Robert Murray Mccheyne — Thomas Martin

Robert Murray McShane’s Anointing and Ministry

Let's just bow briefly in prayer. The words of Isaiah chapter 61 and 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.

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.

We ask today, O God, that thou wilt come now 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.

Declension, Evangelical Memory, and the Legacy of McShane

But that didn't 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 MacSheehan 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 MacSheehan 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 MacSheehan 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'll do your heart good.

If you can get your hands upon that volume and it's simply entitled MacSheehan's Memoirs and Remains by Andrew Bonner, Banner of Truth will provide you with that. But standing at MacSheehan'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 MacSheehan 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 MacSheehan'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 MacSheehan Memorial Church. There's a wonderful 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 MacSheehan'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 MacSheehan.

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 MacSheehan.

McShane’s Salvation: Religious Knowledge Without Conversion

Robert Murray MacSheehan, 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 MacSheehan 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 this, 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 MacSheehan 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 MacSheehan as a young boy that he could memorise the Catechism. 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 Catechism. 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 Catechism.

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 Catechism. 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 Catechism.

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 a 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 could speak about his Sermon on the Mount 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 secular and 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? Are 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 a 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. And his witness to his brother brought strong convictions and realized 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 neighbour 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 saken you was nothing to me. 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 saken you, my Saviour 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.

McShane’s Service and the Urgency of One 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 7 years only. 7 years, what is that?

Now I'm into my 7th 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 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 have become disillusioned with this thing and disillusioned with that thing. And I have spoken to people this past while at length about certain matters.

And I say this 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 would have channeled your energies and your efforts into the things of God.

And there are 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. Oh they will give themselves to worldly pursuit, they will 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 have done both and I know only one life will soon be passed. It is only what is 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.

McShane’s Sympathy for Sinners and Tender 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, myself included, perhaps have never known. And I have been greatly challenged over the past few weeks about the tenderness and gentleness and piety of the life of Robert Murray MacShane.

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 have been and how unloving I feel. Sometimes I have 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, yet 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 have preached on hell and I have to say there has been very little compassion, very few tears. I stood in Dundee Square. Dundee, by the way, is a remarkable city.

It is a great city for shopping for the ladies and I mean that. I have gone round in various shopping malls. It is a terrific place, absolutely. You could spend two days, never mind a day, just going round the shops.

Absolutely recommend it. But I stood in Dundee Square. It is a picturesque square and there were hundreds of people just walking about that square going to and fro. We were walking with the flow of people and the Reverend Ian Kenny 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 Kenny 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 will 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 are walking. You will never hear it as you are 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 see, 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 Ballyga 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, 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. 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. It's not our tears that will save a sinner. But I believe our tears will open up the windows of heaven.

Fervent Prayer, Repentance, and Revival

The Presbyterian Church many years ago, they had, as it were, this session, a little meeting. And they said, 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 said, well, what's to be done?

They said, 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. And 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 in that 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 McShane's experience, I realised 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 in 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 long or meet with others early, it is eleven or twelve 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 twenty-five minutes to one.

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 in 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 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.

Holiness of Life and Christlike Character

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, in 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 it.

And 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 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 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.