Walking Where Giants Have Walked by Greg Gordon

The Church historian David Smithers retells the life’s of two spiritual giants from the past, Oh to realize that we can walk in their same ways. They were of men of like passions! Consider these two saintly life’s Robert Murray M’Cheyne and William Bramwell. Surely they were a different race of men.

“It is not how long you live, but how you live that counts.” Robert Murray M’Cheyne was a living example of this often neglected truth. At twenty-three years old he was ordained and inducted into the church of St. Peters at Dundee. At thirty years old he finished his course, dying in the spring of 1843. Like John the Baptist and the Savior Himself, M’Cheyne ushered in Christ’s kingdom in just a few short years. It was during his brief public ministry that Scotland experienced one of its greatest revivals. M’Cheyne’s power in the pulpit was the result of his intimate knowledge of Jesus. He could boldly say, “I am better acquainted with Jesus Christ than I am with any man in the world.” Often as he preached the entire congregation was brought to tears. M’Cheyne’s diary and letters describe for us some of these precious meetings. He wrote, “It was like a pent-up flood breaking forth; tears were streaming from the eyes of many, and some fell on the ground groaning and weeping and crying for mercy.” At other times men and women were so overcome with grief and conviction that they literally had to be carried out of the church – “In some areas whole congregations were frequently moved as one man, and the voice of the minister was drowned out by the cries of anxious souls.” M’Cheyne’s voice, eyes and gestures spoke of the tenderness of Christ. It was not Robert Murray M’Cheyne the people saw, it was Jesus. M’Cheyne declared, “A man cannot be a faithful minister, until he preaches Christ for Christ’s sake – until he gives up striving to attract people to himself and seeks only to attract them to Christ.”

“The life of William Bramwell is a vivid picture of one who followed hard after God and as a result truly lived. Motivated by a fervent love and a haunting view of eternity, William Bramwell sought the face of Jesus with all his heart. It is in a letter written by Mr. Bramwell in 1807 that we get a glimpse of the driving passions that motivated his life and ministry. He writes, “Pray, O pray, my brother! never, never quit your hold of the fullness of God; for time is nearly over, and if this fullness be lost it will be lost forever. I am astonished that we do not pray more, yea, that we do not live every moment as on the brink of the eternal world, and in the blessed expectation of that glorious country.” Again he writes, “I grieve that my love is no stronger, and that I am no more like Him. I wonder at His glory, and sink before Him with shame. How is it that the soul being of such value, and God so great, eternity so near and yet we are so little moved?” William Bramwell sought to redeem every moment for the kingdom of God. Therefore he gave himself to prayer and intercession literally day and night. “He would spend two, three, four, five and sometimes six hours in prayer and reflection. He often entered his room at nine o’clock in the morning and did not leave till three in the afternoon.”

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