Mr Great-heart

This Tribute will appear in the Evangelical Times in May 2020 and cannot be republished until after publication.

Nothing prepares you for the dying moments of a loved one.  On Wednesday 1st April 2020 I received a phone call at 12:35pm from a concerned Doctor from Leverndale Hospital in Glasgow.  My father, Rev John J Murray, had been in isolation since 17th March when he tested positive for COVID-19 but his condition was deteriorating rapidly.  Despite assurances only a few days earlier that he was stable if not improving, he had taken a turn for the worse with laboured breathing.  My Mum and I were asked to get to the hospital as rapidly as possible.  The slightly surreal and, up until that point, very quiet world of COVID-19 in our family had now become a crushing reality.  Resplendent in PPE I was able to read a few verses from Romans 8 and sing a Psalm before my father entered his eternal rest in the early evening at the age of 85.  Online funerals and limited mourners at the graveside were difficult but not insurmountable challenges as we said goodbye to Dad this side of eternity.

Born in 1934 in Dornoch, Sutherland, the middle of three boys, Dad grew up on a 70-acre croft.  My father was clearly reading good books at an early age and particularly mentions:  Thomas Boston’s Fourfold State; John Angell James’ Anxious Inquirer; Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Guthrie’s Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ.   Dad was impressed very early by Jonathan Edwards and David Brainerd, both men known for their profound spirituality.  It appears that concern for his soul intensified around the age of 16.  Dad spoke to me around 2 years ago of being in an empty house on the croft and having an overwhelming sense of Christ crucified in a very personal way.  The experience must have been profound as Dad talks in his unfinished Memoirs of it affecting his studies at the time.  He also describes a significant night when Prof John Murray was back from America at his family home in Sutherland and preached at the Council Chambers in Dornoch in 1953 on John 6 v 37.  Dad talks of the Free Church in the village as orthodox but lacking in warmth and power.  It was my father’s great desire throughout his life that the church would rediscover ‘experiential Christianity’ as seen in a past generation in the Highlands. 

Leaving Dornoch in 1955 my father worked for the Caledonian Insurance Company in Edinburgh before returning home for further study.  In the late 1950’s my father started to take an interest in the recovery of old truths.  He corresponded with Rev Kenneth MacRae of the Free Church in Stornoway whom he saw as a real champion of Biblical Christianity.  Dad mentions in one of his diaries that he received two books on 19 September 1958 from the recently established Banner of Truth: A Body of Divinity and Sermons of George Whitefield.  Who could have foreseen the lifelong connection that would proceed from that order!  It was during this time that my father began publishing a little magazine called Eternal Truth.  The first copy of the magazine was sent to Iain H Murray and Dr Lloyd Jones and the exchanges of letters between Iain Murray and my father followed.  They culminated in a letter dated 24^th May 1960 from Iain Murray inviting my father to London to help with the work of the Banner.  This was to be a turning point in his life and for the next 60 years he was to be at the forefront of reformed book publishing.  Dad began to attend Friday night lectures at Westminster Chapel, London and vividly remembers the electric atmosphere as Lloyd Jones worked through Romans 8.  My father joined the Evangelical Library Committee which was chaired by Lloyd Jones, and Dad talks warmly of visiting the Dr’s home in Ealing for supper and carol singing in the early 1960’s.  After meeting my Mum in London, they married in 1966 and my sisters Lynda and Anna were born in 1967 and 1968 followed by a cheeky redhead in 1972.  While I was still a babe in arms my parents moved with the Banner of Truth to new headquarters in Edinburgh in November 1972. 

My father was now being called in a different direction.  He was a regular preacher in the London Free Church throughout the 1960’s so it was perhaps no great surprise that he applied and was accepted for the Free Church ministry in September 1973 and started at the Free Church College in 1974 after further study at university.  On completion of his ministerial studies Dad was called to Oban Free (High) Church and was inducted in September 1978.  Our lives were overshadowed shortly after our arrival when my sister, Lynda Joan, took ill.  Her illness was mercifully brief but no less distressing.  She died on 4^th December 1980 in her fourteenth year.  Dad did not speak much of my sister’s death during his life and it was hard not to feel that much of his grief remained too painful to express.  At the 1989 Banner of Truth Ministers’ Conference he gave an address on ‘Providence in Personal Life’ which was a path he had painfully walked for over 9 years.  I often meet men who were there and who describe a profound atmosphere.  The next year the conference paper became a little booklet by the Banner of Truth entitled Behind a Frowning Providence.  This little booklet has been republished at least six times and is now in numerous languages.

In 1989 my father was called to St Columba’s Free Church in Edinburgh where he ministered for the next 13 years.  These were formative years for me as I completed university and started in Edinburgh as a social worker.  Mum and Dad were famous for an open manse and dozens of young people look back to this period as significant in their Christian experience.  My mother has been a rock to my father over 54 years of marriage and ministry and experienced many blows and tragedies.  Her cheerfulness and resilience have been remarkable. Despite the dark clouds on the horizon for the church I remember these years as times of warm fellowship and Dad’s preaching through Romans, Acts and the 10 Commandments had a profound effect on many.  During this time there was great controversy in the Free Church over moral and ecclesiastical issues and my father was in the middle of many of these battles.  Despite what has been alleged my father was no architect of the events but rather sought to respond to allegations that arose.  Despite being accused of many things, he bore the heat of battle with general cheerfulness and lack of spite.  Many of these wounds were with him to the very end and he felt the breach in the church in 2000 very keenly.  While standing on principle without regret, he was saddened by the many relationships and families that were fractured perhaps never to be healed this side of eternity.

When he retired from the pastoral ministry in 2002 my father was well known as a conference speaker and preacher.  He pastored many vacant congregations in the Free Church (Continuing) and was a help and mentor to many other ministers.  Working with his brother Willie in Dornoch he produced many booklets that were no longer regarded as popular and these were sent all over the world.  In retirement he worked on several books: John E Marshall: Life and Writings (Banner of Truth, 2005), Catch the Vision: The Roots of Reformed Recovery (EP, 2007) and John Knox (EP, 2011).  Catch the Vision was dedicated to his children and grandchildren ‘heirs of a precious heritage’.  Dad felt disappointed that the long prayed for revival of church and nation did not come in his lifetime despite the return to expository preaching and the renewed interest in old but Biblical truths.  Retirement was overshadowed by the sad death of my sister Anna in October 2019 from pancreatic cancer.  Dad took the news of her earlier diagnosis very hard and never really recovered his natural cheerfulness until she died.  The loss of two daughters was more than he could bear, and he seemed crushed by grief.  It was a reminder to us, if one was needed, that our confidence is not in length of service or reputation but in the finished work of Christ. 

My father’s legacy is that he was utterly firm in his convictions yet generous in his estimations of other Christians.  One of his friends wrote to my mother of how my Dad reminded him of Mr Great-heart in Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress: loyal, valiant in defence of the truth but also a wise guide.  Like his great hero Prof John Murray, he had very little sense of self and was utterly self-effacing.  It seemed very fitting that at the end of his life there were three books on Dad’s hospital bedside table: the Bible, CH Spurgeon's 'Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith' and a book of sermons by Prof John Murray entitled 'O Death, Where is Thy Sting?'  Isn't that so true for the Christian?  Death is not the end but the glorious beginning.  As a family we are so thankful for the gospel hope.  We are so glad that Dad is free from his pain and sorrow and now knows the reality of 1 Corinthians 15 v 55: ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’ 

O Death, Where is Thy Sting?

Nothing prepares you for the dying moments of a loved one.  Coming off a Zoom call (are there any others these days?) on Wednesday 1st April 2020, I noticed a missed call from my Mum just as my phone rang at 12:35 with a concerned doctor on the line from Leverndale Hospital in Glasgow.  My father had been in isolation since 17th March when he tested positive for COVID-19 but his condition was deteriorating rapidly.  Despite assurances only a few days earlier that he was stable if not improving, he had taken a turn for the worse with laboured breathing.  My Mum and I were asked to get to the hospital as rapidly as possible.  I threw a few clothes in a case, virtually kissed the kids and jumped in the car.  The slightly surreal and, up until that point, very quiet world of COVID-19 in our family, had now become a crushing reality.

Once eventually by my fathers bedside, resplendent in PPE, my Dad looked so fragile and frail.  Death was not far away.  Bizarrely given months of illness I suddenly felt completely unprepared to read, pray or sing to him in his last moments on earth.  Scrabbling for profundity in tragedy, I eventually read some tear filled verses from Romans 8 and attempted a very emotion filled Psalm 23 to St Columba's, prayer was beyond my limitations.  I hope he heard. However much you prepare, however many deaths you experience in the family, those final moments are distressing beyond words.  Death, the final enemy had ravaged the mind and body of my father and at the moment when touch would have been so appropriate we were blocked by a thin layer of latex and a cumbersome face mask.  I trust that the last words he heard were the deep affection of a grateful son.

Dad had enjoyed a remarkably healthy life until he was about 83.  He was never a man for exercise (1 Timothy 4 v 8 would have been quoted), his diet would be best described as 'hearty' but overall he remained healthy for most of his life. He seemed to churn out articles, booklets, blog posts, book reviews, lectures and he was preaching almost weekly until around May 2018.  He contracted CLL in December 2016 but it didn't seem to dampen his enthusiasm for writing and preaching.  His schedule continued through most of 2017 and he relished lecturing on Martin Luther (to commemorate 500 years since the nailing of his 95 Thesis in Wittenberg) in Glasgow and Ballyclare.  There was little indication of what was to come over the next two years.  His pace and energy until a couple of years ago was at times breathtaking. 

Spending the last few days in my Dad's study here in Glasgow has been very emotional.  Born in 1934, Dad grew up in a paper culture and he kept everything, and I mean everything.  He has pocket diaries from 1949 right up until 2018 chronicling every major event and preaching engagement.  My father seemed to make a decision to keep things from quite an early age and had meticulously sorted and categorised it over the years.  His 1949 diary is a treasure trove of life in Sutherland just after the war.  He had also started to write memoirs which have all key dates and a few reflections which I will use as I start to write about his life and legacy.  It is remarkable for somebody like me who loves history to read diaries from the 1950's with entries about the Kings health and the latest general elections.  Things that I studied in Modern Studies and History at school were being experienced by a young John J.  My father meticulously kept correspondence and it is amazing to handle letters between my father and men like Prof John Murray of Westminster Seminary.

But for now we are left with scraps of paper and broken hearts.  As somebody has recently written 'one blow does not always prepare you for another'.  This is very true for us.  We felt we were just coming to terms with the loss of Anna when we have been hit with another wave of tragedy.  I have been at the death beds of three of my immediate family in the last 40 years and it doesn't become any less distressing.  Also my fathers deep despair over the last two years was very difficult to understand and respond to.  Nobody will ever understand some of the depths to which we plunged as we longed and prayed to see the old Dad again.  It was a reminder to me, if one was needed, that our hope must never be in our length of service or even our faithfulness but only in the finished work of Christ.  This was true for Dad even when he could not see it or feel it.

My fathers legacy will no doubt be much written about over the next few months and years, I hope to do much of the writing myself.  I hope that these tributes will capture the breadth, richness and warmth of the man.  He was utterly firm in his convictions yet generous in his estimations of other Christians.  Dad was not tribal or sectarian, in many ways he reserved much of his analysis for the failure of the reformed movement to realise its potential. Reading his journals from when he was a teenager, his convictions were made at an early age and hardly wavered in 60-70 years.  Like his great hero Prof John Murray, he had very little sense of self and was utterly self effacing.  Somehow he managed to combine humble service and bold leadership in many complex and awkward situations.  Gentleness, wisdom and patience were often shown when others rushed in.  As somebody has written of my Dad 'he had the mind and attitude of a servant, but he could influence and be a force, without appearing dominant.' 

Theologically Dad was able to present a transcendent God with warmth.  The gospel was the best news to be preached with careful preparation in a prayerful spirit. Dad was ill at ease with the casualness and informality of the modern church.  The 'Young, Restless and Reformed' movement was, for him, far to man centred and lacking the deep spirituality of the Highland piety he was brought up on.  But, the spiteful, harsh, point scoring Calvinism of others was also lost on my Dad.  Calvinism for him was comprehensive, life changing and deeply God glorifying.  He loved B.B. Warfield and often used to use this Warfield quote: 'The central fact of Calvinism is the vision of God. Its determining principle is zeal for the divine honour. What it sets itself to do is to render to God his rights in every sphere of life-activity. In this it begins and centres and ends...The Calvinist is the man who sees God. He has caught sight of the ineffable vision, and he will not let it fade for a moment from his eyes - God in nature, God in history, God in grace.'  Dad grew up with a Christianity that infused every area of life whether it was family life, crofting or preaching - life was to be lived for God. 

My father was humble, bright, energetic, cheerful, Christ-like and yet at the very end, it all seemed very dark for him.  The loss of two daughters was more than he could bear and he seemed crushed by grief.  But these memories will fade and better memories will return.  It seemed very fitting that at the end of his life there were three books on his hospital bedside table: a Bible, CH Spurgeon's 'Cheque Book of Faith' and a book of sermons by Prof John Murray entitled 'O Death, Where is Thy Sting?' published by Westminster Seminary Press in 2018.  And isn't that so true for the Christian?  Death is not the end but the glorious beginning.  On Thursday we will bury my father in a grave where we stood with so many tears 40 years ago.  Then as now, we were stunned, bewildered and overwhelmed.  But we are so thankful for gospel hope.  We are so thankful that this is not the end.  We are so glad that Dad is free from his pain and sorrow and now knows the reality of 1 Corinthians 15 v 55 - 58:

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

Just after my fathers death I recorded a few thoughts which can be watched here: