Treasury of Sermons -
Christian Living
Beware of Seduction
By Rev Charles Seet
(Preached at Life BPC, 8am service, 22 June 2003)
Text: Proverbs
6:20-28
Some may say that this subject is rather
inappropriate for a sermon. Why talk about sex in church? One
reason why we must talk about it is because the Word of God has so much
to say against sexual sins, and repeatedly gives passionate warnings
against them. In the New Testament sexual sins are named in every
passage of scripture where sins are listed, and they are usually the
first to be mentioned (e.g. Galatians 5:1). The same prominence can
be found in the book of Proverbs. And the warning that is given in
Proverbs against them takes up 12 verses of Chapter 6 and all 27 verses
of chapter 7, plus several more passages in the book.
I. The Seriousness of the Warning
And Solomon, the writer of Proverbs
takes great pains to make his warning against seduction as
serious and urgent as he possibly can. You will notice that he
pitches it in v.20 as teaching being given to a beloved son from the
tender and loving heart of a devoted parent – “My son, keep
thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother” The
warning against seduction must be diligently treasured and cherished,
just like a priceless heirloom! You can see this in v.21 that
says – “Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie
them about thy neck.” And the blessings that will come from
heeding the warning arethen vividly described in the next two verses: We
will be most safely led and kept in the way of life!
Now that we can see how seriously, urgently and passionately
the warning against sexual seduction is introduced in this passage of
Proverbs, let us not take it lightly, but listen carefully to the
warning itself in vv.24-26 – “To keep thee from the evil woman,
from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. Lust not
after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her
eyelids. For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a
piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious
life.”
You will notice that there are no less than four different designations
given here to describe the subject of the warning: The first term,
“evil woman” (v.24), describes her character – she is
morally bad. She does not care about keeping God’s laws at all.
Neither does she care about the great harm and grief that she causes to
others, nor for the lives, marriages and families that are wrecked by
her. The second term “strange woman” (v.24) describes her
relationship – she does not belong to the one she seduces,
and is thus totally foreign or alien to him. The third term, “whorish
woman” (v.26) describes her motives – she has no love for the
one she seduces. All that she is interested in is her own selfish
gain of money or gratification. The fourth term “adulteress”
describes her wrongdoing – she commits the sin of adultery,
which is explicitly prohibited by God in the seventh commandment –
“Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18)
These four descriptions now help us to understand how we should regard
any seduction that comes our way. We must not be fooled by its
outward appearance (because appearances are so deceiving), but see its
immoral character, its foreign relationship to us, its selfish motives,
and most of all, its sinfulness! Sexual sin should become so utterly
hateful and repugnant to our being that we would not even venture to go
anywhere near it.
For this reason, v.25 even says that we should not lust in our
hearts. To lust after someone is to commit sexual sin in the mind. When
a person imagines immoral acts in his mind, he is as guilty as those who
do them. Jesus said: “whosoever looketh on a woman to lust
after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
(Matthew 5:28)
Something that has come within the last
decade with the use (or rather, in this case, an abuse) of
Internet communication is called ‘cybersex’ (perhaps we should call it
‘e-adultery’ as that is what it really is!). Marriages have been
wrecked by it, as a person spends hours in front of the computer screen
interacting sexually with someone he or she has never seen or met
before, and leaves the spouse out in the cold. And though they can claim
that they are technically clear of any charge of having an
affair, since there is no physical contact at all with anyone, the
impact of it on marriages, on families and on society is clearly very
damaging! And as internet communication improves further and further
with things like webcams, videoconferencing, and
virtual reality, the sin of lust and mental adultery is bound to
increase yet and more in time to come!
But before we go any further, it would be good for us to find out what
is it that makes sexual sin so prevalent and such an easy sin. The
root out of which it springs is pleasure: The pleasure that
is derived from sexual activity. And there is nothing
wrong with this pleasure in itself: in fact it is a delightful gift
from God. But it is a gift that can be legitimately enjoyed only within
the confines of a faithful marriage relationship. Such pleasure
was only meant to be God’s blessing for the married couple, as
Adam and Eve were given the command to be fruitful and to multiply in
Genesis 1:28. Genesis 2:24 records that both of them were naked and yet
they were not ashamed.
The shame only came
after they both disobeyed the Lord in eating the forbidden fruit. Since
that Fall, man now has a sinful nature that readily abuses this
gift of God. This grew into a universal problem: Everywhere, sexual
desires became sinful, unnatural and distorted, and have resulted
in lust, adultery, fornication, polygamy, prostitution, transgenderism,
promiscuous, incestuous and homosexual relationships.
A few generations
after Adam, Lamech had two wives. Just after God had judged the world
with a flood, we see sexual sin emerging – Noah’s son, Ham, took delight
in seeing his father’s nakedness. We think of the awful judgment that
came in Abraham’s time on Sodom and Gomorrah, followed by the immorality
of Lot’s two daughters. We think of the attempted seduction of Joseph by
Potiphar’s wife. We think of Samson’s immoral lifestyle, and of King
David’s adultery with Bathsheba. Even in New Testament times, the
apostle Paul wrote about the depravity of homosexual sins in Romans 1,
and of disciplining a man at Corinth who had an incestuous relationship.
This same depraved
picture is still very much true today. Sexual sins are being promoted
widely by the popular media and behavioural scientists, who are
trying to teach that true happiness is found outside monogamous
faithful marriage and recommend that more couples should have affairs.
The gay movement is fighting hard for the right to have homosexual
marriages and it has succeeded just a week ago in getting it passed
as law in Canada. The world today is back in the days of Sodom and
Gomorrah. It has become a cesspool of sin which is ripe for judgment!
There is only one
cure for this permissive trend in the world. And that is to go back to
the Bible. The Bible teaches us that any sexual pleasure that is derived
outside of marriage is outside of God’s plan and brings the
wrath of God (Ephesians 5:6). Let us remember that any sexual
pleasure that is derived outside of marriage is outside of God’s
plan. Those who are unmarried must keep themselves pure
from all sexual activity, whether it is in the form of fornication,
which is the sin of sexual activity with another person, or masturbation
which is the sin of sexual activity with oneself.
And if you are
unmarried and constantly struggling with either of these sins, then you
should seriously consider whether it is God’s will for you to be
married. This is because marriage is God’s remedy for those who
have diligently applied the means of grace to deal with these sins (e.g.
being filled with the Spirit), but still find it very difficult to avoid
them. That is why 1 Corinthians 7:2 tells us, “Nevertheless, to
avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every
woman have her own husband.”
There are of course
those who do not have any struggle at all with these desires – that is
one indication that they have the gift of singlehood. But there
are some who do not want to marry because they have the mistaken idea
that singlehood is more spiritual and best, and that marriage is second
best and is meant only for those who cannot contain their passions. It
is unbiblical to think that there is anything unclean or polluted in
enjoying sexual relations in the marriage relationship.
One whole book of
scripture, the Song of Solomon, emphasizes that there is blessed joy
from sexual relationship within marriage. But this joy is not
meant to be a selfish joy – seeking for one’s own satisfaction.
It is a mutual joy that is borne of love, not lust. Lust is
selfish, but love is always concerned with the satisfaction and
well-being of one’s spouse.
This is why seeking any sexual pleasure
outside of marriage can never be done in love, but in
lust. It is utterly self-centred. And we must do everything we can to
keep away from it. In 2 Timothy 2:22 we are told, “Flee also
youthful lusts…” Some say that indulging one’s
lust by having fantasies are normal and harmless so long as the imagined
sexual acts are not carried out. But the danger of having such
fantasies is that they do not satisfy: They only stimulate the
desire for more and more until they ultimately lead a man or woman down
the slippery slope into committing what is imagined. It is a fact that
every act of sexual sin always begins with immoral thoughts. Therefore
we must flee from these lusts. Don’t let your mind imbibe
anything that will cause seduction. You must deliberately avoid the
thing, the person, the place, or the activity that sets the stage for
seduction. One thing that you must make every effort to avoid today is:
Pornography.
Have you noticed that
much of the art, entertainment, and advertising in publicity and media
today seem to be purposely designed to create lust? It is getting harder
and harder for a Christian to withstand the flood of pornography. The
Internet has opened instant access to pornographic websites at the click
of a mouse. Christians are sometimes tempted to satisfy their curiosity
about these things just to become a little more knowledgable and
educated.
Let us understand
that there are things in life that are better not to know at all
because such knowledge can be very harmful to the soul and mind. One
does not have to drink poison in order to know that it will kill
those who drink it. Seductive images tend leave a permanent stain
in the mind. They stick in the mind like chewing gum. You must guard
your thought life well, because what you are is largely determined
by what you think.
A mind that is
polluted with seductive thoughts and images is not a conducive place
at all for thoughts about God, and the things of God. This will give
rise to spiritual leanness and the loss of desire to pursue spiritual
things. And it causes a person to live in fear, just like Adam and Eve
who became fearful of God and tried to hide themselves from Him after
they disobeyed His commandment. Indulgence in sexual immorality causes
people to hide and become rather secretive. It becomes a secret sin
that they love to indulge in and they hope nobody discovers it. The
guilt and fear of being discovered can become unbearable, affecting all
relationships.
If left unchecked, it
becomes an addiction because the mind cannot remain satisfied for long
with just a little bit of it, to derive pleasure. It will soon want
more, and more. And if this is still left unchecked, it can even grow
into an obsession and become like a fire burning out of control and
destroying one’s life! Seeing how terrible it is to have our minds taken
over by seductive thoughts, let us now learn some steps on:
II. The Solution
to Seduction
A. Flee from All
Sources of Seduction.
Whatever excites
sexual desires should be regarded as something to be avoided (Job 31:1).
Learn to say “No” to pressure from peers who invite you to join
them in indulging their senses. There are three chief senses that can
receive seduction: touch, sight, and hearing. Physical touch normally
stimulates the desire for more intimate contact and is biologically
designed to prepare for conjugal relations. This is why social and
ballroom dancing raises ethical questions. And this is also the
reason why unmarried couples who are dating or doing anything together
must always take special care to have very limited physical contact one
with another.
The sense of sight is
the other source of seduction. If by chance you happen to see something
that begins to stir up sexual desires in you, do not give it a second
look. Turn away from it and deliberately look at something else and
think of something else. If it is a magazine, turn to another page; if
it is on TV, change the channel. If it is a website that you just
stumbled into as you surfed the net, close that window immediately.
Listen to what Job said in Job 31:1 – “I made a covenant with mine
eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?”
And this is why we
need to dress decently and modestly. Avoiding temptation also
means avoiding being a temptation to others. Please do not say, “I
can dress however I like to dress; what others think is their problem.”
Remember that God holds us responsible if we cause others to stumble
into sin. (Matthew 18:6-7). “But whoso shall offend one
of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a
millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the
depth of the sea.”
The third source of
seduction is the sense of hearing. Don’t listen to music that has
suggestive lyrics. Sometimes instrumental music may also stir up
the lust of the flesh. Why? Because they are composed and performed by
people who are deliberately out to do that! If you know that a certain
talented musician leads a very immoral life, beware of listening to his
music, because his music will probably contain expressions of his
immoral values and lifestyle.
B. Fill your Mind
with the Word of God.
Colossians 3:16 says,
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all
wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”
Philippians 4:8 says,
“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of
good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think
on these things.”
C. Fill your Time
with Profitable Activity.
Since Jesus said in
Luke 19:13 that we must occupy till He comes, we should not let
ourselves become idle. It is well known that one of the causes of
the fall of the Roman Empire was the decadence of its people.
People became so rich, that they no longer needed to work. Even those
who were unemployed were given tax money to enjoy themselves. King
David fell into the sin of adultery because he decided to stay back in
Jerusalem and do nothing, instead of leading his forces into battle.
Thus, it is good to plan your time wisely, e.g. during vacations or
holidays or when you retire. Remember: “Idle hands are the devil’s
workshop!”
III. Sustaining Efforts to Beware of
Seduction
Now, it is one thing to know these three
steps to avoid seduction. It is another thing to be motivated to
observe them all the time. What can we do to ensure that we will
keep ourselves always vigilant in all these things? The answer is found
in vv. 27-28 of our text. After delivering the warning against
seduction, Solomon writes – “Can a man take fire in his bosom, and
his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his
feet not be burned?” The warning here is that yielding to
seduction can bring oneself into very great peril. The
consequences are so severe that anyone should think not only twice, but
thrice before falling into sexual sin. One should first imagine what it
is like to be burned in the fires of hell!
Our Lord Jesus
essentially said the same thing when he spoke about lust in Matthew 5:29
– “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from
thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should
perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” What
was Jesus saying here? Was He teaching His disciples to literally pluck
out their right eye if they looked at a woman lustfully? No, not at all.
All that He was teaching them was that drastic and decisive
preventive measures must be taken against this sin in their own
lives. And if we want to apply what Jesus said in our lives, it means
that we must do our utmost best to remove anything that causes us to
fall into sexual sin.
In medical science,
there is are sometimes situations that call for similar measures: A part
of the body has to be amputated, usually because its blood supply
has been cut off by physical injury, vascular disease or diabetes,
causing a destructive bacterial process known as gangrene.
Gangrene infection has a strong tendency to spread quickly
because the bacteria produce powerful toxins that destroy
adjacent healthy tissues, making them highly susceptible to further
invasion. The treatment involves heavy doses of antibiotics and the
surgical amputation of the affected tissue. People who have gone
through this would be able to appreciate the intense urgency
of what Jesus said in Matthew 5 about plucking out one’s eye to
avoid being burned in hellfire, and what Solomon warned in Proverbs 6
about getting oneself burned by yielding to seduction.
The dangers of sexual
sins are so great that we need to be really shaken up through the
use of such strong language to take the necessary steps to deal with
seduction. Let us therefore regard seduction the way that God sees it,
and do everything we can to avoid it. Please take time to think
carefully through this and spend some time before the Lord. If you are
convicted that some things you are doing are sinful, do not delay to
confess them to the Lord. If you are convicted that you have a tendency
to fall to seduction, then apply the steps of fleeing from the sources
of seduction, and of filling your mind and your time with the things of
God.
The Irrepayable Debt
Text: Ephesians
2:4-7
The Scriptures abound with passages that
express how wonderfully God has loved us. One of them is Ephesians 2:4-7
– “But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith
He loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together
with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together,
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the
ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in
His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”
I. Expressing Our Debt To God
The words, “when we were dead
in sins” in v.5 show us how utterly undeserving we are of
this salvation. What brings out the full extent of God’s love here is
the fact that He loved us while we were still dead in our sins,
incapable of loving Him or doing anything worthy of His love in our
state of depravity. And He loved us enough to make us alive with
Christ, to raise us up, and make us sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus! Dearly beloved, has this world ever known any
love that is greater than this? Such great love, when fully known and
revealed in all its magnificent glory, should move us to realise how
much we owe to God. We should never cease to be amazed at how
infinitely indebted we are to Him, for all the things He has done
for us out of His great love for us!
Many who have meditated on this have
been inspired to write some of the most inspiring hymns that have
ever been composed and sung by God’s people. Consider a few hymns that
are familiar to most of us, which attempt to capture with words, the
full extent of the irrepayable debt that we owe to our loving
heavenly Father. It was Bernard of Clairvaux who wrote, “What
language shall I borrow to thank Thee heavenly Friend, for this Thy
dying sorrow, Thy pity without end? O make me Thine forever! And shall I
fainting be, Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee!” (O
Sacred Head, Now Wounded, RHC 188)
Isaac Watts, the great English
hymnwriter wrote, “But drops of grief can never repay The debt of
love I owe; Here, Lord, I give myself away-'Tis all that I can do.”
(Alas! and Did My Saviour Bleed? RHC194). In another hymn,
entitled, ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’ (RHC551), Isaac Watts,
wrote these words, “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a
tribute far too small. Love so amazing, so divine demands my life, my
soul, my all! More than a century later, a writer by the name of
Elvina Hall wrote, “Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe; Sin
had left a crimson stain – he washed it white as snow.” (Jesus
Paid It All, RHC183)
II. McCheyne’s Hymn
Of all the hymns ever written on the
theme of the irrepayable debt, none has dealt with it so
extensively as the one that was written by Robert Murray McCheyne,
which we know today by its first line, “When This Passing World Is
Done”. This 4-stanza hymn was originally published as a 9-verse poem
in the Scottish Christian Herald, May 20, 1837, with the title,
“I Am Debtor.” Here is the original poem:
When this passing world is done,
When has sunk yon
glaring sun,
When we stand with
Christ in glory,
Looking o’er life’s
finished story,
Then, Lord, shall I
fully know—
Not till then—how
much I owe.
When I hear the
wicked call,
On the rocks and hills to fall,
When I see them
start and shrink
On the fiery deluge
brink,
Then, Lord, shall I
fully know—
Not till then—how
much I owe.
When I stand before
the throne,
Dressed in beauty
not my own,
When I see Thee as
Thou art,
Love Thee with unsinning heart,
Then Lord, shall I
fully know—
Not till then—how
much I owe.
When the praise of
heav’n I hear,
Loud as thunders to
the ear,
Loud as many waters’
noise,
Sweet as harp’s
melodious voice,
Then, Lord, shall I
fully know—
Not till then—how
much I owe.
Even on earth, as
through a glass
Darkly, let Thy
glory pass,
Make forgiveness
feel so sweet,
Make Thy Spirit’s
help so meet,
Even on earth, Lord,
make me know
Something of how
much I owe.
Chosen not for good
in me,
Wakened up from
wrath to flee,
Hidden in the
Savior’s side,
By the Spirit
sanctified,
Teach me, Lord, on
earth to show,
By my love, how much
I owe.
Oft I walk beneath
the cloud,
Dark, as midnight’s
gloomy shroud;
But, when fear is at
the height,
Jesus comes, and all
is light;
Blessed Jesus! bid
me show
Doubting saints how
much I owe.
When in flowery
paths I tread,
Oft by sin I’m
captive led;
Of I fall—but still
arise—
The Spirit comes—the
tempter flies;
Blessed Spirit! bid
me show
Weary sinners all I
owe.
Oft the nights of
sorrow reign—
Weeping, sickness,
sighing, pain;
But a night Thine
anger burns—
Morning comes and
joy returns;
God of comforts! bid
me show
To Thy poor, how
much I owe.
III. The Life of McCheyne
The author of this poem was a very godly Scottish pastor and evangelist
gifted in poetry and music. Beside this poem McCheyne had written over
fifty others, some of which were published in a book called “Songs of
Zion”. But none of them have been loved or sung by God’s people as much
as this particular one. The hymn, “When This Passing World Is Done”
stands today as a gem among the pilgrim songs for heavenly people! At
the time that he wrote it in 1834, McCheyne was at the point of
completing his studies in Divinity at the University of Edinburgh.
He was only 21 years old then, and would have only nine more years
before he would be taken up to glory, for he died before he reached the
age of thirty. But within his short life, Robert McCheyne served the
Lord with such powerful zeal and ardour, that he became known as one of
Scotland’s shining lights as regards the preaching of the Gospel of
Christ! Like Abel, he being dead yet speaketh (Hebrews 11:4). And his
life stands as a powerful testimony for all who love and serve the Lord
today, of how we should live as debtors to the grace of God.
A. His Conversion
Born in the year 1813, the youngest child of a well-to-do Christian
family at Edinburgh, Robert grew up with good prospects of becoming a
successful lawyer, like his father, Adam McCheyne. He entered university
at the young age of 14, and there he soon became an eager participant in
the city’s fashionable entertainments, spending his leisure hours in
card playing, dancing and music.
However, during his years in university, Robert was the subject of much
fervent prayer from his elder brother, David, who was the only real
Christian in the family at that time, and who longed for the rest of the
family to be saved. Robert loved this brother a lot, and alwaqys looked
up to him for counsel and help, for David was nine years his senior. And
so when David died in 1831, Robert was much grieved to have lost a
wonderful brother and guide. But this loss proved to be the most
important turning point in Robert’s life. He refered to it later as the
“first overwhelming blow to his worldliness.” Through his
brother’s death he began to see the utter futility of spending his life
on earth on pleasure, games, dancing, and much social partying. He
missed his elder brother sorely, and longed to have a brother who could
never die. And he did find such a Brother, when He turned to the Lord
Jesus Christ! The last stanza of his hymn, When This Passing World Is
Done, aptly summarises the conversion of Robert Murray McCheyne, as
he wrote:
Chosen not for
good in me, Wakened up from wrath to flee,
Hidden in the
Saviour’s side, By the Spirit sanctified,
Teach me, Lord,
on earth to show, By my love, how much I owe.
II. His Service
Two months later, at the age of 18, Robert surrendered his life to the
Lord for full-time service. He presented himself to the Presbytery of
Edinburgh and was accepted to study Divinity at the University. There,
he earnestly prepared himself for the Lord’s service. He joined the
university’s Missionary Association and engaged in visiting the poor in
the slums of Edinburgh. He also developed an interest in overseas
missions.
After a short internship, he was ordained as the pastor of the new St
Peter’s Established Church in Dundee. This church was actually a
pioneer outreach work, as Dundee was then a rapidly expanding
industrial area at the height of the industrial revolution. The streets
were overcrowded with thousands of poor and rough working-class people
who flocked to Dundee to find work in the mills and factories there.
With God’s enablement, Pastor Robert McCheyne was able to build the
church up from scratch so that within just seven years, it had a
congregation of 1,200 members! The church is there to this today and is
now known as St Peter's Free Church of Scotland.
What was the secret of his success in building up the church at Dundee
so well? Many biographers of McCheyne’s life agree that it was due to
two things: His very disciplined devotional life, and his dependence on
the Holy Spirit.
III. His Devotional Life
He would rise up at six every morning and spend two hours in private
prayer and meditation. Then he would have breakfast and and family
devotions. McCheyne fervently believed that a calm hour with God is
worth a whole lifetime with man. His closest friend and biographer,
Andrew Bonar, writes, “the real secret of his soul’s prosperity lay
in daily enlargement of his heart in fellowship with his God. Meditation
and prayer were the very sinews of his work.” Daily devotions were
so important to McCheyne, that he devised a Calendar of daily Bible
readings which would enable a person to complete the whole Bible in a
year. And his calendar became so popular later on, that even Charles
Spurgeon recommended it highly to his own church! It is still published
today by Trinitarian Bible Society as an appendix to their Bibles.
IV. His Spirit-Filled Ministry
The other thing that contributed to McCheyne’s fruitful ministry was his
dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit, both to make him
holy, and to win the lost to Christ. He once wrote to a friend, “A
holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.” This
conviction was something he had acquired through studying the lives of
godly men such as Jonathan Edwards, David Brainerd and Henry Martyn. He
earnestly longed for the power of the Holy Spirit that had been so
evident in their lives, to be granted also to him. You can see this in
the third stanza of his hymn:
Even on earth, as through a glass Darkly, let Thy glory pass,
Make forgiveness
feel so sweet, Make Thy Spirit’s help so meet,
Even on earth,
Lord, make me know Something of how much I owe.
And this prayer for the Holy Spirit’s help was answered in marvelous
ways.
A. Manifestations of Revival
The first was in a powerful revival that swept through his church
in 1839. This came about after three years of prayerful preparation, in
which McCheyne sowed the seed with fresh Spirit-filled sermons from
God’s Word on Sunday and during the midweek prayer meeting, and also in
his intensive home visitation programme in his parish of Dundee.
McCheyne fully realised that just one word uttered in the power of the
Holy Spirit could do more than thousands of words spoken in a spirit of
unbelief.
When revival broke out, the twice-a-week meetings in church became
nightly meetings as the whole town was moved, and people came in droves
to fill the church hall. The fear of God fell upon the ungodly. The Word
was listened to with what is described as, “an awful and breathless
stillness.” A visitor remarked that the church there was filled with
a ‘Bethel-like sacredness’ during the services. So packed was the
church that they even had to have open-air meetings in the meadows at
Dundee! At one such meeting, a heavy downpour of rain came while
McCheyne was preaching, but the dense crowd stood right there till the
end of the meeting.
During this revival, many who came under conviction wept aloud with
tears of repentance that turned into tears of joy, as they gained the
blessed assurance of true salvation. And instead of just one prayer
meeting a week, there were 39 separate groups meeting for prayer every
week, including five groups that were attended and led by children!
There were enough Sunday School teachers now to staff 19 new Sunday
Schools! This revival was not limited to Dundee alone. It also spread to
many other places in Scotland, and was facilitated through the ministry
of many other godly men who were contemporaries of McCheyne. It was a
much-needed awakening for the Church of Scotland!
The interesting thing about this revival, is that it actually began in
McCheyne’s church at a time when he was away, and when his good friend,
another Scotsman by the name of William Chalmers Burns,
ministered in his church as a locum until his return. The revival
at Dundee that started under William Burns continued in even greater
measure under McCheyne after he returned from his trip, and stayed with
him for the rest of his life.
By the way, the name William Burns should ring a bell to us, as he is
the Scottish root among the seven roots of the B-P Movement in
Singapore. It was William Burns who became a missionary to China in 1847
and who brought the Gospel to Swatow and Amoy. Out of the Chinese
converts who emigrated to Singapore from there, Life Church at Prinsep
Street was formed. Before all that happened, William Burns was the
pastor of a church at Kilsyth, who came over to Dundee to look after
McCheyne’s flock during the time that he was away on a mission trip.
B. Missions to the Jews
This brings us now to the second way in which McCheyne’s prayer for the
Holy Spirit to work in Him was answered. It was in the realm of
missions. From his days of training for the ministry, he had already
felt a burden for the lost in heathen lands. By 1836 he felt willing to
go to India and prayed that God would make His will plain to him,
but the bouts of ill-health he suffered then showed him that this was
not God’s will for him. Instead the Lord placed in his heart, a burden
for the salvation of the Jews.
In God’s wonderful providence, the the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland at that time wanted to send a team of ministers to Eastern
Europe and the Middle East (then under the Turkish Empire), in order to
make a study of the Jews who lived there, and to recommend the best
means of evangelising them. And when he was invited to join the team,
McCheyne gladly went with three others, on a journey that was to last
for six months.
During this missionary survey trip, McCheyne’s passion for souls was
translated into a passion for the salvation of the Jews and Arabs. It
was a great heart-ache to him that he could not speak their language,
for he wanted to preach to them with the same zeal and fervour that he
preached to his fellow scotsmen at home. But after braving the many
hazards of this trip, including falling very ill on a ship to Smyrna,
McCheyne and company returned back to Scotland and gave such a
comprehensive and challenging report that was published into a
best-selling book (“The Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews”),
that within a few short years, Scottish missions were established to the
Jews in Eastern Europe, Poland, Germany and Hungary. In later years the
work expanded throughout the Middle East, including several of the towns
that McCheyne had visited.
The Spirit of God used him to plant a deep concern for salvation of the
Jews not only in the hearts of his Scottish countrymen, but also among
the Christians of England and Ireland. In 1840, he went to Ulster to
plead for the interest of the Jews. The following year the Irish General
Assembly began efforts which led to the establishment of missions to the
Jews in Syria and Germany. A year later, McCheyne’s visit to London
resulted in the formation of the British Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel among the Jews.
Let us listen to what he wrote about the Jews: “To the Jew first.
Converted Israel, he declared, will give life to the dead
world....just as we have found, among the parched hills of Judah, that
the evening dew, coming silently down, gave life to every plant, making
the grass to spring and the flowers to put forth their sweetest
fragrance, so shall converted Israel be when they come as dew
upon a dead, dry world. The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of
many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that
tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men.”
We look forward to the day when these words of McCheyne will be
completely fulfilled. And we know that it will happen, because the
Scriptures tell us that Israel is the firstborn son among God’s dear
children. We who are Gentile believers owe a tremendous debt to
the Jews, because, as the apostle Paul wrote, “unto them were
committed the oracles of God…to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the
glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of
God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning
the flesh Christ came” (Romans 2:2; 9:4,5).
And while our Gospel debt to the Jews is great, our debt to God Himself
is even greater! This debt is truly one we can never repay, as Robert
McCheyne has so aptly expressed in his hymn, and also exemplified in his
life. His was a life that was entirely consecrated to the Lord, and was
well used by the Lord even though he had a mere seven years of unceasing
ministry on earth. But McCheyne himself would probably testify that even
all that he had done can never repay the irrepayable debt he owed to the
Lord for all the love and grace that God had shown to him.
After a preaching tour of the churches in north Scotland in 1843, Robert
Murray McCheyne returned home to Dundee at an unfortunate time when a
severe typhus plague was raging there. He succumbed to the plague and
was promoted to glory, 29 years old. He now stands on high with Christ
in glory, and is experiencing what he had written in the first two
stanzas of his hymn:
When this passing world is done, When
has sunk yon glaring sun,
When we stand
with Christ in glory, Looking o’er life’s finished story,
Then, Lord, shall
I fully know—Not till then—how much I owe.
When I stand
before the throne, Dressed in beauty not my own,
When I see Thee
as Thou art, Love Thee with unsinning heart,
Then Lord, shall
I fully know— Not till then—how much I owe.
Dear friends, let us join in this
pilgrim song, praising and thanking God for the wondrous things He has
done in our own life. And since our debt to Him is irrepayable, let us
not spare any effort from now on to live our lives in full surrender to
God, seeking and doing His will. Then our hearts will be able to echo
the words of Robert Murray McCheyne: Then Lord, shall I fully know—
Not till then—how much I owe. |
