Robert M'Cheyne on the importance of loving the Jews

I found this quite interesting and thought provoking. It is interesting to note that during R.M.M's missionary deputation to Israel God visited his church in Scotland in revival. Here was a young man who labored faithful and lovingly amongst his parish, who also had a love for missions, holding high the Jewish people, and while he is on the foreign fields God visited his people in a great way.

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The interest that this proposed journey excited in Scotland was very great. Nor was it merely the somewhat romantic interest attached to the land where the Lord had done most of His mighty works; there was also in it the deeper feelings of a Scriptural persuasion that Israel was still “beloved for the Father’s sake.” For some time previous, Jerusalem had come into mind, and many godly pastors were standing as watchmen over its ruined walls (Isa. Lxii. 6), stirring up the Lord’s remembrancers. Mr. M’Cheyne had been one of these. His views of the importance of the Jews in the eyes of God, and therefore, of their importance as a sphere of missionary labor, were very clear and decided. He agreed in the expectation expressed in one of the Course of Lectures delivered before the deputation set out, that we might anticipate an [i]outpouring of the Spirit when our Church should stretch out its hands to the Jew was well to the Gentile[/i]. In one letter, he says, “To seek the lost sheep of the house of Israel is an object very near to my heart, as my people know it has been. Such an enterprise may probably draw down unspeakable blessings on the Church of Scotland, according to the promise, ‘they shall prosper who love thee’.” In another, “I now see plainly that all our views about the Jews being the chief object of missionary exertion are plain and sober truths, according to Scripture.” Again, “I feel convinced that if we pray that the world may be converted in God’s way, we will seek the good of the Jews, and the more we do so, the happier we will be in our own soul. You would always keep up a knowledge of the prophecies regarding Israel.” In his preaching he not unfrequently said on this subject, “We should be like God in His peculiar affections; and the whole Bible shows that God has ever had, and still has, a peculiar love to the Jews.”
[i]Taken from Robert Murray M'Cheyne by Andrew Bonar[/i]