Having just returned from the 2011 Desiring God Pastor’s Conference, I am tempted to try to cram everything I heard into my blog for the day or my sermon on Sunday. Instead, I thought I share this with you.
John Piper gave a biographical sketch of 19th century pastor Robert Murray McCheyne (pronounced Mc-Shane). He pastored a church in Dundee, Scotland for seven years until he died at the age of 29. His sermons, poetry, letters, and biography were preserved by his good friend Andrew Bonar.
Below is one poem that Piper shared:
Jehovah Tsidkenu (sid-kay-new)
“the lord our righteousness”
I once was a stranger to grace and to God,
I knew not my danger, and felt not my load;
Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree.
Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me.
I oft read with pleasure, to soothe or engage,
Isaiah’s wild measure and John’s simple page;
But e’en when they pictured the blood-sprinkled tree,
Jehovah Tsidkenu seem’d nothing to me.
Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll,
I wept when the waters went over his soul
Yet thought not that my sins had nail’d to the tree,
Jehovah Tsidkenu—’twas nothing to me.
When free grace awoke me, by light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;
No refuge, no safety in self could I see—
Jehovah Tsidkenu my Saviour must be.
My terrors all vanished before the sweet name;
My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came
To drink at the fountain, life-giving and free—
Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me.
Jehovah Tsidkenu! my treasure and boast,
Jehovah Tsidkenu! I ne’er can be lost;
In Thee I shall conquer by flood and by field—
My cable, my anchor, my breastplate and shield!
Even treading the valley, the shadow of death,
This “watchword” shall rally my faltering breath,
For while from life’s fever my God sets me free,
Jehovah Tsidkenu my death-song shall be.
SDG
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