"I Love the Lord's Day"
Robert Murray M'Cheyne's Sermon on Sabbath Keeping
If you have been a subscriber for a considerable amount of time, you know that I advocate for Sabbath-keeping, a practice which has all but been forgotten by few.
In keeping with the title of this publication, I present to you a summarized sermon by Scotland’s most influential minister, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, for you to carry forward Sabbath-keeping into the future.
This sermon highlights the glories of the Sabbath and the joys in keeping it. Here now is a brief biography of M’Cheyne before we jump into the summarized sermon.
Who Was Robert Murray M’Cheyne?
Robert Murray M’Cheyne (or McCheyne) was a Presbyterian minister born in 1813 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He became the pastor of the church in Dundee in 1836, but shortly after, in late 1838, he stepped down due to failing health because of his fervent labor.
After a season of rest and recuperation, in 1839 he joined three other ministers in traveling to Palestine to learn about the spiritual condition of the Jews. This trip led to the first establishment of frequent evangelical missions to the Jews.
When M’Cheyne returned in late 1839, he resumed his post as the pastor of the church in Dundee. But this would be cut short again. In March of 1843, M’Cheyne became sick with typhus fever and died. He was 29 years old.
His parents decided that it would be best if he were buried in the church’s graveyard rather than their own as his heart was always with his people. At the funeral of this bright flame, over 7,000 people traveled from all over Scotland to attend. His legacy inspired much of the modern missionary movement and laid the pattern for the missionaries in the 1800s to Africa, China, and India.
“I Love the Lord’s Day”
M’Cheyne gave this sermon on a “dark and cloudy day”1 in Dundee after the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway proposed to run on Sundays.
This is his sermon that I have summarized below, which you may read in full here.
“Reasons Why We Love the Lord’s Day”
“Because it is the Lord’s Day.”
McCheyne begins here by arguing from the most basic truth concerning the subject: it is the Lord’s Day. “The Lord’s day is His property, just as the Lord’s Supper is the supper belonging to Christ.”
We have reverence for the Lord’s Table and all its benefits whereby Christ feeds, builds up, strengthens, encourages, and exhorts His people, and so should we have reverence for His Day. This is the Day where Christ completed His work of redemption for us by rising from the dead, purchasing our justification.
By stealing this Day, we steal the honor that we could have given to Christ by our solemn rest in it.“Because it is a relic of Paradise and type of Heaven”
The Sabbath came before the Fall and was the completion of Creation. Without the Sabbath, Creation was not completely good; it was not fitting if it were left out. The first man, Adam, was to tend to the garden all the days of the week except for the Sabbath. On that day “the garden was no longer his care.” On the Sabbath, Adam was to walk with God and grow in knowledge of Him, conversing with and loving Him. “Even in Paradise man needed a Sabbath.” If man in his undefiled state needed it, how can he now have no need of it as defiled as he is?
This type of heaven comes to us as a reminder that there will be a day in which a man will meet with God and “he shall be a pillar in the house of God, and go out no more.” This weekly observance of the Sabbath tears the fabric of the dimensions, and we are given a true glimpse of eternity. In the entirety of the Sabbath we are to spend it in the public and private worship of God, the task we will take up for all of the next life. But in this life we may wait for when the Sabbath will end so that we may do what we really like to do; we have no regard for the type of Heaven. Be warned: “heaven is one long, never-ending, holy Sabbath-day. There are no Sabbaths in hell.”“Because it is a day of blessings.”
On this day of the week the Lord has dispensed the most blessings. This day is the Day in which Christ rose from the dead, appeared on the road to Emmaus, and made their hearts burn within them. It was on this Day that He appeared to the disciples, and then again on another Lord’s Day He appeared to Thomas. On the Lord’s Day the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost. Here on the Lord’s Day the Christian Church was born. On this Day, John was filled with the Holy Spirit, and received revelation from God.“So that in all ages, from the beginning of the world, and in every place where there is a believer, the Sabbath has been a day of double blessing. It is so still, and will be, though all God’s enemies should gnash their teeth at it.”
On the Lord’s Day men are more often converted than on any other as it is the Day where the Word is preached and the Gospel ordinances are administered. “Saints, like John, are filled with the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and enjoy their calmest, deepest views into the eternal world.” When this Day is not kept holy, we are robbing ourselves of a “double blessing”. On this Day believers hear the sounds of our High Priest ever interceding and the Holy Spirit breathes on people anew.
“A Word of Exhortation”
“Prize the Lord’s Day”
When others despise and tarnish this Day, make sure you prize it a little bit more than you did before. Whenever you have guests over, and you cannot get the dog to stop barking, you lean in to make sure that you do not miss a word that they say. The same is true for the Lord’s Day.“It should be the busiest day of the seven; but only in the business of eternity.”
“Defend the Lord’s Day”
Whether you are a politician, a policeman, an employer, a father, or a friend, you are required to defend the Lord’s Day, both privately and publicly, as it is stated in the Fourth Commandment. Do not go without reproving the one who breaks the Sabbath. “Always remember God and the Bible are on your side, and that you will soon see these men cursing their own sin and folly when too late.”