Conference for Pastors: John Piper's Biographical Message on Robert Murray M'Cheyne

In the fourth session of the Conference for Pastors (live-streamed at desiringgod.org/live), we heard from John Piper on the life of Robert Murray M'Cheyne in a message titled "He Kissed the Rose and Felt the Thorn: The Living and Dying in the Morning of Life."

(The full manuscript and audio for download are available. The video will be up shortly.)

Piper pointed out that there are a number of Christian men who died early in their ministry:

• Jim Elliot died at age 28 in 1956. We know about him because his wife, Elizabeth Elliot, wrote a book about him.
• David Brainerd died at age 29 in 1747. We know about him because Jonathan Edwards wrote a book about him.
• Henry Martyn died at age 31 in 1812. We know about him because John Sargent wrote a book about him.
• Robert Murray M'Cheyne died at age 29 in 1843. We know about him because his dear friend Andrew Bonar wrote a book about him.

All of these men have two things in common—they had a powerful Christian life, and there was someone else to tell us about it. How did these two factors play out for Robert Murray M'Cheyene?

First, Christ was M'Cheyene's treasure.

Isabella Dickson, who became Andrew Bonar's wife, heard McCheyne preach when she was still and unbeliever and wrote,

There was something singularly attractive about Mr. McCheyne's holiness. . . . It was not his matter nor his manner either that struck me; it was just the living epistle of Christ—a picture so lovely, I felt I would have given all the world to be as he was, but knew all the time I was dead in sins.

It was what God made of him in private that made him so impactful in public. The reason he could commend Christ and the gospel with so much power is that these things were becoming more and more precious to him. He wrote to his mother, "Forgiveness of sins and acceptance with God become every day in my view more unspeakably precious." To his congregation he said, "Unfathomable oceans of grace are in Christ for you. Dive and dive again, you will never come to the bottom of these depths!"

Christ was his life, and so Christ filled his preaching.

Second, M'Cheyene had deep and dear friendships.

Andrew Bonar (who wrote his biography) and Alexander Somerville were his closest friends. Andrew Bonar wrote:

I sometimes think that we three at that time were like the three disciples you read of—Peter, James, and John before the day of Pentecost. . . . Christ took these three into the chamber of Jairus' daughter, and taught them how to raise dead souls. He taught us from the very first to put no stress upon human appliances, but to keep to the gospel word. He took us to the Transfiguration hill, and showed us His person from time to time. He taught us to delight in His person, and to behold in a glass the glory of the Lord, and be changed into the same image. He took us to Gethsemane at communion times, and showed us the cup that the father gave him to drink, and which he drank, leaving no dregs behind.