him,” (Acts 17:16). The eye affected the heart.
Just so will it be with every Christian mind. Set him down, like Buchanan [a missionary in India], among the myriads that shout around the vehicle of Juggernaut, the Hindu god; or, like Gutzlaff [another missionary], among the more civilised idolatry of China, and he will be stirred. The man who is a follower of Paul, as Paul was of Christ, will be stirred in his spirit, and moved with compassion, and one vent of the full heart will be in prayer to the Lord of the harvest.
But we who sit at home cannot see the spirit-stirring sight; we are cut off from this influence to drive us to our knees. Nor can any written information wholly make up this deficiency. The hearing of the ear will never produce so powerful an effect as the seeing with the eye. Yet, in the absence of the greater
influence, how dare we neglect to use the lesser? When we cannot see, how dare we refuse to hear and read and consider? If we live in ignorance of the state of the heathen world, how can we pray intelligently on its behalf? If we content ourselves with general notions of its idolatries, and barbarities, and resisting the Light, shall not our petitions be general, unfeeling, and ineffectual? On the prayers of the children of God depends the coming of the kingdom of God and the conversion of the heathen. Should not every child of God then bring himself under those influences which shall bind him to intelligent, fervent, effectual prayer on this behalf.
Come, then, true child of God, who art bound to the service of Christ in thy native soil, come and let us gather from the records of faithful men who have jeopardized their lives in the high places of heathenism, food for meditation, and incitement to prayer. Let us give ear to these spies of the land of darkness when they tell us of some spot where grace is beginning to drop from above “like the first of a thunder shower,” so that our prayers, mingled with thanksgivings, may arise with interest and intelligence on this special behalf: or, when they tell us of some stronghold of Satan, fortified on every side by the triple brazen shield of superstition, self-righteousness, and lust, our united cry may ascend into the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth: “Have respect unto thy covenant, for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.”
Secondly, intercourse with missionary subjects helps forward personal holiness.
We find in 1st Thessalonians 2:16, that those who were forbidding the preaching of the word to the Gentiles were looked upon by God as filling up the cup of their sins. Conversely, the bidding and helping of faithful men to preach the word to the Gentiles, is one of the essential virtues of the child of God. And if it be a good and gracious thing to send them, it is but the continuation of this good thing to look after them, to sympathise with their difficulties and encouragements, to weep with them when they weep over obstinate sinners, to rejoice with them and the angels when they rejoice over one sinner that repenteth.
But love increases and abounds the more it is conversant with its object. Appetite seems to grow by what it feeds on, and the sure effect of increasing and abounding in love toward all men is a surer establishing in personal holiness, (1 Thes 3:12,13). The very effort of sending a man to be an instrument to convert others, makes us ask the question, “Am I myself converted?” The very sight of so many millions left in ignorance of the only name whereby they may be saved, whilst we have heard it from our infancy,
overpowers the believing mind with an abiding sense of the sovereignty of God and the freeness of His electing love. Privileges are used more ardently; thanksgivings are offered more feelingly. “What have I that I did not receive,” is graven more durably upon the heart.
And if God does bless the efforts of our missionaries, how is every grace of the new nature stirred into a burning flame. When the Greenlander, the Hindu, or the Chinese becomes a believer in Jesus; when the same gracious feelings which sparkled in our bosoms when first we saw the Lord have evidently got possession of these barbarian souls; when we can trace a kindredness of sentiment and affection, a oneness of spirit with these last of men, then we remember that it is written, “We, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.” Our lagging faith is by sympathy quickened into active service. The flame of our first love is rekindled, and we hasten to “do the first works.”
Thirdly, intercourse with missionary subjects makes us watch more anxiously for the coming of the kingdom of God.
The saints are to be watchful and intelligent as to the signs of the times. And is not the state of the Jewish and heathen world the very page to which we must look chiefly for signs of the latter day glory? When the branch of the fig tree is yet tender and putteth forth leaves, we know that summer is nigh. So likewise shall there be infallible signs of the coming of the season when the Beloved shall say unto His bride, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.”
These buddings of the coming summer of our world, “none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand,” (Daniel 12:10). And why? Just because the wise, the taught of God, are not fools nor slow of heart to believe all that is written concerning the coming of the kingdom of Jesus. They are on the watch for the first vibrations of that shaking of the earth and the heavens that shall usher in His kingdom that cannot be moved.
Where is the intelligent child of God who is not even now looking for the first streaks of the breaking of the day – the day when the fulness of the Gentiles being come in, all Israel shall be saved – and then at last the day when the whole temple being completed (of which Christ is the foundation stone, corner stone and top stone), the Lord shall be glorified in His saints, and admired in all them that believe.
Child of God, sleep not thou as do others, but having thine own heart established with grace, be ever asking the anxious question, “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?” And then shall the answer be returned to thee, “The morning cometh.”