W.G. McCartney - His Life And Labors

W.G. McCartney: His Life and Labors (Feb. 2, 1901 - Mar. 15, 1982) by Willard Rodgers. Waynesboro: Christian Missions Press, 1985.

CMP note

The following is a note clipped to the pamphlet, "Please accept this complimentary copy of W.G. McCartney, His Life and Labors, in tribute to his 84th birthday. It is especially appropriate in lieu of the 50th Anniversary Celebration of INTEREST magazine which he founded in [1934]. Our prayer is that the truths his life and labors were found on may continue to be upheld."

Foreword by Leonard E. Lindsted

Ever so often, God sends a man who has singular vision for his times and pertinent ministry for the people of his day. Anyone who has known Brother W.G. McCartney will recognize him to have been such a man.

This brief biography does not begin to touch the extent of his influence for Godly living and service for God which he effected in scores of lives, my own being one of them. Nor does this biography touch the inner depths and springs of this man's soul, the tears, the trials, the testings and the triumphs waged in the arena of faith. Sufficient is said, however, so that the words of Hebrews 13:7 may well apply: "Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the Word of God: WHOSE FAITH FOLLOW, considering the end of their conversation."

Brother McCartney lived what he preached and preached what he lived. "Buy the truth and sell it not", were not cliche statements from a preacher's arsenal. They were the spiritual bone and fiber of his whole life. As I look back to my first encounters with Bill McCartney, as a teen-ager newly saved, the principles he taught, loved and practiced from the Word of God were as vibrantly precious in his last days as they were at his first.

No changing standards to placate changing Christendom, nor a watered-down theology to amuse the saints from this man of God. Deeply devoted to the Person of Christ and unflinchingly loyal to His Word, he pursued both to the end of his days. For those who pause to hearken and reflect, it may be said of him, as it was said of one of old, "...God testifying of his gifts: and by it, he, being dead, yet speaketh." (Hebrews 11:4) Leonard E. Lindsted

Bio by Willard Rodgers

"In all things preserve integrity; and the consciousness of thine uprightness will alleviate... disappointments and give thee a humble confidence before God, when the ingratitude of man, or the iniquity of the times may robe thee of other reward." (William Paley)

William George McCartney, born on February 2, 1901, in the town of Portadown, Northern Ireland, was the seventh of ten children born to James and Sarah McCartney. (It is interesting to note that years later his wife, Mary, quaintly remarked that the significance of the number "seven," as seen in the Scriptures to represent perfection, was singularly apropos in respect to her husband's being the seventh child of his parents. Whether rightly or wrongly, how many wives would say the same of their husbands?)

William McCartney was a twice-born man. The expression, "born again," has been popularized in recent years, and made to mean no more than an awakening of interest in any given subject, or the adoption of a way of life.

Sources

• gifted from Fred Kosin in July 2024, transcribed by Doug Engle