Dr A. Moody Stuart was the Edinburgh preacher under whose ministry Robert Murray McCheyne spent his student days.
Next to experiencing the work of the Lord in our own hearts, is the happiness of beholding that work in others. It is an angelic joy, for there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. It is a divine joy, for the Great Shepherd brings home His lost one, rejoicing and saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the sheep that was lost.” In partaking of it we enter into the Joy of the Lord, and nothing more effectually revives our souls in first faith. It is high honour and privilege to be used of Christ in any of His wonderful works towards the sons of men. It is an almost equal privilege and honour to be called by Him to witness those works; to be taken along with Him when He raises the dead and opens the eyes of the blind – for it is little more that any man ever does in the salvation of others than stand by and behold the work of the Lord.
Nothing humbles so effectually as to receive honour and privilege of which you are consciously unworthy, and to which you are manifestly unequal. The “high calling” humbles its recipients in the dust; and beneath the royal purple is ever found the meekest and lowliest of all the children of men.
The abundant manna falling openly round the camp is cheerfully gathered, without labour as without price. But after a season Jesus says to the soul, “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna.” (Revelation 2:17). It is still the bread of life as before; it is equally without money as at first; but the call now comes - “Labour for the meat that endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give.” (John 6 :27). Many in this hour refuse the labour, refuse to seek and strive, refuse to obtain by overcoming. Some turn aside altogether from such trial, proving that they had never truly tasted that the Lord is gracious. Others sadly fail in earnest seeking, and never make that progress in grace which their first start promised.
We cannot, indeed, be always expressly looking to Christ. In doing those things that our hand finds to do, such an exercise is often impossible. But, it is just like reading or working at night: then, we look not at the candle, but at the work before us. Yet, if the light be obscured, we note the difference as quickly as if we were expressly watching it. Let us strive so as to walk under the light of God's countenance all the day, that if a cloud passes between the Light of Life and our souls, it may be instantly perceived, and its removal diligently sought.
The heart is, of all things, the hardest to give to Christ, yet the thing without which all other things are nothing, and the giver of them all but sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Very often also, when we have given our heart to God, and then followed it with other offerings, we then slowly steal out of the first great single gift again – the one central jewel in the signet that gave it all its worth and beauty – and leave only the outer settings round the absent jewel.
In the Christian ministry, it is not what we seek for others that usually profits them most, but what God makes us seek and find for ourselves, and then to testify to others what we have seen, and to speak to them what we know. It is the lack of this element that makes much of our preaching so powerless; for it is the God-taught man that is the God-sent messenger. It is Christ found by us for our own souls in solitude that is Christ preached by us on the house-tops, and so lifted up that all men are drawn to Him. “If they had stood in My counsel, and heart and marked my words, they should have turned the people from their evil way.” (Jeremiah 23:18.) So it is with the ministers of the everlasting gospel in their public testimony, and so it is with every follower of Jesus by whom the Lord would send a message to a perishing soul. Have you sought Christ alone? Have you shut the door and prayed in secret till you have found Him whom the Father, that seeth in secret, reveals to the inquiring soul.
Jesus must be deepest within the heart of man, expressly claiming for Himself the innermost chamber of the soul. Alas! When the secrets of all hearts are revealed, in how many will some treasure be found deeper than the Lord Jesus Christ. Have none of us reason to tremble lest when the depths within are broken up, not Christ be found, but that loathsome reptile self?