Robert Murray McCheyne Quotes

“The seed of every sin known to man is in my heart”.”

“He was without any comforts of God — no feeling that God loved him — nofeeling that God pitied him — no feeling that God supported him. God was hissun before — now that sun became all darkness… He was without God — hewas as if he had no God. All that God had been to him before was taken fromhim now. He was Godless — deprived of his God. He had the feeling of thecondemned, when the Judge says: “Depart from me, ye cursed,” “who shallbe punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord andfrom the glory of his power.” He felt that God said the same to him. Ah! This isthe hell which Christ suffered. The ocean of Christ’s sufferings isunfathomable… He was forsaken in the [place] of sinners. If you close with himas your surety, you will never be forsaken… “My God, my God, why hast thouforsaken me?” [The answer?] For me — for me.”

“Dr. Murray points to the Nazarite system as what he calls an external scaffolding supporting human efforts at righteousness, reminding the participant that he is set apart. Christ, he said, needed no external reminder that the Father was His joy and that wine was not, that He was Life and was wholly Other from death, that He bore on Himself the shame that long hair but vaguely pointed to.”

“I'm suspicious of people who don't like dogs, but I trust a dog when it doesn't like a person.”

“Life makes fools of us all sooner or later. But keep your sense of humor and you'll at least be able to take your humiliations with some measure of grace. In the end, you know, it's our own expectations that crush us." -- from Skippy Dies”

“[On Anger][T]he instinct of self-preservation, setting itself against everything that interferes with our pleasures and comfort. What is called temper, with its fruits of anger and strife, has its roots in the physical constitution, and is one among the sins of the flesh.[of the spirit . . .][T]he doing our will rather than His. In relation to our fellow-men it shows itself in envy, hatred, and want of love, cold neglect or harsh judging of others.[of fear . . .]The fear of God need never hinder the faith in Him. And true faith will never hinder the practical work of cleansing.”

“In the light of His example we can see, in the faith of His power we too can prove, that suffering is to God’s child the token of the Father’s love, and the channel of His richest blessing. [. . .]Suffering is the way of the rent veil, the new and living way Jesus walked in and opened for us.”

“If there is one thought with regard to the Church of Christ, which at times comes to me with overwhelming sorrow; if there is one thought in regard to my own life of which I am ashamed; if there is one thought of which I feel that the Church of Christ has not accepted it and not grasped it; if there is one thought which makes me pray to God: “Oh, teach us by Thy grace, new things”—it is the wonderful power that prayer is meant to have in the kingdom. [. . .] And that is the law of the kingdom—the King upon the throne, the servants upon the footstool.”

“It is infinitely better to rely on the pursuit of economic interest by landowners or street companies than to depend on the dubious “altruism” of bureaucrats and government officials.”

“They are an American Delegation who are doing a tour of the region to apologize for the crusades', said Arafat. Then he, and his guest, burst out laughing. They both knew that America had little or no involvement in the wars of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. But Arafat, at any rate, was happy to indulge the affliction of anyone who believed they had and use it to his own political advantage.”