When free grace awoke me by light from on high then legal fear shook. I trembled to die. No refuge, no safety and self could I see. 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 Sidgano is all things to me.

That was John Piper reading an autobiographical poem by Robert Murray McShane.

In this episode of Light and Truth,

John Piper begins a three-part series titled

The Supreme Joy of Robert Murray McShane.

His talk was originally given at the Desiring God 2011 Conference for Pastors. for pastors. It's amazing to me how God has raised up extraordinary young people and then cut them off in their youth and then preserved their

impact with a book for decades and centuries to come.

For example, Jim Elliot was 28 years old when he was cut off in the jungle of Ecuador and nobody today would know who he was

except for through gates of splendor and the Shadow of the Almighty,

written two years after he died by his wife.

Or another example, David Brainerd, missionary to the American Indians in the 1740s, cut off at the age 29 in 1747 and nobody would have a clue who David Braynard was except

that two years later Jonathan Edwards wrote a book about him and included some of his journals in it

so that today the life of David Brainerd is among the three most influential books in the history of modern missions.

Another example, Henry Martin, missionary to India and Persia, died in 1812, cut off at the age of 31.

Nobody would have known, maybe you don't even know who Henry Martin was,

except that John Sergeant, four years later a good friend,

wrote the memoir of Reverend Henry Martin B.D.

And so generations of students, especially British students, have been inspired by this young man's life.

I find that to be an amazing pattern.

Raise up a man full of the Holy Spirit with an extraordinary power on his life and cut him off at age 30 and then preserve his life in a book.

...