100 Sermon Illustrations on Missionary

Adoniram Judson underwent a series of conversions on his journey to the mission field.

First, a conversion from deism to Christianity overhauled his ambition and redirected his life. Second, his consecration to missionary service surprised many and propelled the American missions movement. Finally, his shift from Congregationalist to Baptist on a ship deck en route to India ushered American Baptists to the ends of the earth.

While the dramatic stories of his salvation and his embrace of believer’s baptism are often rehearsed, little has been told of Judson’s surrender to the missionary task. What compelled Judson to lead a life of service overseas?

In the end, it was a single sermon.

After trusting Christ as a student at Andover Theological Seminary, Judson began to “reflect on the personal duty of devoting his life to the cause of missions.” The idea of consecrating his life to go to the ends of the earth, an abrupt concept for his family, was not a novel development in 1809 New England.

At Andover, Jonathan Edwards’ “Diary and Journal of David Brainerd” found wide reading among the students as the first full missionary biography ever published. Edwards’ 1749 work told the story of Brainerd’s sacrificial life spent reaching Native Americans with the Gospel. Also in New England, especially among evangelicals, there existed a wide following of William Carey. Motivated by the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20, Carey, with the publication of his “Enquiry” in 1792, led British Baptists to support an effort to take the Gospel to “those who have no Bibles, no preachers, nor many other common advantages which are taken for granted at home.”

Judson’s reading of Brainerd and awareness of Carey prepared him to respond to a sermon he read in September 1809 by Claudius Buchanan at the time he needed most to hear a word from God.

Buchanan, an Anglican chaplain and friend of Carey, titled his sermon “The Star in the East,” and started by citing Matthew 2:2: “For we have seen His Star in the East, and are come to worship Him.” Taking the account of Jesus’ birth, Buchanan inventively emphasized the uniqueness of the Gentile visitors, the wise men following a star, as “representatives of the whole heathen world.” The star’s eastern location, Buchanan noted, is significant because “millions of the human race inhabit that portion of the globe.” Therefore, just as in the day of the arrival of God’s Son, the East once again was bearing witness to the Messiah “not indeed by the shining of a Star, but by affording luminous evidence of the divine origin of the Christian Faith.” Buchanan then proceeded to speak of the spread of Christianity in the East and the need for men to take the Gospel to that region of the world.

Judson said the reading of Buchanan’s sermon had two effects on him. First, it enabled him finally to “break the strong attachment I felt to home and country, and to endure the thought of abandoning all my wonted pursuits and animating prospects.” Buchanan’s sermon, which Judson acknowledged was not “peculiarly excellent” in terms of its right handling of the text, still had an epoch-making impact on his life. Second, the sermon focused Judson’s gaze on the East. Judson began to read all that he could regarding countries in that region and, discovering Michael Symes’ “An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava,” found his future home in Burma.

On Feb. 19, 1812, Adoniram and Ann Judson departed for Burma. Ann would die in 1826. Judson would lose several children and another wife, Sarah, before returning home in 1846 to a hero’s welcome. After a short stay, he met Emily Chubbuck, married again, and returned to Burma. Illness four years later caused him to attempt to return to America, but he died and was buried at sea in 1850.

What began with Judson’s decision to break with home and country in response to Buchanan’s sermon ended with a translation of the Bible for the Burmese and a life lived in sacrifice for the Gospel.

*

[The original illustration at this number was moved to Kerux Sermon #19032]

An old missionary couple [Henry C. Morrison, according to another version] had been working in Africa for years and were returning to New York to retire. They had no pension; their health was broken; they were defeated, discouraged, and afraid. They discovered they were booked on the same ship as President Teddy Roosevelt, who was returning from one of his big-game hunting expeditions.

No one paid any attention to them. They watched the fanfare that accompanied the President's entourage, with passengers trying to catch a glimpse of the great man.

As the ship moved across the ocean, the old missionary said to his wife, "Something is wrong. Why should we have given our lives in faithful service for God in Africa all these many years and have no one care a thing about us? Here this man comes back from a hunting trip and everybody makes much over him, but nobody gives two hoots about us."

"Dear, you shouldn't feel that way," his wife said.

"I can't help it; it doesn't seem right."

When the ship docked in New York, a band was waiting to greet the President. The mayor and other dignitaries were there. The papers were full of the President's arrival, but no one noticed this missionary couple. They slipped off the ship and found a cheap flat on the East Side, hoping the next day to see what they could do to make a living in the city.

That night the man's spirit broke. He said to his wife, "I can't take this; God is not treating us fairly."

His wife replied, "Why don't you go in the bedroom and tell that to the Lord?"

A short time later he came out from the bedroom, but now his face was completely different. His wife asked, "Dear, what happened?"

"The Lord settled it with me," he said. "I told him how bitter I was that the President should receive this tremendous homecoming, when no one met us as we returned home. And when I finished, it seemed as though the Lord put his hand on my shoulder and simply said, 'But you're not home yet!'"

Yes, there are rewards for faithfulness, but not necessarily down here.

* "A global glimpse of God's Harvest today" * "Ignorance about our mission

to the world is one thing; fiddling while Rome burns is quite another."

A. The Harvest Force

1. Two-thirds world missions

2. Short-term missions

3. Non-traditional missionaries

4. New training models

5. Functional unity

6. Technology

7. It's a mobile mission field

8. It's a world of cities

9. We're clarifying the task

B. Your World View

1. Some of us are waiting nervously for Heaven

2. Some of us are confused

3. Some of us are trying to live Sunday school as usual lives

C. The Church with no Vision

#3860

*

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (Baptist Press) -- [sermon version at bottom]

“Are we going to shoot them all together or one at a time?” the abductor asked his two associates.

Lined up on their knees with their backs to him were three missionaries of the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board and two missionary children. They had been abducted on Aug. 5, along with their vehicle, two hours earlier just outside a game reserve in central Tanzania. A sixth member of the group was left behind, hiding at the scene of the kidnapping.

“Oh, God, they're going to shoot Sandy,” prayed missionary David Moreland as the gunman grabbed another missionary, Sandy Harrington, from the line and forced her to kneel five feet away.

“I was absolutely terrified,” said Harrington of Newport News, Virginia. “My fear had been escalating throughout the whole ordeal. But even then, there was a calmness in the midst of my terror -- a sense of heaven-wardness. 'If they killed me, I'd be with God,' I thought to myself.”

But she said to the gunman, “Please don't shoot me.”

“We all grabbed one another's hand,” Moreland said, with tears in his eyes. “I thought I was holding my wife's hand for the last time. We all tensed up, expecting the bullets to hit. I started to pray out loud and committed us to the Lord,” he said. He prayed, “Lord, put your angels around us, but if it's time for us to go, then it's time. Do your will.”

“I truly had a peace that passed all understanding,” Moreland's wife, Millie, said. “We were ready to go. If we died, we died, but at least we were together. We had surrendered everything.” The Morelands are from Monroe, La.

Harrington, too, felt a similar peace. “During the calmness in my terror, I remembered the Bible verse in the book of Romans saying nothing could separate us from the love of Christ -- not even death.” She recalled praying for God's angels to protect them. “We were all kneeling, holding hands and praying out loud.”

At the same time, 10-year-old Joanna Giddens had two thoughts. “Would we be saved or killed? Would they shoot us or would the police find us?” wondered Giddens, daughter of Foreign Mission Board missionaries Ed and Nancy Giddens of Sepulveda, Calif. “I wasn't scared, though, because I knew that with God, everything would be all right. When they lined us up, we held hands, thinking they would shoot us with the machine gun but we prayed for God to protect us with his angels.”

“When I saw the gun, I felt scared at first,” said Harrington's daughter, Christine, age 10, “but I knew I would go to heaven if I was killed, and that was better than being alive ... so, I didn't care.”

Lined up, kneeling, their backs to the gunman, holding hands and praying aloud, the five expected to die. Then one of the abductors leaned down and asked David Moreland a question.

“Are you a 'padre?'” he asked.

Sandy Harrington was confused. She had been torn from the group, then put back with them, told to stand, then forced to kneel. Afraid for her life, she overheard the kidnappers' discussion with Moreland.

“Yes, I'm a 'padre,'” Moreland responded to their question. “I'm a missionary with the Baptist church here in Tanzania.” “The next thing I knew,” Harrington said, “we were all being told to drink this orange liquid they put before us. I was afraid it was poison and didn't know whether to drink it, but David said to drink it, that it was OK.” “When I saw the juice, I felt like shouting,” Moreland said, “because I knew then that they wouldn't shoot us. I had read reports of other hijackings and knew that they drugged people. That's what they were doing.”

The abductors had two one-liter bottles of orange drink and told their captives, “Drink. Drink.” Moreland was given the most -- four glasses. The two girls each were forced to drink a partial glass. The other two were given one glass each. A large cloth was spread before them, and they were told to lie down. “Oh, God, what now?” Moreland prayed, thinking that they still might be killed. But one of the kidnappers said, “Lie down so you can sleep.” The abductors rummaged through the vehicle, then drove off.

“It was a great relief to have them gone,” Harrington said. “After they left, we walked, then I don't remember much until the next day when I heard the plane” (flown by missionary pilot Mike Cannata, who found them). Moreland thought of getting back to the main road as quickly as possible. They walked awhile, then saw their vehicle with their belongings scattered all around it. “I told everyone to get off the road and hide,” Moreland said. He then thought of trying to sneak up on the vehicle. “I took three steps and the full force of the drug hit,” he said. “The next thing I remember was Millie saying, 'David, that's our airplane!'“ That was 18 hours later. They had survived the drug and the threat of attacks by lions and other wild animals that roam the area.

“I flew over and saw them (the victims) all lying on a dirt road,” Cannata said. “The airplane woke them up, and when they saw me, they began to wave.” Much later, Moreland said, “We crossed a line, the five of us, that most people don't cross. I had peace because I knew Jesus Christ and knew that he was my Lord and Savior. I've been someplace in my life that most haven't been, and I'm going to tell them about it. Then I'm going to ask them if they can say the same thing about Jesus that I can say”.

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Copyright (c) 1995 Baptist Press RNbp5816mrjB5815b6825

////////////////////// Sermon Version /////////////////////////////

Central Tanzania, Africa. August 5, 1995.

Lined up on their knees were three Southern Baptist missionaries and two of their children. “Are we going to shoot them all together or one at a time?” the kidnapper asked his two helpers. He pointed an AK-47 assault rifle at them.

The gunman grabbed missionary Sandy Harrington from the line and forced her to kneel five feet away. She was absolutely terrified, and her fear had been escalating throughout the whole ordeal. But even then, there was a calmness in the midst of her terror -- a sense of heaven-wardness. “If they killed me, I'll be with God,' she thought to herself. But she said to the gunman, “Please don't shoot me.”

They all grabbed one another's hands and tensed up, expecting the bullets to hit. One of them prayed, “Lord, put your angels around us, but if it's time for us to go, then it's time. Do your will.” He felt that everything was surrendered to God.

Sandy Harrington felt a similar peace. She remembered the Bible verse in the book of Romans saying nothing could separate them from the love of Christ -- not even death.” Her 10-year-old daughter said, “When I saw the gun, I felt scared at first. But I knew I would go to heaven if I was killed, and that was better than being alive ... so, I didn't care.”

Lined up, kneeling, their backs to the gunman, holding hands and praying aloud, the five expected to die. Then one of the abductors leaned down and asked one of the men a question. “Are you a pastor?” “Yes, I'm a pastor, a Baptist missionary.” The kidnapper forced them all to take a drugged liquid. When they woke up, their car was gone but they were alive.

After the ordeal was over, one of the missionaries said, “We crossed a line, the five of us, that most people don't cross. I had peace because I knew Jesus Christ and knew that he was my Lord and Savior. I've been someplace in my life that most haven't been, and I'm going to tell them about it. Then I'm going to ask them if they can say the same thing about Jesus that I can say.”

The venerable village chief of Mali Hausa in the Niger Republic posed some unexpected questions: "Why speak only to Yaye's family about this Jesus? Why not explain Jesus to everyone?"

The villagers gathered around us in response to their leader's command. The women sat and whispered to our left. The children were in front of us some distance away. The men lounged upon mats to our right. An enormous tree in the center of the village provided our midday shade. Jamie, my wife, prayed silently. The Islamic mosque that represented what we were up against was just behind the anxious crowd.

Earlier that morning, Yaye had received Christ after two of our missionary colleagues witnessed to him. Someone traveled through their village from time to time with a Bible. Yaye and the people enjoyed the stories but had a difficult time understanding. We were in his village at his invitation.

I preached from Acts 8. All of us seemed to be reliving the story of Philip and the Ethiopian. To me, the message appeared to be a jumble of English, French and Zarma, but amazingly everyone was listening with rapt attention. Jamie's prayers were having effect. Even the smallest of the babies was quiet. The animals of the village were still.

When I closed the message by inviting them to follow Jesus Christ like the Ethiopian, my expectations were too small. The men chattered among themselves for 10 minutes. Suddenly the discussion stopped, and they quickly rearranged their mats directly in front of us. They sat shoulder to shoulder as if they were about to say their Muslim prayers.

One of the oldest in the group drew two parallel lines in the sand. Then he said, "There are two ways to God. One is the Muslim way and the other the Christian way, correct?"

Immediately I was afraid. I saw the seriousness that I was in this remote village with Jamie and another missionary woman, but our exact location was unknown to anyone. What should I say to this definitive question?

There was really no doubt as to what to say. I only feared the possible consequences. I firmly stated, "There is only one way to God!" Then I cited John 14:6 in Zarma, where Jesus said, "Ay ga ti fonda nda cimo nda fundi" ("I am the way, the truth, and the life ...").

The elder surveyed the faces of his friends. Afterward his stare fell upon me. He responded, "I knew there could only be one way and Jesus must be that way!" He smiled.

That day 14 men in that small village, Mali Hausa, decided to follow Jesus. As they prayed, they lifted their open palms toward the sky. It was as if God were pouring living water into their cupped hands. Then at the end of their prayers, they gently rubbed their faces as if applying a fragrant ointment.

________

Lynn is a missionary with the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board in Niger Republic.

I was born and raised on the Navajo reservation located in the southwestern United States. My father was a medicine man and my mother a medicine woman.

In my early years I attended the ceremonies and participated in the rituals, including the “Fire Dance” -- an elaborate ceremony that qualified me to perform rituals and is a prerequisite to becoming a medicine man.

Being raised in the home of a medicine man, Christianity was a foreign religion. Participating in the “white man’s religion” was a taboo, and my father punished any family member who violated the taboo.

When I was 11, my father suffered total paralysis. His body was carried from ceremonies to ceremonies. Many prayers and sacrifices were offered to the multitude of gods to no avail. In desperation our family turned to the “God of the white man.”

My mother remembered this missionary who used to come and talk about his God. She said, “Let’s go see this white man’s God.” We attended First Baptist Church of Shiprock, N.M., which the Home Mission Board helped build and support.

In that church, the gospel was presented in the Navajo language. Mom converted there and prayed to the God of the white man to heal my father.

God did heal my father so he was able to walk and talk again. A month later we were sitting in church. I was sitting behind my father when he received the Lord as Savior. At the invitation song, he walked to the front and knelt to receive the Lord. Here was a man who persecuted his children and ran off missionaries. Now, he was receiving this same Jesus.

A month later I received the Lord. At age 15 I responded to God’s call to be a missionary, and I ministered alongside my family and missionaries. In 1970, however, I left the sprawling reservation and enrolled at UCLA in a pre-law program. I quickly discovered I was an Indian. I also learned about past and continuing injustices toward the Native Americans. I began organizing Indian groups throughout California to fight on behalf of my people. I led demonstrations, took over public buildings, and conducted sit-ins. With each event I became more bitter. It came to the point where I began hating Anglos for just being white.

It was after we had taken over a courthouse in northern California that the Lord began to deal with me. During our victory celebration I saw the person I had become. I was leading young people into a life of bitterness and hatred. Within the next two hours the Lord spoke to me about his love and forgiveness. At four o’clock in the morning I determined to give my life back to Jesus. That evening I knelt alongside my bed and cried to the Lord for forgiveness and cleansing. The next morning the love of God had so filled my life that I began to love people from every walk of life.

Now I have the opportunity to express that love to the hundreds of ethnics that now call America their home. Our department’s goal is to tell every ethnic that God gave them their language, custom and culture so people from every tongue and nation would bow at the name of Jesus. My goal is to help share Jesus with every ethnic in this nation and provide an opportunity for every ethnic Christian to express Jesus.

Mannu grew up in a strict Hindu family in Nepal. But at the age of fifteen, through her friends, she became a Christian. Her parents forced her to choose between them and Christ. Mannu sadly left home and was unable to reconcile with her parents before they died. In 1970 she married Adon Rongong and began a church in their living room.

But in 1981 their plans were cut short. Her husband was arrested and jailed for witnessing to Hindus. The case was finally brought to trial in 1989, and he was sentenced to six years in prison. When the sentence was complete he was banned from the country. Mannu appealed her case to the King, even indicating that she was willing to take his place if the appeal were denied. The King did not overturn the decision nor did he accept her offer.

Mannu struggled about whether she and their three children should leave the country with him, or stay and carry on the ministry. She had been instrumental in starting prayer groups of women throughout the country. She traveled from village to village encouraging the women. She searched the Scriptures and the Lord spoke to her through the verses, "If you stay in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you, for I am grieved over the disaster I have inflicted on you... I will show you compassion so that he will have compassion on you and restore you to your land" (Jeremiah 42:10-12, NIV).

With this promise in her heart, Mannu told her husband she would not leave Nepal. But miracles happen and in early 1990 the constitution of the country changed. Adon was able to continue his work in Nepal, and Mannu realized that like Esther of the Bible, she had been called for such a time as this. Today there are more than 2,000 members in the church which began in their living room. Her husband Adon served as chairman of HIMCOE '96.

Jacob de Shazer was sent as one of Jimmy Doolittle’s raiders on the famous bombing attack on Japan in April 1942. He was an atheist, believing in no God. During the air attack his plan was hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire and he was forced to bail out. He was captured and imprisoned by the Japanese and thought certainly his life was approaching the end. He saw two of his companions shot by a firing squad and saw another die of slow starvation. During the long months of imprisonment de Shazer pondered the question of why the Japanese hated him and why he hated them. He began to recall some of the things he had heard about Christianity.

Boldly, he asked his jailers if they could get him a Bible. At first they laughed at him like it was a joke and warned him to stop making a nuisance of himself. But he kept asking. A year and a half later, a guard finally brought him a Bible, flung it at him, and said, “Three weeks you have. Three weeks, and then I take away.” True to his word, in three weeks the guard took the Bible away and de Shazer never saw it again. However, in those three weeks of intensive searching, meditating, and delving into the meaning of life and humanity’s ultimate destiny, a change came about. Later he was released from Japanese captivity and returned to the States. In 1948, de Shazer, his wife, and infant son were on their way back to Japan as missionaries, all because the atheist asked for a Bible and a Japanese guard gave him one for three weeks.

[see also HolwickID #19510]

SNAKE STORIES.

Before SIL leaves the jungle, it wants to make sure it has not missed any hidden groups. SIL’s director of jungle programs, David Archibald, who joined our discussion, noted, “We have isolated nine groups that have not had any contact with civilization, to the best of our knowledge. We’re trying to establish peaceful contact with one of these groups.”

Amazon church leaders and missionaries knew about “power encounters” and satanic opposition long before the subject came into vogue in the States. “One thing we’ve noticed here,” Archibald continued, “is that when translations go into final revision, the translators often get sick. Cancer seems to be fairly common. Chronic fatigue syndrome was very prevalent here with linguists going into the final translation revision stage.”

In addition, most native groups have deep roots in spiritism and animism. According to Roger, one of the great temptations for Shipibo believers is going back to the curanderos, or spiritual healers.

Archibald introduced missionary linguist Wes Thiesen, a veteran of 44 years among the Bora people. With a self-conscious chuckle, Thiesen told us his “snake story” from his second year among the Boras. Some children ran excitedly to his house one day, crying, “Do you want to see a big snake?” The young missionary grabbed his camera and followed the boys for nearly an hour down the trail until they encountered a 20-foot-long anaconda sunning itself.

This is a real trophy, Thiesen thought, envisioning the snakeskin on his wall. He asked to borrow a boy’s shotgun, but the boy refused. Thiesen noticed that no one seemed too anxious to shoot the serpent. Finally, one boy offered to get his dad’s old shotgun.

Thiesen shot and then skinned the snake. When the linguist got home, the chief paid him a visit: “What kind of a crazy man are you -- killing that snake?” the Bora chief demanded. The spirit of the snake would surely attack and kill him, he said. Village kids came every day to check Thiesen’s health. Two weeks later he developed a painful case of pleurisy.

“I didn’t know what caused it, but they knew exactly. As I lay in my hammock each night, they would come over and check on me, and I would teach them from the Bible. I had enough Bora vocabulary to tell them Jesus would take care of me and that I would be OK.”

When Thiesen recovered, the Boras were amazed. “We feel this was one of the reasons the first Boras came to the Lord,” he said. “They thought if Jesus could protect me from the spirit of the boa, Christianity was something worthwhile.”

What is Apostolic Passion?

The term “passion” is used to describe everything from romance to hunger pangs. I don’t know what it means to you, but for me passion means whatever a person is willing to suffer for. In fact, that’s the root meaning of the word. It comes from the Latin paserre [sic, should be: patior, pati, passum sum], to suffer. It is what you hunger for so intensely that you will sacrifice anything to have it. The word “apostle” means a sent one, a messenger. “Apostolic Passion,” therefore, is a deliberate, intentional choice to live for the worship of Jesus in the nations. It has to do with being committed to the point of death to spreading His glory. It’s the quality of those who are on fire for Jesus, who dream of the whole earth being covered with the Glory of the Lord.

I know when apostolic passion has died in my heart. It happens when I don’t spend my quiet time dreaming of the time when Jesus will be worshiped in languages that aren’t yet heard in heaven. I know it’s missing from my life when I sing about heaven, but live as if earth is my home. Apostolic passion is dead in my heart when I dream more about sports, toys, places to go and people to see, than I do about the nations worshiping Jesus.

I have lost it, too, when I make decisions based on the danger involved, not the glory God will get. Those who have apostolic passion are planning to go, but willing to stay. You know you have it when you are deeply disappointed that God has not called you to leave your home and get out among those who have never heard His name. If you will not suffer and sacrifice for something, you are not passionate about it. If you say you will do anything for Jesus, but you don’t suffer for Him then you aren’t really passionate about Him and His purposes on earth.

If you don’t have it, how do you go about getting this thing called apostolic passion? Is it like ordering pizza at the door in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed? Is there an 800 number to call? Or better yet, just send us your special gift of $15 or more, and we’ll rush you some passion, express delivery, overnight mail. If you’re like me, you need help figuring out how to grow this thing called passion. I am motivated by reading how the apostle Paul got it. He chose it.

Paul says in Romans 15 that it is his ambition, his passion, if you will, to make Christ known. It began for him with a revelation of Jesus that he nurtured all his adult life. Paul not only encountered Christ on the road to Damascus, he kept on meeting Jesus every day. This revelation of Jesus, and his study of God’s purposes, gave birth to Paul’s apostolic passion. Knowing Jesus and making Him known consumed the rest of Paul’s life. He “gloried in Christ Jesus in his service to God” (Rom 15:17). By comparison, everything else was dung, garbage, stinking refuse. Paul’s ambition was born from his understanding that God longed for His Son to be glorified in the nations. It was focused so that the “Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (Rom 15:16).

Human enthusiasm cannot sustain apostolic passion. When God invests His own passion in you the desire to see His name glorified among all people you must build and develop what God has given you. Four things will help:

1. APOSTOLIC ABANDONMENT

Too many people want the fruit of Paul’s ministry without paying the price that Paul paid. He died. He died to everything. He died daily. He was crucified with Christ. This strong-willed, opinionated man knew that he must die to self. He knew that in his flesh, he couldn’t generate the revelation of Jesus; he couldn’t sustain the heart of Christ. So he died. He abandoned his life. He abandoned himself.

We live in a world of competing passions. If we do not die to self and fill our lives with the consuming passion of the worship of God in the nations, we will end up with other passions. It’s possible to deceive ourselves into thinking we have Biblical passions when, in reality, all we have done is to baptize the values of our culture and give them Christian names. We will have chosen apostolic passion only when our hearts are filled with God’s desire for His Son to be worshiped in the nations.

May I encourage you, dear friend, to give up your life? I challenge you to pray this prayer: “Lord, be ruthless with me in revealing my selfish ambition and my lack of willingness to die to myself. “I guarantee that He will answer your prayer and quickly.

2. APOSTOLIC FOCUS

The greatest enemy of the ambition to see Jesus worshiped in the nations is lack of focus. You can run around expending energy on all sorts of good ministries, and not get one step closer to the nations. I don’t have anything against all the projects and ministries out there God’s people do them, and I don’t question their obedience to God. But the Church has an apostolic calling, an apostolic mission. God has called us to the nations. We must focus, or we won’t obey.

Focus on what? I believe God wants a people for Himself. Activity without a desire that God have a people for Himself is just activity not missions. You can have evangelism without missions. Short-term ministries are great, as long as they focus on raising up workers to plant churches. You might say, “I’m not called to plant churches.” Yes, you are! It’s always the will of God to have a people who worship His Son in the nations. You’ll never have to worry about making God mad if you try to plant a church. It seems crazy to me that people are under the delusion they need a special calling to save souls, to disciple them, and to get them together to love Jesus. Whatever ministry you are with, you must understand one thing: church planting is not for us, it’s for God. We do it so God will have a people to worship Him!

3. APOSTOLIC PRAYING

A young man in Bible school offered to help David Wilkerson years ago when he was ministering on the streets of New York City. Wilkerson asked him how much time he spent in prayer. The young student estimated about 20 minutes a day. Wilkerson told him, “Go back, young man. Go back for a month and pray two hours a day, every day for 30 days. When you’ve done that, come back. Come back, and I might consider turning you loose on the streets where there is murder, rape, violence and danger. If I sent you out now on 20 minutes a day, I’d be sending a soldier into battle without any weapons, and you would get killed.”

You can get into heaven, my friend, without a lot of prayer. You can have a one-minute quiet time every day and God will still love you. But you won’t hear a “well done, good and faithful servant” on one-minute conversations with God. And you certainly can’t make it on that kind of prayer life in the hard places where Jesus is not known or worshiped. Here’s a challenge for you: Read everything Paul says about prayer, then ask yourself, “Am I willing to pray like that?” Paul said that he prayed “night and day with tears without ceasing with thankfulness in the Spirit constantly boldly for godly sorrow against the evil one.”

4. APOSTOLIC DECISION-MAKING

If you live without a vision of the glory of God filling the whole earth, you are in danger of serving your own dreams of greatness, as you wait to do “the next thing” God tells you. There are too many over-fed, under-motivated Christians hiding behind the excuse that God has not spoken to them. They are waiting to hear voices or see dreams all the while living to make money, to provide for their future, to dress well and have fun.

The Apostle Paul was guided by his passions. Acts 20 and 21 tell of his determination to go to Jerusalem despite his own personal anticipation of suffering, the warnings of true prophets, and the intense disapproval of his friends. Why would Paul go against his own intuition let alone the urgings of prophets and weeping entreaties of close friends? He had a revelation of greater priority, of greater motivation: the glory of God.

Apostolic decision-making starts with a passion for God’s glory in the nations, then asks: “Where shall I serve you?” Most people do the opposite. They ask the where-and-when questions without a revelation of His glory in the nations. Is it any wonder they never hear God say “go!” They have not cultivated a passion for the passions of God. All kinds of lesser desires can be holding them captive. They might never realize it.

Present your gifts, vocations and talents to the Lord. Press into God. Stay there until you long to go out in His name. Remain there and nurture the longing to see the earth bathed with His praise. Only then will you be able to trust your heart if you hear God say, “stay.” Only those who long to broadcast His glory to the nations have the right to stay.

If you have apostolic passion, you are one of the most dangerous people on the planet. The world no longer rules your heart. You are no longer seduced by getting and gaining but devoted to spreading and proclaiming the glory of God in the nations. You live as a pilgrim, unattached to the cares of this world. You are not afraid of loss. You even dare to believe you may be given the privilege of dying to spread His fame on the earth. The Father’s passions have become your passions. You find your satisfaction and significance in Him. You believe He is with you always, to the end of life itself. You are sold out to God, and you live for the Lamb. Satan fears you, and the angels applaud you.

Your greatest dream is that His name will be praised in languages never before heard in heaven. Your reward is the look of pure delight you anticipate seeing in His eyes when you lay at His feet and the just reward of His suffering: the worship of the redeemed.

You have apostolic passion!

===============================

This article appeared in the Third Edition of the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement Reader.

Floyd McClung is the founder and Director of All Nations Institute in Trinidad, Colorado. For years he served as International Director of Youth With A Mission. He began his international ministry in Afghanistan. One of his new books, Living on the Devil’s Doorstep tells the story of the ministry he pioneered in Amsterdam, Holland.

#4527

*

Rev. David Holwick S 2 Corinthians sermon series

June 6, 1999 2 Corinthians 11:21-29

IN DANGER FOR GOD

=================

I. Bragging rights.

II. Paul's ordeal.

A. Suffering from people.

B. Suffering from the elements.

C. Inner spiritual struggle.

III. What have you endured for Christ's sake?

A. Only God can provide this motivation.

B. Missionary woman doctor in Africa.

C. Martyred missionary in India.

IV. Words versus actions.

A. We respect those who live what they preach.

B. What does following Jesus cost you?

==============================================================================

Rev. David Holwick T 2 Corinthians sermon series

First Baptist Church

Ledgewood, New Jersey

June 6, 1999

2 Corinthians 11:21-29

IN DANGER FOR GOD

=================

SERMON SUMMARY: Christian discipleship can be a dangerous affair. Paul

endured great suffering in his mission. Modern missionaries have had

similar experiences. We must be willing to back up our beliefs with

our lives.

I. Bragging rights.

A. What have you accomplished in life?

1) Creates a tension: we want to have done something

significant, but we want everyone to think we're humble.

2) Whatever we have done (or not done), we look up to

people who have genuine accomplishments.

B. The Apostle Paul had a dramatic career.

1) As his opponents tried to undercut him, he had to defend

his record.

a) He defended his heritage.

b) He defended his mission.

2) In this passage he gives a remarkable list of what he

had been through.

II. Paul's ordeal.

A. Suffering from people.

1) Forty lashes minus one. (Ray Stedman; also below)

This was a purely Jewish form of punishment.

The Law of Moses said that for certain offenses you could

be publicly whipped with forty lashes.

But it also said, according to the Jewish rabbis, that if

more than forty were inflicted the man who did the

whipping had to receive forty lashes of his own.

So to prevent that they were careful not to go quite to

forty; they made it thirty-nine, "forty less one."

Now incredible as it sounds (and we have no record of it

other than this), Paul had endured that terrible beating

five times.

The Law also said that if a man died because of a flogging,

his death would not be blamed upon the man doing the

whipping, so it is clear that this whipping was so

severe it could take your life.

-2-

2) Beaten with rods.

This was Roman punishment.

Paul was a Roman citizen and although the law of Rome

decreed that no citizen should be beaten with rods.

Yet by this time on three different occasions he had been

so beaten.

(In the book of Acts there is another incident of that

nature recorded which comes later than this.)

3) Stoned.

By rocks, not drugs.

On first missionary journey he was stoned so severely they

dumped him outside of city thinking he was dead.

He got up and went to preach in the next city.

B. Suffering from elements.

1) Ocean storms, raging rivers, starvation.

2) To spread the gospel, he would go anywhere.

C. Inner spiritual struggle.

1) He burned for the churches.

2) (He was also burned up by how they treated him!)

D. Much here is not mentioned in book of Acts.

1) Everything happened before Acts 19.

2) Still to come: two riots, an assassination attempt,

and another major shipwreck.

III. What have you endured for Christ's sake?

A. Only God can provide this motivation.

1) The love of Christ compelled him. 2 Cor 5:14

2) His love has also compelled others.

B. Missionary woman doctor in Africa.

Helen Roseveare was born into a well-respected English

family.

-3-

During her freshman year in Cambridge University she had

a conversion experience and joined an evangelical church.

She became a doctor and felt called to serve God in Africa.

In 1953 she set sail for the Congo.

Very soon she realized the typical missionary hospital

wasn't adequate for the human suffering she encountered.

Helen envisioned a training center where nurses would be

taught the Bible and basic medicine.

Then they would be sent back to their villages to handle

routine cases, teach preventive medicine, and evangelize.

Her missionary colleagues blocked her at every turn.

Just when her training center was ready to graduate its

first students, the mission moved her to Nebobongo, a

remote leprosy camp in the jungle.

Helen started from scratch and built up a new training

center.

She also became friends with the Africans and went to an

old African preacher when she needed spiritual help.

Humbling herself in this way was unacceptable to the other

missionaries.

To keep her in her place, the mission board sent a man to

Nebobongo and put him in charge.

It was a bitter pill for Helen.

She submitted to his authority but it tore her up.

Every seven years she was given a furlough back in England.

This time she decided to get a husband so she would have

more pull with the other missionaries.

She met a young Christian doctor, bought new clothes and

got a new hair style, and tried to win him.

She even resigned from the mission.

The young doctor liked her but wouldn't marry her.

Still single, Helen returned to Congo in 1960, just as that

nation became independent.

It was a very uneasy time for whites and many of the

missionaries began to leave for good.

Helen had a great opportunity to build up Nebobongo on her

own.

Meanwhile, the Simba rebels took control of village after

village.

In the summer of 1964 they occupied Nebobongo and put Helen

under house arrest.

Atrocities were being committed daily.

On October 29, Helen was forced to endure a series of

brutal assaults.

One verse came to her mind: "My God, my God, why have you

forsaken me?"

Two months later she was finally liberated.

-4-

A year later Helen Roseveare returned to Nebobongo.

The new spirit of African nationalism continually questioned

her authority.

Finally, after twenty years of hard service, she arranged

to turn over the mission to an African colleague.

She organized a big day to celebrate the handover and

the graduation of a class of students.

At the last moment the students went on strike and the

celebration was cancelled.

Helen returned to England in 1973 to face a very lonely

period in her life.

But as with so many other disappointing experiences, she

turned to God.

Instead of bitterness there was a new spirit of humility

and a new appreciation for what Jesus had done for her

on the cross.

In the years that followed she became an acclaimed

spokeswoman for Christian missions.

#4620

C. Martyred missionary in India.

Just a few months ago an Australian missionary and his two

sons were burned to death in India.

Graham Staines and his wife Gladys had answered the call to

spread the gospel there.

After the murders, Gladys publicly forgave the murderers.

Her forgiveness of such brutality is being seen as "true

spirituality" which is inherently attractive to the Hindu

mind.

More than this, she is staying in India instead of going home.

"The thought of getting up and leaving has just not occurred

to me once.

I just feel that this is where God has called me."

[This month India elected his first Christian prime minister,

which some attribute to sympathy for this event.]

#4687

IV. Words versus actions.

A. We respect those who live what they preach.

1) The harder the life, the more we listen.

2) (Yet Paul's conclusion points to weakness: "basket case")

B. What does following Jesus cost you?

1) Many act ashamed of him.

2) Others view their service as a burden.

3) Commitment and dedication.

===========================================================================

SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:

#4620 "From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya," Ruth A. Tucker, Zondervan Publishing

House, 1983, page 254.

#687 "God's Glory Among the Nations: What Is It Worth To Us?" by Rick

Wood, Internet: Brigada-pubs-missionfrontiers@xc.org

(mf99.03-04.07-wood), June 3, 1999.

These and 4,500 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,

absolutely free, at http://users.nac.net/wdh2000/illust.html

=======================================================================

*

Charlotte Diggs "Lottie" Moon (1840-1912) has often been referred to as the "Patron Saint" of Southern Baptist missions because of the influence she had on missionary outreach and giving. She was raised on a Virginia plantation and after the Civil War pursued a teaching career in Georgia, but her heart was in foreign missions. She was motivated not only by her faith in Christ but also by her desire to move beyond the routine of life in the post Civil War South. Other family members had "marched out to fight for the Stars and Bars" and had performed "splendid service" while she had remained home on the plantation. Now it was her opportunity to become involved in an exciting venture.1

In 1873 she sailed for China, where she initially taught in a children's school. She was lonely and her job was unfulfilling. She was tempted to try to solve her problems by getting married, but she broke an engagement to a brilliant missionary-minded young man because he had adopted the Darwinian theory of evolution. He later became a professor at Harvard University, while she, in her own words, was left to "plod along in the same old way." Years later, when reflecting on the broken relationship, she said, "God had first claim on my life, and since the two conflicted, there could be no question about the result." 2

With that decision to remain single came a determination to carve out for herself a more fulfilling ministry among the Chinese people. She was convinced that her talent was being wasted and could be better used in evangelism and church planting. She had come to China to "go out among the millions" as an evangelist, only to find herself chained to a school of forty "unstudious" children. Giving women such assignments, she argued was "the greatest folly of modern missions." She viewed herself as part of an oppressed class -- single women missionaries -- and her words were an appeal on behalf of all those who were facing similar frustration in their ministries. But the examples she used precisely fit her own situation. "Can we wonder at the mortal weariness and disgust, the sense of wasted powers and the conviction that her life is a failure, that comes over a woman when, instead of the ever broadening activities she had planned, she finds herself tied down to the petty work of teaching a few girls?"3

Lottie Moon's plea for her sex was always in the context of her ministry. Indeed, she was not pleading for women's rights as much as she was pleading for the right to best use God-given gifts in ministry: "What women want who come to China is free opportunity to do the largest possible work.... What women have a right to demand is perfect equality."It is interesting that one of her bitterest enemies on this issue was a woman -- a not uncommon scenario in women's history. A Congregational missionary wife, Mrs. Arthur Smith, questioned Lottie's mental stability and denounced her "lawless prancing all over the mission lot." In her view the appropriate role of a woman missionary was to attend "with quivering lip" her own children.4

Lottie's insistence on doing evangelism and church planting was not readily endorsed by her field director. Indeed, she feared that he might seek to further limit the ministry opportunities for women in the mission. Despite some vocal opposition, women missionaries serving with the Southern Baptists were at least permitted to vote -- a liberty not granted Presbyterian women missionaries. Fearing that that liberty might be rescinded, Lottie made her position very clear: "Simple justice demands that women should have equal rights with men in mission meetings and in the conduct of their work." And in reference to her field director's efforts to limit her ministry, she wrote, "If that be freedom, give me slavery."5

Despite her field director's initial opposition, she successfully conducted evangelistic work, and in 1889 her work in P'ingtu was described as the "greatest evangelistic center" among the Southern Baptists "in all China." This remarkable success was in part due to her own personality and gifts. After working among the people for a time she wrote, "Surely there can be no deeper joy than that of saving souls." But there were other reasons as well, and her sex no doubt had as much to do with her success as did her own capability in this type of ministry. As an unordained woman, she was not qualified to lead the churches she planted. Thus it was imperative for her -- more so than for her male counterparts -- to train indigenous ministers as soon as possible. This worked in favor of a strong local church. Indeed, within two decades the Chinese pastor at P'ingtu had baptized more than a thousand converts.6

In light of her own successful ministry, Lottie aggressively appealed to women at home to raise funds for China missions and to sponsor single women missionaries for the work. "What I hope to see," she wrote, "is a band of ardent, enthusiastic, and experienced Christian women occupying a line of stations extending from Vingtu on the north and from Chinkiang on the south, making a succession of stations uniting the two.... A mighty wave of enthusiasm for Women's Work for Women must be stirred." Her emphasis on recruiting women was based not only on the confidence she placed in female evangelists and church planters, but also on the stark reality that Southern Baptist men had virtually handed over the work of China missions to women by default. Earlier Lottie had written, "It is odd that a million Baptists of the South can furnish only three men for all China. Odd that with five hundred preachers in the state of Virginia, we must rely on a Presbyterian to fill a Baptist pulpit [here]. I wonder how these things look in heaven. They certainly look very queer in China."7

Lottie identified closely with the Chinese people, and when a time of great famine inflicted devastation on her Chinese friends, she gave her own food supplies to needy families. She was simply unable to eat when there were starving children at her door begging for food. As a result, she herself died in 1912 at the age of seventy-two from complications relating to malnutrition, and perhaps it was fitting that she died on Christmas Eve. She had initiated a Christmas offering from women at home for the China work, and her death served as a symbolic offering of the very life that stirred the conscience of the Southern Baptists. The Lottie Moon Christmas offering became a widely celebrated fundraising tradition for missions among Southern Baptist women that in recent years has netted tens of millions of dollars annually.8

For all that she did to promote women's involvement at home and in China, showing that women indeed could function on an equal level with men, Lottie Moon could not change the perception that some men would always have of women. In recognition of her singular work, the Foreign Missions Journal paid her its highest tribute by saying that she was "the best man among our missionaries."9

____________________________________

1. Irwin Hyatt, Our Ordered Lives Confess: Three Nineteenth-Century American

Missionaries in East Sahntund (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 1976), 95.

2. Ibid., 99.

3. Ibid., 104.

4. 104-105.

5. Ibid., 106.

6. Ibid., 115, 117.

7. Ibid., 113.

8. Ruth A. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of

Christian Missions (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 288.

9. Catherine Allen, The New Lottie Moon Story (Nashville: Broadman, 1980),

288.

Taken from Guardians of the Great Commission by Ruth A. Tucker. Copyright 1988 by Ruth A. Tucker. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

Subj:MF99.08.18-Moon

Date: 8/9/99 5:38:03 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: RickWood@XC.Org

Sender: bounce-brigada-pubs-missionfrontiers-86568@XC.Org

Reply-to: rickwood@xc.org

To: brigada-pubs-missionfrontiers@XC.Org (Text of Mission Frontiers, and

other USCWM updates)

*

A frail young man, with sad, lustrous eyes and face so blanched that he seems to be the palest of the palefaces, is engaged on a serious and dangerous mission. Having heard of a tribe of particularly ferocious Indians living in the dense forests of the region known as the “Forks of the Delaware,” he is on his way to tell them of a loving Saviour. Coming at sunset in sight of the smoke of their campfires, he decides to spend the night in the woods and to proceed in the morning. Little does he realize that several red men, with wolfish eyes and as silent as serpents, have followed him for hours. As he builds a fire, the Indians steal away to their encampment to tell the startling news that a white man is in the woods nearby. “Let us go at once,” says the chief, “and kill this paleface, whose people have taught us to drink firewater and then, while we are drunk, have taken our baskets and skins and even our lands for almost nothing.”

As the warriors silently draw near, they see the white man on his knees, praying most fervently that the Indians might come to realize that the great God of the universe loved them and sent His Son to save them. While he prays, a rattlesnake squirms up to him, lifts its hideous head, flicks its forked tongue close to his face, and then, for no apparent reason, glides away into the darkness. And so does the chief, followed by his men.

When the young missionary enters the Indian village early the next morning, he receives a much more cordial welcome than he had anticipated, for not until later does he learn of the strange events of the preceding night. When the people gather around him in an open place among the wigwams, he opens his Bible, reads from the 53rd chapter of Isaiah and tenderly tells the sweet story of how God sent His Son to die on the cross that He might take away the sin from people’s hearts and make them good children of the Heavenly Father. At the close of his message there are tears in the eyes of many of his auditors.

“The paleface is a praying man!” remarks one of the warriors who had gone forth the preceding night intending to kill him.

“And the Great Spirit is with him!” says another, remembering how the rattlesnake had mysteriously failed to strike.

“And he brings a wondrous sweet message!” says the squaw of the Indian chief.

A MAN IN A MILLION

This young paleface was David Brainerd. He was born at Haddam, Connecticut, April 20, 1718, and died on October 9, 1747, at the early age of 29. He is remembered not only as the great Apostle to the North American Indians, but also as a chief source of inspiration in the lives of thousands who have been challenged from ease and selfishness to lives of holiness and sacrifice, as they have prayed and wept over his Journal.

“Have a good look at him,” writes F. W. Boreham; “he is a man in a million; he did more than any other to usher in the world’s new day.”

“His story,” as J. M. Sherwood says, “has done more to develop and mold the spirit of modern missions, and to fire the heart of the Christian Church, than that of any man since the apostolic age.”

In answer to the question, “What can be done to revive the work of God where it has decayed?” John Wesley said, “Let every preacher read carefully the life of David Brainerd.”

One of the many who heeded Wesley’s counsel was William Carey, and God used Brainerd’s life story to open Carey’s eyes to the need of all races everywhere and to fire his heart with a passion to speed the gospel to “the uttermost part.” It was chiefly the reading of the story of Brainerd’s heroic missionary labors that thrust Henry Martyn out as a bundle of fire into the darkness of India and Persia, and caused Robert McCheyne to become the Apostle to the Jews. May some earnest-hearted young people reading this account be similarly inspired to “burn out for God” in some needy foreign land. May many others be shaken out of living, as Brainerd says, “at the rate of common Christians,” and be inspired to live lives of fervent prayer, genuine piety and holy passion for souls. And may any hearts without Christ be melted into penitence and saving faith as they read of God’s marvelous love revealed in His dear Son.

HIS TEXT AND CONVERSION

Tradition says that Mary, the mother of Jesus, could never bear to read the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, and if another should read it in her hearing, she would break into weeping, as with grief inconsolable. This passage was as bitter wormwood to her soul because it brought to her mind a vivid recollection of that day when, through a fountain of tears, she beheld her divine Son suffer and die on the cross.

Isaiah 53 reminded Mary of the tortures in Pilate’s hall! Isaiah 53 caused her to remember the horrors of the Via Dolorosa! Isaiah 53 brought to her a vivid recollection of the sorrows of Golgotha! Isaiah 53 was a fountain of wormwood to her soul!

But in this attitude Mary stands singularly alone. To a multitude that no man can number the 53rd chapter of Isaiah has been precious beyond all estimation.

It must have been so to the Ethiopian eunuch, ever after that memorable day when Philip stepped into his chariot in the desert and, reading about the Man of Sorrows, smitten and afflicted, “preached unto him Jesus.”

This passage was very dear to the heart of Philip Melanchthon, Luther’s valiant helper. On the last Good Friday of his life, he prepared and delivered his last sermon. And the theme of that final message was the 53rd chapter of Isaiah!

John Knox prized this chapter more than any other. He often preached upon it and, during his last illness, requested that it be read to him every day.

Dwight L. Moody was of one mind with Knox and Melanchthon in appreciation of Isaiah’s inspired description of the Suffering Servant. When the great evangelist went to conduct his first campaign in London in 1874, he was asked concerning his creed. “It is already in print,” replied Mr. Moody. “You’ll find it in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah.”

The 53rd chapter of Isaiah was exceedingly precious to David Brainerd. When his soul was enveloped in blackness, the 53rd chapter of Isaiah became a ladder of light leading from earth to heaven. When preaching to the Indians, his favorite theme was Isaiah 53. And, when he came to the end of his pilgrimage, the last sentence of the last entry he made in his Diary was a quotation from the 53rd chapter of Isaiah!

At the early age of eight, as he himself expressly states, David came under “a conviction of sin,” and subsequently, for prolonged periods, his heart was filled with the most melancholy forebodings. He was terrified at the thought of death and often pictured himself descending into hell. His mood was like that of John Bunyan when under deep conviction. Said Bunyan:

“I envied the toads in the ditch and the domesticated animals, for they had no soul to perish as mine was like to do.”

Said Brainerd: “I was much dejected and some times envied the birds and beasts their happiness, because they were not exposed to eternal misery as I knew myself to be.”

It is interesting to note that John Wesley on one side of the Atlantic and David Brainerd on the other were, at about the same time, passing through a similar religious experience. Just as Wesley, prior to his conversion at Aldersgate, sought spiritual peace by joining others in the Holy Club in a continual round of religious observances, so Brainerd sought to satisfy his soul’s deep need of regeneration with the husks of external piety. He attended church services faithfully, read the Scriptures through twice in a single year and joined a group of young men meeting weekly for prayer and Bible study. Others may have been deceived by his zeal, but he was not. “I had a very good outside,” he says. “Thus I proceeded a considerable length on a self-righteous foundation.”

Eventually the sublime truths embedded in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah guided his wretched soul through the Wicket Gate and to the sight of the Cross, where his burden, like Bunyan’s, rolled away to be seen no more.

The 53rd chapter of Isaiah did three things for David Brainerd. It revealed to him his own heart, full of vileness and corrupted by sin. He not only assented to the statement, “all we like sheep have gone astray;” he also came to see that only a terrible disease, humanly incurable, would have called forth so great a remedy as the death of God’s Son on the Cross. Thus he was led to recognize that his indispensable need was not deeds of external righteousness but the divine remedy of a new birth for the disease of a corrupted nature. He finally realized that no struggles or reforms could change his sin-corrupted nature and that the Law of God – to quote his own words – “condemned me, not for outward actions but for the sins of my heart, which I could not possibly prevent.”

The 53rd chapter of Isaiah also revealed to him the Saviour’s heart, full of love and the excellencies of grace. When, in Bunyan’s epic story, Christiana’s son James had read the 53rd of Isaiah as a part of family worship, Greatheart sought to explain the majestic syllables, “He hath no form or comeliness. He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” These words were written, said Mr. Greatheart, “for those who lack the eye that can see into our Prince’s heart.” The 53rd chapter of Isaiah was like an open window, enabling Brainerd to peer into the heart of the Prince of our salvation, and what he saw there melted his heart. His vision of the Saviour’s broken heart broke his own heart into penitence and glad surrender. It was on Sunday evening, July 12, 1739, “as I was walking in a dark thick grove,” he writes in his Diary, “unspeakable glory seemed to open to the view and apprehension of my soul. My soul was so captivated with the excellency, loveliness, greatness, and other perfections of God that I was even swallowed up in Him.” On that never-to-be-forgotten day Brainerd found in the Saviour’s riven heart a stairway of light leading to the Holy of Holies in the heart of God.

The 53rd of Isaiah also revealed to him a door of access to the heart of all mankind. Having seen the need of his own depraved heart, he saw a world of hearts in the same dark plight, and having found that the message of the suffering Son of God was “wondrous sweet” to his own soul, he believed that all other souls were eagerly waiting to hear the same sweet story. He was convinced that Christ is the answer – the only answer – to the deepest yearnings of the human spirit, just as water is the answer to the thirst of the human body. Believing that others were just as thirsty as he had been, he longed to proclaim far and wide, especially among the neglected and mistreated Indians, the gospel invitation, “Let him that is athirst come and take the water of life freely.”

HIS MISSIONARY LABORS

Accordingly, after three years of study at Yale College, he became a missionary to the Indians, under appointment of the Scottish Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

On the way to his work among the Indians at Kaunaumeek, New York, he stopped and preached at Montauk, Long Island, at that time chiefly inhabited by Indians; and what was his text? He says: “I went and preached from Isaiah 53 - ‘Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him … [and] make his soul an offering for sin.’”

Jesus’ death on the cross was part of the divine plan: “It pleased the LORD to bruise him.”

Jesus’ death on the cross was the costly remedy for a terrible disease: “ … an offering for sin.”

Jesus’ death on the cross would be divinely used to the salvation of multitudes: “The pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand … and justify many.”

Several months after reaching Kaunaumeek, the young missionary set aside a day “for secret fasting and praying from morning till night.” Thus far he felt that his work had been a failure. He was overwhelmed by a sense of his own unworthiness and of the obstacles confronting him, chiefly, the depravity of the Indians and the weakened condition of his own pain-racked, consumptive body. He read extensive passages from the Bible, “frequently in the meantime,” he states, “falling on my knees and crying to God.” As he read of the worthies of old and of how marvelously God had used them, he longed to be like them. That day the pattern of his amazing life was formed, as he solemnly consecrated himself to walk in the footsteps of four of the heroes of the Bible. “O that I may be, as were they, aflame for God,” he prayed. That night he wrote in his Diary, “My soul blessed God that He had shown Himself so gracious to His servants of old.”

Brainerd longed to be AFLAME FOR GOD, living, like Moses, a life of self-abasement to His service and glory.

When God spoke out of the burning bush in Midian, He found Moses very different from what he was forty years earlier. Then he was self-assertive, endeavoring to deliver his enslaved brethren by his own hand and by his own ill-chosen methods. Now he was self-abased, conscious of his inadequacy and unworthiness. “Who am I,” he said, “to undertake so great a task?” God could and did use mightily one thus yielded and eager, not for self-glory but for the glory of God. No man ever yearned more ardently to be like Moses, or succeeded to a greater degree, than did David Brainerd. “I spent the evening,” he says, “praying incessantly that I might not be self-dependent but have my whole dependence upon God.” In a letter to his brother, January 2,1744, he wrote:

“We should always look upon ourselves as God’s servants, placed in God’s world to do His work; and accordingly labor faithfully for Him. Let it then be your great concern, thus to devote yourself and your all to God.”

His Diary contains innumerable passages of similar import to the following. “April 26,1742. Oh, that I could spend every moment of my life to God’s glory!” “August 30, 1742. My soul longs with a vehement desire to live to God.” “November 22, 1745. I have received my all from God. Oh that I could return my all to God.” Not in self-dependence but in God-dependence, Brainerd found the source of unlimited power, the secret of a gallant spirit, the sacrament of inward peace.

Self-abasement was not to Brainerd an end in it self. “It is so sweet,” he confides, “to be nothing and less than nothing” that Christ may be “my all in all.”

Oh, the bitter shame and sorrow That a time could ever be When I let the Saviour’s pity Plead in vain, and proudly answered: “All of self, and none of Thee.”

Yet He found me: I beheld Him Bleeding on the accursed tree; Heard Him pray, “Forgive them, Father,” And my wistful heart said faintly: “Some of self and some of Thee.”

Day by day, His tender mercy, Healing, helping, full and free, Sweet and strong, and oh, so patient, Brought me lower, while I whispered: “Less of self and more of Thee.”

Higher than the highest heaven, Deeper than the deepest sea, Lord, Thy love at last has conquered: Grant me now my soul’s desire, “None of self and all of Thee.”

Brainerd longed to be AFLAME FOR GOD, being, like Elijah, a man fervent and mighty in prayer.

His soul “was much moved” as he read the story of Elijah the prophet, who, by laying hold upon God in prayer, was sustained in all his trials and was enabled to overcome the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel, to call a multitude to repentance and to bring down rain upon a famished earth. Thereupon, says Brainerd: “My soul breathed after God, and pleaded with Him, that ‘a double portion of that spirit’ which was given to Elijah, might ‘rest on me.’”

He usually spent several hours a day in prayer and frequently devoted an entire day to this purpose. June 14, 1742, he writes: “I set apart this day for secret fasting and prayer. Just at night the Lord visited me marvelously. I wrestled for an ingathering of souls … I was in such an agony from sun half an hour, till near dark, that I was all over wet with sweat. Oh, my dear Saviour did sweat blood for poor souls. I went to bed with my heart wholly set on God.”

Brainerd discovered the reality of prayer: “The Lord visited me marvelously.”

Brainerd experienced the agony of prayer: “I wrestled for souls … in agony.”

Brainerd discerned the resources of prayer “treasures of divine grace were opened to me.”

Brainerd learned the transforming power of prayer: “My heart was wholly set on God.”

July 21,1744, on hearing that the Indians were planning to hold an idolatrous feast and dance the next day, he spent a day and night in prayer. He writes: “This morning about nine I withdrew to the woods for prayer. I was in such anguish that when I rose from my knees I felt extremely weak and overcome, and the sweat ran down my face and body … I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so that I could but gain souls for Christ. I continued in this frame all the evening and night.”

Thus empowered, he went forth to meet the Indians the next morning, convinced that God was with him in this contest just as He was with Elijah on Mount Carmel; and, wonder of wonders, instead of promptly scalping him when he called upon them to stop their dance, they actually desisted and listened to the missionary preach, both morning and afternoon.

Made strong by prayer and the awareness of the divine companionship, Brainerd dragged his tortured body through the forests from village to village, preaching with such tenderness and conviction that the stony-hearted Indians were frequently melted to tears.

Brainerd longed to be AFLAME FOR GOD, his life, like Abraham’s, being characterized by the holy piety of one on pilgrimage to eternity.

In his Diary Brainerd makes frequent reference to the ancient patriarch. He spoke of “Abraham’s pilgrimage” and of “what a stranger he was here on earth.” He longed to be like Abraham and the worthies referred to in Hebrews 11:13, who “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” As a citizen of heaven, he felt that he should be insensible to the enjoyments of this world. “My desires,” he wrote on July 19, 1742, “seem especially to be after weanedness from the world, perfect deadness to it, and that I may be crucified to all its allurements. My soul desires to feel itself more of a pilgrim and stranger here below, that nothing may divert me from pressing through the lonely desert, till I arrive at my Father’s house.”

Being on such a pilgrimage, he was filled with the most intense longings after holiness and sanctification. “Blessed Jesus,” he prayed, “may I daily be more and more conformed to Thee. All I want is to be more holy, more like my dear Lord … that I may be fit for the blessed enjoyments and employments of the heavenly world.” As a “pilgrim here below,” Brainerd was animated by a threefold yearning: to be crucified to the allurements of this world, to be conformed daily to the holy purposes of Christ, to be made fit for the enjoyments and employments of heaven!

Brainerd frequently felt himself cast down into the dust because of his sinfulness and spiritual deadness. “What a vile wretch I am!” he exclaims. “Oh that I could give up myself to God, so as nevermore to attempt to be my own, or to have any will or affections that are not perfectly conformed to Him! But alas, alas! I find I cannot be thus entirely devoted to God.”

Few men have ever exposed their inmost souls as did Brainerd; and yet it should be remembered that he had no idea that any other eye than his own would ever see his private writings. If a saint is one who lives in time with a view to eternity, no saintlier man ever lived than David Brainerd. “I love to live,” he said, “on the brink of eternity.”

Brainerd longed to be AFLAME FOR GOD, living, like Paul, to preach Christ and to share His sufferings unto the salvation of souls.

His Diary contains this entry, July 6,1744: “I long and love to be a pilgrim; and want grace to imitate the life, labors and sufferings of Paul among the heathen.” He and Paul were kindred spirits in being captivated and animated by one great design – the salvation of lost souls, and in believing that this objective could best be attained by preaching the gospel of Christ and by living a life of self-denial and sacrifice.

Brainerd and Paul were kindred spirits! Captivated by one grand design – “to testify the gospel of the grace of God.” Animated by one superb longing – “to fill up that which is lacking of the sufferings of Christ.” “I long to imitate the life, labors and sacrifices of Paul among the heathen.”

Almost every page of Brainerd’s Diary tells how he “endured hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” His sufferings, caused by a diseased and weakened constitution, were intensified by the rigors of his life among the Indians and his arduous travels through the wilderness. Concerning his first night among the Indians, he made this entry, “I rode to Kaunaumeek and there lodged on a little heap of straw.”

He was frequently in distress for lack of suitable food, exposed to hunger and cold, lost in the forests, caught in storms with no shelter available, obliged to ford raging streams and to spend the night in the woods, in peril from wild beasts and wild savages. Concerning one such incident he relates, “About six at night I lost my way in the wilderness, and wandered over rocks and mountains, through swamps and most dreadful places. I was pinched with cold and distressed with an extreme pain in my head and stomach, so that much blood came from me. But God preserved me, and, blessed be His name, such fatigues and hardships as these seem to wean me more from the earth and I trust will make heaven the sweeter.” This man was no secluded saint. He was apostolic in his labors and in the way he gloried in tribulation.

Brainerd’s health was failing fast and he gave some consideration to the idea of giving up his missionary journeys and settling down, either among his Christian Indians or at one of the white churches which had extended to him a call. This prospect was immeasurably enhanced by his dreams of domestic felicity, for he was ardently attached to Jerusha Edwards. He realized, however, that he had at most a year or two longer to live, and concluded, after much struggle of soul, that he should “burn out to the last” as a traveling missionary. Falling on his knees in his resignation, he cried: “Farewell friends and earthly comforts; farewell to the dearest, the very dearest of them all. I will spend my life to my latest moments in caves and dens of the earth, if the kingdom of Christ may thereby be advanced.”

During the last months of his life, Jerusha was his nurse and constant companion; and so heartbroken was she at the death of her beloved, she faded like a flower famished for rain, and, just four months later, went to join him in the Celestial City.

Brainerd, like Paul, gloried in the Cross and determined to preach nothing “save Jesus Christ and him crucified.” He made Christ the center and goal of every message. “If I treated on the being and glorious perfections of God,” he wrote, “I was thence naturally led to discourse of Christ as the only way to the Father. If I attempted to open the deplorable misery of our fallen state, it was natural from thence to show the necessity of Christ to undertake for us, to atone for our sins and to redeem us from their power.” The Apostle to the Indians proved, not only that the preaching of “gospel truth” is the only thing that can melt savage hearts to repentance, but also is the only means by which to reform and transform their lives. Just as soon as the Indians were changed at heart, they gave up their heathen vices.

At the end of one year of labor at Kaunaumeek, Brainerd persuaded the Indians to move to Stockbridge, where they came under the ministry of a Mr. Sargeant and later of Jonathan Edwards. Henceforth his parish centered in the area of the forks of the Delaware and extended through wide areas of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He made the Indian town of Crossweeksung his headquarters and there erected a little hut. For a considerable time he was greatly depressed by the heathen practices of the Indians, by the darkness of their minds and the hardness of their hearts. But he kept on sowing the gospel seeds and watered them with his tears, for he believed “the promises of God.” Often he retired into the forest recesses, and the leafy solitudes echoed with the pleadings of his anguished heart on behalf of his “poor Indians.”

The promises! The sure promises of God! “Sow in tears … reap in joy!” “Call upon me and I will answer!” Echoes among the leafy solitudes! Pleadings of his anguished heart!

At length a mighty revival broke out in Susquehannah, and the reaper with joy gathered the precious sheaves. One day while preaching on Isaiah 33, “the Word was attended with amazing power; many scores in that great assembly were much affected, so that there was a very great mourning among them.” Suddenly there fell among the Indian population of this area a sense of soul concern. From all directions they came, crowding around the missionary to hear his message and falling down with sobs and groans under conviction of sin. A besotted woman fell down crying, “Have mercy upon me, O Lord.” An elderly man, who had been a murderer, a pow-wow (or conjuror), and a notorious drunkard, cried for mercy with many tears. Scores were soundly converted and came to be known as “Praying Indians,” for, like their missionary, they spent much time in importunate prayer for the salvation of their people. And what was the message that produced such remarkable results? When one of the men was asked, “Why do you cry so?” he replied, “When I think how Christ was slain like a lamb and spilt His blood for sinners, I cannot help crying.” It was the message of Isaiah 53! And when Brainerd called his Christian Indians together for their first communion and talked to them of the great sacrifice represented by the sacred emblems, the whole company was dissolved in tears.

SWEEPING THROUGH THE GATES

During the conversation in the Palace Beautiful, Christian confessed that he sometimes lost his ardor on the pilgrimage. When Prudence inquired how he was enabled to revive his heart and press on his journey, Christian replied, “When I think of where I am going – that will do it!” It was the same with David Brainerd.

After five years of arduous travel, manifold hardships, and almost incessant pain, the frail consumptive, spitting blood and almost delirious with fever, stumbles down the road to Northampton to die in the home of Jonathan Edwards. But he is by no means despondent. He is thinking of where he is going and his soul is exultingly happy. The pilgrim has finished his course and waits eagerly for the chariot to take him home. When someone comes into his room with a Bible, he exclaims: “Oh, that dear Book! I shall soon see it opened! The mysteries that are in it will all be unfolded!”

As his physical powers wane, his spiritual perception heightens. “I was made for eternity,” he whispers. “How I long to be with God and to bow in His presence.” The light of another world is in his eyes as he murmurs, “Oh that the Redeemer may ‘see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied.’ Oh come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly!” And with this petition upon his lips he greets Death as a long-awaited friend, who will forthwith usher him into the presence of the King!

Brainerd’s Diary and Journal reveal an ardent and oft reiterated yearning to “burn out” for his Lord and to be “aflame for God.” “It is my fervent longing,” he said, “to be a flame of fire, continually glowing in the divine service, till my latest, my dying moment.”

To the very last, Brainerd was supremely concerned with the extension of the kingdom of his “blessed Redeemer,” the suffering Christ Isaiah 53.

On his deathbed he prayed that He who “was bruised for our iniquities” might “see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.” October 9, 1747, he experienced the ineffable joy, which, in prospect, had so long cheered his lonely and heroic pilgrimage – namely, “to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”

The flame that burned so brightly and glowed so warmly seems to have burned out at last. But it only seems so. Death is life’s sublimest illusion. For those “in Christ” there is no death, there are no dead. The event called death does not extinguish, but rather intensifies, the vital flame of life and service. “He is not dead.” The sweet and consecrated spirit of David Brainerd is “continually glowing in the divine service and, to a degree beyond all his imagining, he is still AFLAME FOR GOD.”

________________

Copied from Heroes of Faith on Pioneer Trails by E. Myers Harrison. Published by Moody Press, Chicago, Illinois, c1945. Copyright ©2002 Wholesome Words. All Rights Reserved.

*

After years of service in South Africa, the famous missionary Robert Moffat returned to Scotland to recruit helpers. When he arrived at the church one cold wintry night, he was dismayed that only a small group had come out to hear him. What bothered him even more was that the only people in attendance were ladies. Although he was grateful for their interest, he had hoped to challenge men. He had chosen as his text Proverbs 8:4, “Unto you, O men I call.” In his discouragement he almost failed to notice one small boy in the loft pumping the bellows of the organ.

Moffat felt frustrated as he gave the message, for he realized that very few women could be expected to undergo the rigorous life in undeveloped jungles. But God works in mysterious ways. Although no one volunteered that evening, the young fellow assisting the organist was deeply moved by the challenge. As a result, he promised God he would follow in the footsteps of this pioneer missionary. And he remained true to his vow. When he grew up, he went and ministered to the unreached tribes of Africa. His name was David Livingstone!

=======================

When Robert Moffat, Scottish missionary to South Africa, came back to recruit helpers in his homeland, he was greeted by the fury of a cold British winter. Arriving at the church where he was to speak he noted that only a small group had braved the elements to hear his appeal. What disturbed him even more was that there were only ladies in attendance that night, for he had chosen as his text Proverbs 8:4, “Unto you, O men I call.”

In his consternation he almost failed to notice one small boy in the loft who had come to work the bellows of the organ. Dr. Moffat felt hopeless as he gave the message, realizing that few women could be expected to undergo the rigorous experiences they would face in the undeveloped jungles of the continent where he labored.

But God works in mysterious ways to carry out His wise purposes. Although no one volunteered, the young fellow assisting the organist was thrilled by the challenge, deciding that he would follow in the footsteps of this pioneer missionary, he went on to school, obtained a degree in medicine, and then spent the rest of his life ministering to the unreached tribes of Africa. His name: David Livingstone!

See: Matthew 28:19

[see also #23041]

A missionary fell into the hands of cannibals. "Going to eat

me, I presume?" asked the missionary. The chief grunted. "Don't

do it," he advised, "you won't like me." Thereupon the

missionary took out a knife, sliced a piece from the calf of his

leg and handed it to him. "Try this and see for yourself." The

chief took one bite and choked. The missionary worked on the

island for fifty years. He had a cork leg!

A few years ago at this time I was preparing to leave after Christmas for a preaching mission to the Fiji Islands. In preparation, I read some accounts of missionaries who had invested their lives in the South Pacific.

One powerful story comes from a missionary to the head-hunting Sawis of Indonesia. He sat in a “manhouse” and told them how God showed Himself to all peoples in Jesus. They yawned and grew restless. However, when he told them about the betrayal of Jesus by Judas, they leaned forward and became interested. As they heard that a kiss, a sign of affection, was the means of betrayal, their eyes sparkled with amazement and respect. But their admiration was for JUDAS, not Jesus, for to these primitive cannibals, DECEIT and BETRAYAL were the highest virtues.

The missionary saw it as his mission to try to overcome generations of cultural conditioning so that these people's thinking might be reversed. He persuaded three tribes that were natural enemies to move fairly close together so that he might have access to them. While they were reluctant, they did so because the missionary provided them with tools and medicine. As tension mounted among the tribes, the hostility became so great that he called the “headmen” together and told the tribes to disperse. He announced that he would have to go downstream and work among other people who could get along better.

One morning the tribes gathered in an open place. The air was electric with tension. After a period of waiting, a warrior grabbed his nursing child from his anxious wife, ran to a former enemy and handed him the baby. The distraught mother pleaded with him not to do this. Then, abruptly, a warrior from the other side did the same thing.

Aghast, the missionary asked what was happening. He was told that the tribes were exchanging a “peace child.” As long as the children were unhurt, the tribes would live in peace. Shouts of joy broke out. People began to dance. The peace child made it possible for the tribes to live together without fear. A new era had been born.

The missionary finally had an analogy for God's love. He now told the warriors that Jesus was God's “Peace Child!” God did not want to give up His Son to hostile people, but because of His love, He sent a peace child to live among them. The Sawis now heard the story of Jesus with new interest. If Jesus was a Peace Child, it was wrong to betray Him. Judas was no longer a hero.

It was a new day for the Sawis. It was a new day for our world when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. He brought a whole new set of values. He became God's Peace Child in a darkened world. He still seeks to bring peace to our world. World peace begins in our own heart! Let us point others to the Peace Child of Bethlehem!

________

Ernie Nivens, Tranquil United Methodist

Years ago when Robert Moffat was in Africa, he traveled far into the interior. One day he came to a tree upon which a board was fixed, saying that a Christian school was to be found in a village not far away. He was amazed, for he believed himself to be the first white man in that part. Making his way toward the village, he met a little native girl about twelve years of age, to whom he said, “I saw a board fastened to a tree saying that there was a Christian school held in the village. Would you be so good as to lead me to the teacher?” The little girl hung her head shyly and made no reply. “Do you know the teacher?” he asked. She replied this time with a nod. “Well, who is the teacher?” he persisted. Looking up into his face now, but still shyly, she answered, “I am the teacher.” Mr. Moffat discovered that the little girl had once been taken to a distant tribe, where she heard a missionary tell the people of the love of Jesus; and she had now become the first missionary to her own people.

-- Gospel Herald

Paton was sent by the Scottish Presbyterian Church in 1858 to the New Hebrides in the South Pacific. For four years he worked on the island of Tanna, where his life was in constant danger. When he was forced to leave, not a single convert had been made. He then worked for two years on the island of Aniwa. It never rained during that time, and the island's chief concluded that Paton's presence had angered the gods. Paton dug a well and prayed to God for water. God heard his prayer and thereby turned away the fear and hatred he had faced thus far. But it was not until 1869 (11 years after he started) that Paton baptized the first convert. After that many became Christians. Even then danger kept lurking. Four of Paton's fellow missionaries were killed on a neighboring island.

Much later, when Paton lived in retirement in Australia, someone asked him, "Weren't you afraid all alone on those islands?" Paton answered, "Yes, I was, but I would say over and over to myself the words of Christ, 'All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therfore go and make disciples of all nations ... And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.'"

First-century evangelists had a short life expectancy –- and no shortage of enemies.

“Endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist,” the Apostle Paul wrote in a letter to his young disciple Timothy, boiling the missionary task down to its rugged essence (2 Timothy 4:5). Threats, persecution, beatings and probable martyrdom were all part of the job description.

Paul and Timothy preached the Gospel in a violent, decadent and pagan world. The Roman emperors demanded submission and even worship. Roman and Greek idols captured the gentile imagination –- and local economies –- in Roman-ruled cities like Ephesus in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). The political/religious/economic power structure didn’t take kindly to competition, as Paul discovered when he ran afoul of the Ephesian merchants who made a good living off the cult of the goddess Artemis (Acts 19).

Paul eventually died at the hands of the Romans. Years later, according to church tradition, Timothy was dragged through the streets of Ephesus and stoned to death after trying to stop a pagan procession and preach Christ.

Paul never sugarcoated the difficulty of the mission task. In his letter to Timothy, he predicted things would get even worse in the last days:

“People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful,

proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,

without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control,

brutal, not lovers of good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers

of pleasure rather than lovers of God -– having a form of

godliness but denying its power....” (2 Timothy 3:2-5).

Sound familiar? Human nature doesn’t change much from one era to the next.

Christian evangelism is less life-threatening these days, at least in some places. In other places, it’s more dangerous than ever.

“Political disruption and instability threaten missionary presence on many fields,” International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin said June 12 during his report to Southern Baptist Convention messengers meeting in San Antonio, Texas. Global terrorism also jeopardizes ministry in multiple areas.

But sometimes the “safe” places -– such as post-Christian Europe -– present greater spiritual challenges than the dangerous ones. Why?

“A massive wave of postmodern humanism responds with ridicule to anyone who would embrace the notion of absolute truth and the certainty of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ,” Rankin explained.

Reactionary humanism is really another form of paganism –- updated, pretending to be tolerant, but just as hostile to the Gospel as the merchants of Artemis were. The Gospel, however, has two timeless advantages in the global struggle for hearts and minds: It is the truth, and people everywhere are hungry to hear it.

People like Genady Krechin, a Russian businessman who spent years living for himself. He made a fortune in the post-Soviet economic free-for-all by selling vodka and building ties to Russian gangsters. But he felt his eternal soul slipping away.

“As the Bible would say, I decided that I would serve Mammon as the ruler of my life,” recalls Krechin, whose testimony was featured during the IMB report at the Southern Baptist Convention meeting. “But as the money became more and more, happiness and joy became less and less. I was drinking. I was partying. I was destroying myself. I was divided against myself. My spirit was struggling.”

When a Russian Baptist believer told him the story of Jesus, the words about God’s love and mercy moved him. One night, Krechin repented and gave his heart to the Lord. Today he’s a Baptist church planter working with Southern Baptist missionaries in Moscow.

People need the Lord –- and they are desperate to know Him. That was true in first-century Ephesus and it’s true now. And however hostile the world may seem at any given moment, tellers of the Jesus story have more friends than they realize.

Recently a Christian evangelist in China was sharing Jesus with a 16-year-old seeker in a public shopping arcade when a security guard walked over and snatched a Gospel tract out of his hand. Not knowing what would happen next, the Christian turned to the guard and said, “Yes, I have already talked with this young man. He showed interest. I am not forcing him to do anything. If he should decide to believe, it’s his own decision.”

As the guard flipped through the pages of the tract, the evangelist prayed silently. When he saw that the guard was on the last page, he asked, “Sir, do you know Jesus?” To his amazement, the reply was yes.

Then the guard handed the tract to the 16-year-old and said, “Here. Read it.”

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #6989]

When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibal Fiji Islands, the captain of the ship on which he sailed tried to dissuade him. "You will risk your own life and the lives of all who sail with you if you go among such savages." Clavert's magnificent reply was, "We died before we came here."

("Choice Illus." W.W. Clay pg. 52)

It has been said that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, perhaps reflecting some mysterious urge to wear green on March 17.

St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, laden with mythology and merriment, often have little to do with the historical Patrick, a missionary and early church leader. And while “Irish” revelers overlook the man behind the myth, many Christians also fail to see the importance of Patrick’s ministry.

What are evangelicals to think of Patrick? And what can be learned from his life and ministry?

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary professors Rex Butler and Jack Allen believe Patrick is worthy of evangelical attention. Approaching him from different disciplines, Butler and Allen see in Patrick methods and heart attitudes beneficial to today’s church.

The title of “Saint” and St. Patrick’s Day activities, unfortunately, have left Patrick with an image problem among evangelicals.

“As Baptists, we need to avoid calling any historical figure by the title of ‘Saint,’” said Butler, associate professor of church history and patristics at NOBTS. “It is clear from the Bible, especially Paul’s letters, that all believers are saints in the sense that we are sanctified and set apart for God.”

The title “Saint,” when used by Catholic and Orthodox churches, is very technical in nature, Butler said. It refers to men and women “who exhibited extraordinary holiness and performed miracles during their lives.” These churches believe that “Saints” can intercede on behalf of people living today.

“Therefore, I refer to the hero of ‘St. Patrick’s Day’ as ‘Patrick of Ireland,’” Butler said.

Patrick was born into a Christian home in Britain, the son and grandson of clergymen. Patrick, though, exhibited only nominal Christian faith in his early years. Scholars are not certain when he was born, but many place his birth around 387 A.D.

The pagan Celtic tribes of Ireland lived in primitive conditions, worshipping nature, living off the land and frequently raiding Britain to steal supplies. In short, the tribes consisted of uncivilized barbarians. During one of their raids on the British Island, Patrick was taken captive and forced into slavery at the age of 16.

After living as a slave for six years, Patrick escaped and returned to Britain. It was during his time in Ireland that Patrick’s faith in Christ began to grow, Butler said. Shortly after returning to Britain, Patrick entered church ministry.

“Patrick’s life is a great example of how God uses adversity to draw us to Himself,” Butler said.

“Over time, he begins to have this deep conviction that God wants him to go back and take the Gospel to these horrible people,” said Allen, assistant professor of church planting at NOBTS. “Patrick voluntarily goes back to Ireland and he sets about trying to convert these pagans.”

For Allen, Patrick demonstrated a number of methods that could be beneficial in reaching 21st-century Western culture, particularly the post-Christian areas of North America.

At the basic level, Patrick’s methods are similar to the current idea of “missional” living in a cross-cultural setting, Allen said. Patrick went on his mission with a “long-haul” mentality and would stay as long as it took to reach a tribe. He and his group lived among the people, learned their habits, sought to fit in without comprise and lived out their faith and ethics among the people. Gradually Patrick was able to share the Gospel.

Patrick did not immediately confront the pagans about sin and overwhelm them with scriptural instruction, Allen said, and he preferred to slowly introduce the Scriptures to develop a “picture of Jesus” and then tell them about repentance.

“Over time...people were converted,” Allen said. “This takes a very long time. It’s slow at first, but these conversions tend to stick.”

Allen believes a similar approach is needed to reach the United States and Canada. He points to the growing number of lost people in cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and even Austin. People in these areas, Allen said, often are highly resistant to the Gospel and traditional evangelistic methods.

“What is getting fantastic results in Toronto and Montreal have been methods that look an awful lot like what Patrick did,” Allen said. “Our missionary goes in, lives among the people and begins to make friends. Over time [the missionary] tries to gather people and teach them who Jesus is.”

Lost North Americans share many common traits with the people Patrick encountered on the Emerald Isle so long ago, Allen said, describing post-Christian North Americans as “neo-pagans” due to their resistance to the Gospel and their commitment to nature.

Reaching the neo-pagans of North America, Allen said, will require costly commitments. Christians must find a way to plant themselves among the lost for long periods of time, and these believers must live out a consistent, vibrant faith. Many of the successful missionaries in these resistant areas are bivocational –- working alongside the people they’re trying to reach.

“We will not see large-scale systemic conversions unless we are willing to give this; in all honesty, we probably have to give it a decade,” Allen said. “We not only have to help people find Christ, we have to give them the tools to walk with Christ.”

For Butlers from a church historian’s perspective, Patrick’s ministry and mission methods reflect two distinct heart attitudes vital to the Christian life -- forgiveness and perseverance.

“Despite the suffering he had endured in Ireland, Patrick was willing to forgive those who had held him captive,” Butler said. “He returned to evangelize Ireland.”

Forgiveness and the call of God landed Patrick in Ireland. But it was a rugged perseverance that kept him there for the long term, Butler said.

Patrick was not the first missionary to Ireland, Butler noted. Thirty years before Patrick launched his mission, a man named Palladius was commissioned as a missionary to the Emerald Isle, but Palladius soon became discouraged and moved on to Scotland.

“Patrick, however, persevered in his mission, preached the Gospel throughout Ireland ... and established churches and monasteries,” Butler said. “Furthermore, the Irish Christians, following Patrick’s example, left their homeland to spread the Gospel in Scotland, Britain and Europe.”

________

Gary Myers is director of public relations at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

*

[Original illustration at this number was moved to HolwickID #16445]

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| My Source:

| TRUTHS Email List, 1/28/99

|------------------------------

| Author: Steve Waller

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DO YOU KNOW ANY MISSIONARIES?

by Steve Waller

Brethren,

Some recent posts on this list brought something to my mind that I would like to discuss with you, and hope that it can be helpful.

A few years ago, when I was preaching for a certain congregation in the States, we would “allow” missionaries that we supported to come and make their reports and show slides of their work. I found such a situation very interesting. I usually always appreciated hearing about the various works and seeing the slide presentation as did some of the others in the congregation.

One thing bothered me, though. Frequently, on the Sunday that the missionary would visit, most members of the congregation would rush out to their favorite restaurant for Sunday dinner. This would leave my wife and me at the almost empty church building with the missionary and his family. Frankly, I was embarrassed that no one seemed to care enough about the missionary and his family to even invite them to Sunday dinner! I am no hero, but I was very frustrated and upset over this seeming insensitivity and lack of care for a family that had sacrificed much to go into a foreign field to proclaim the gospel. So, my wife and I would invite them to go out and eat with us. That does not make us special, but it did do something to and for us. It gave us an opportunity to learn about missionaries, their families, mission work, and the challenges and troubles faced in the mission field. It awoke something within us that needed to be awakened.

We began to see mission work in a whole different light. We began to develop friendships with missionaries. We began to think that just maybe mission work was something we should be sacrificing to do. We continued to be in contact with some of these missionaries, and after a few years, our vision of spreading the gospel into a foreign land began to take shape. We were invited to go on a couple of mission trips, which we were most happy to do. When we told the congregation where I preached that our desire was to go on a three-week mission campaign, they became excited about sending “our preacher and his wife” overseas.

As time rolled on, we became convinced that there was a place for us in a nation where we had never spoken the native language (and would have to go to school to learn it) and where the gospel is hidden. The challenge of such a venture, at times, seemed almost overwhelming. But, after much work, many speaking appointments in the States, many miles of travel to raise funds, and a lot of “red tape,” we finally arrived in the fourth largest nation in the world (the nation with the largest Muslim population) to serve the Lord where most Americans would not dare to live.

Brethren, I should warn you that “running” with missionaries can be life-changing! It certainly changed our lives! How well do you know your missionaries? How much time do you spend trying to get to know them and their families? How hospitable are you and your congregation to them when they want to come and give a report or need a place to stay overnight? Does 3 John 1:5-8 mean anything to us? Or, are missionaries a necessary “evil” that we want to sweep under the rug as soon as we can? Do they remind us that just maybe we could be doing more where we are? Does their presence make us feel a little guilty?

I am so thankful that many brethren all over the United States treated us so kindly and hospitably during our fund-raising efforts last year. Very few turned us away. And, most wanted to know as much as possible about our plans. How encouraging that is!

Get to know your missionaries. It will do you good, and the enthusiasm for world evangelism may begin to take hold and spread where you are!

Steve Waller

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Steve Waller - spwrsw@indo.net.id or stevewaller@usa.net

(Now living in Indonesia)

North Marshall church of Christ

Waller Mission Fund

3290 Palma Road

Calvert City, KY USA 42029

Office: 502-527-8733

Back in 1921, a missionary couple named David and Svea Flood went with their two-year-old son from Sweden to the heart of Africa-to what was then called the Belgian Congo.

They met up with another young Scandinavian couple, the Ericksons, and the four of them sought God for direction. In those days of much tenderness and devotion and sacrifice, they felt led of the Lord to set out from the main mission station and take the gospel to a remote area.

This was a huge step of faith. At the village of N'dolera they were rebuffed by the chief, who would not let them enter his town for fear of alienating the local gods. The two couples opted to go half a mile up the slope and build their own mud huts.

They prayed for a spiritual breakthrough, but there was none. The only contact with the villagers was a young boy, who was allowed to sell them chickens and eggs twice a week. Svea Flood, a tiny woman only four feet, eight inches tall, decided that if this was the only African she could talk to, she would try to lead the boy to Jesus. And in fact, she succeeded. But there were no other encouragements.

Meanwhile, malaria continued to strike one member of the little band after another. In time the Ericksons decided they had had enough suffering and left to return to the central mission station. David and Svea Flood remained near N'dolera to go on alone. Then, of all things, Svea found herself pregnant in the middle of the primitive wilderness. When the time came for her to give birth, the village chief softened enough to allow a midwife to help her. A little girl was born, whom they named Aina. The delivery, however, was exhausting, and Svea Flood was already weak from bouts of malaria. The birth process was a heavy blow to her stamina. She lasted only another seventeen days.

Inside David Flood, something snapped in that moment. He dug a crude grave, buried his twenty-seven-year-old wife, and then took his children back down the mountain to the mission station.

Giving his newborn daughter to the Ericksons, he snarled, "I'm going back to Sweden. I've lost my wife, and I obviously can't take care of this baby. God has ruined my life." With that, he headed for the port, rejecting not only his calling, but God himself.

Within eight months both the Ericksons were stricken with a mysterious malady and died within days of each other. The baby was then turned over to some American missionaries, who adjusted her Swedish name to "Aggie" and eventually brought her back to the United States at age three.

This family loved the little girl and were afraid that if they tried to return to Africa, some legal obstacle might separate her from them. So they decided to stay in their home country and switch from missionary work to pastoral ministry. And that is how Aggie grew up in South Dakota. As a young woman, she attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis. There she met and married a young man named Dewey Hurst.

Years passed. The Hursts enjoyed a fruitful Ministry. Aggie gave birth first to a daughter, then a son. In time her husband became president of a Christian college in the Seattle area, and Aggie was intrigued to find so much Scandinavian heritage there. One day a Swedish religious magazine appeared in her mailbox. She had no idea who had sent it, and of course she couldn't read the words. But as she turned the pages, all of a sudden a photo stopped her cold.

There in a primitive setting was a grave with a white cross-and on the cross were the words SVEA FLOOD. Aggie jumped in her car and went straight for a college faculty member who, she knew, could translate the article. "What does this say?" she demanded. The instructor summarized the story: It was about missionaries who had come to N'dolera long ago ... the birth of a white baby ... the death of the young mother ... the one little African boy who had been led to Christ ... and how, after the whites had all left, the boy had grown up and finally persuaded the chief to let him build a school in the village. The article said that gradually he won all his students to Christ... the children led their parents to Christ... even the chief had become a Christian. Today there were six hundred Christian believers in that one village.... All because of the sacrifice of David and Svea Flood.

For the Hursts' twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, the college presented them with the gift of a vacation to Sweden. There Aggie sought to find her real father. An old man now, David Flood had remarried, fathered four more children, and generally dissipated his life with alcohol.

He had recently suffered a stroke. Still bitter, he had one rule in his family: "Never mention the name of God-because God took everything from me. After an emotional reunion with her half brothers and half sister, Aggie brought up the subject of seeing her father. The others hesitated. "You can talk to him," they replied, "even though he's very ill now. But you need to know that whenever he hears the name of God, he flies into a rage.

Aggie was not to be deterred. She walked into the squalid apartment, with liquor bottles everywhere, and approached the seventy-three-year-old man lying in a rumpled bed. "Papa" she said tentatively. He turned and began to cry. "Aina," he said. "I never meant to give you away." "It's all right, Papa," she replied, taking him gently in her arms. "God took care of me. The man instantly stiffened. The tears stopped. "God forgot all of us. Our lives have been like this because of him." He turned his face back to the wall.

Aggie stroked his face and then continued, undaunted. "Papa, I've got a little story to tell you, and it's a true one. You didn't go to Africa in vain. Mama didn't die in vain. The little boy you won to the Lord grew up to win that whole village to Jesus Christ. The one seed you planted just kept growing and growing. Today there are six hundred African people serving the Lord because you were faithful to the call of God in your life. ... "Papa, Jesus loves you. He has never hated you. The old man turned back to look into his daughter's eyes. His body relaxed. He began to talk. And by the end of the afternoon, he had come back to the God he had resented for so many decades. Over the next few days, father and daughter enjoyed warm moments together. Aggie and her husband soon had to return to America, and within a few weeks, David Flood had gone into eternity.

A few years later, the Hursts were attending a high-level evangelism conference in London, England, when a report was given from the nation of Zaire (the former Belgian Congo). The superintendent of the national church, representing some 110,000 baptized believers, spoke eloquently of the gospel's spread in his nation. Aggie could not help going to ask him afterward if he had ever heard of David and Svea Flood. "Yes, madam," the man replied in French, his words then being translated into English. "It was Svea Flood who led me to Jesus Christ. I was the boy who brought food to your parents before you were born. In fact, to this day your mother's grave and her memory are honored by all of us." He embraced her in a long, sobbing hug. Then he continued, "You must come to Africa to see, because your mother is the most famous person in our history."

In time that is exactly what Aggie Hurst and her husband did. They were welcomed by cheering throngs of villagers. She even met the man who had been hired by her father many years before to carry her back down the mountain in a hammock-cradle. The most dramatic moment, of course, was when the pastor escorted Aggie to see her mother's white cross for herself. She knelt in the soil to pray and give thanks. Later that day, in the church, the pastor read from John 12:24: "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." He then followed with Psalm 126:5: "Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy."

[An account of the martyrdom of American missionaries in the Philippines in World War II.]

In the spring of 1939 the American Baptist Foreign Mission Board reassigned James and Charma Covell and their family from their ministry in a Japanese university to ministry in the Philippines. Their daughter Margaret (Peggy) completed high school in Manila in 1940 and returned to the U.S. to attend college. Due to the deteriorating political situation they sent their remaining children, David and Alice, back to the States to attend school, planning to reunite with them on their furlough in 1942.

The Covells became two of 18 American Baptist missionaries serving on the central island of Panay about 350 miles south of Manila in the Philippines. Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 the missionaries on Panay held a meeting in Iloilo City to consider what they should do. They decided to return to their respective locations and carry on as long as possible. Missionary Fred Chambers, president of Central Philippine College, had, by order of the government, closed the college and directed the students to go home. Dr. Fred and Mrs. Ruth Meyer and missionary nurse Jennie Adams transferred patients and equipment from their hospital to an inland town. There they continued to minister to the sick and wounded in spite of the war. Other missionaries continued to serve wherever they were needed. During this time many Filipino families also evacuated to inland villages.

Manila fell to Japanese troops on Jan. 2, 1942, and Bataan fell three months later. Seven American Baptist missionaries and five children were captured by invading Japanese forces on the island of Panay on April 17 and imprisoned in Iloilo City. They were later transferred to Santo Tomas internment camp in Manila where they survived the war despite harsh adversity, sickness and appalling malnutrition.

FELLOWSHIP IN HOPEVALE

The Covells, along with nine other missionaries and one child, fled to a mountain hideout when the Japanese invaded Panay. It was a secluded area in a narrow ravine, deep within the dense forest and tall cogon grass, reachable only by a winding, rough trail crisscrossed by many misleading side paths. Impressed by the beauty of the place, Dr. Francis Rose named it Hopevale. In the ensuing twenty months the number at Hopevale varied as some American mining families stayed awhile and then moved on. None of them would have survived long without the help of their Filipino friends and colleagues who brought them food and news at the risk of their lives.

The missionaries and their Filipino friends gathered for prayer and worship in a deep ravine they called The Cathedral in the Glen. Sometimes as many as 100 people joined in the services, singing hymns and sharing their faith in God's goodness. In July 1942 the missionaries received a note from their imprisoned colleagues in Iloilo. It contained an impassioned plea to surrender, since the Japanese had threatened to kill all foreigners who were captured. After a long discussion, the missionaries at Hopevale decided to stay where they were.

Word arrived in early December 1943 that the Japanese intended to make a push to find every American between Dec. 15 and 20. The Rev. Dianala and Mr. Rio, two local Christian leaders, advised the missionaries to scatter, but they were not physically able to do so. They chose to stay together and face whatever might come, including the risk of being captured.

Early on Sunday morning, Dec. 19,1943, Japanese soldiers were sighted approaching Hopevale from several directions. The miners' families fled quickly, the last of them leaving less than an hour before the Japanese arrived. These families were eventually rescued by an American submarine on the western shore of Panay in March 1944.

The eleven missionaries and one child that remained, along with three miners and two children, scattered when the Japanese soldiers arrived. The women and children were overtaken, though, and all surrendered.

They were told that they would be put to death the next day. Jimmy Covell pleaded with the soldiers in Japanese. The leader of the battalion, Tai Watanabe, seeming to be influenced by the appeal, radioed his headquarters for orders.

The answer came about noon the next day, December 20, insisting that the mandate be carried out. The Covells insisted that they had nothing to do with the war, but the soldiers would not listen. Finally, the missionaries asked for time to pray. This request was granted. The little group formed a circle and prayed together. After about an hour the missionaries came forward, singing a hymn and saying they were ready. One by one, each adult was led to the mountain top and beheaded. The children were stabbed to death.

The bodies were put into a cogon thatched bamboo house that was then burned. There was evidence that although Mr. and Mrs. Covell had been murdered with the others, they seemed to have been treated somewhat differently. Mrs. Covell's body was wrapped, as if some soldiers had felt remorse and attempted to show special regard for her knowledge, and no doubt her respect, of their language and homeland.

LOVE LIVED OUT

When the news of the massacre reached America, the Covell children were shocked and saddened. Peggy, the older daughter, probably wondered what her father had prayed about during his last hour. Knowing of her father's love for the Japanese and disdain for war, she might have imagined that the foremost prayer on his lips was that peace would come to the world.

Peggy, a sociology major at Keuka College, was uniquely prepared to fill the role of Japanese speaking social worker in a Japanese relocation center in Colorado. Relocation centers housed Japanese Americans who had been interned at the outbreak of the war. Like her father, she loved the Japanese as sisters, brothers and friends.

FROM SUFFERING AND SACRIFICE COMES JOY

Even though the Covell children did not blame the Japanese people for the death of their parents, the fact that Peggy would serve at a Japanese relocation center made a big impression on many Japanese who heard the story.

One Japanese prisoner of war heard about Peggy's work and was deeply moved by her great spirit of love in spite of what had happened to her parents. When he returned to Japan after the war, he spoke to an old friend, Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, about what he had heard. Captain Fuchida was the Japanese Naval pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was wrestling with his memories of the war now that it was over, and this forced him to contemplate the meaning of his life. The returned soldier [actually a sailor, Lt. Kazuo Kanegasaki] told Capt. Fuchida the story of the Covell family and about Peggy's work in the Japanese relocation center. In his mind her work was a symbol of great love and forgiveness.

Captain Fuchida couldn't comprehend the meaning of what he had just heard and thought about it often. Soon thereafter, he bought a Bible and began reading it for himself. On those pages he soon found the same kind of forgiveness his friend had heard about in the life of the Covells. He gave his life to the Lord and declared it publicly on the streets of Osaka.

Many Filipinos who protected their American sisters and brothers went on to become strong leaders in the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches. They became pastors, teachers and engineers; one became the general secretary of the Convention. For each of them the suffering and sacrifice of their American friends became a deep inspiration for their service to God.

A passage from CHRIST AND THE FILIPINO SOUL by the Rev. Henry W. Munger describes well the effect the martyrdom of the American Baptist missionaries at Hopevale continues to have on generations of Filipino and American Christians. He writes, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. The devoted band of missionaries who crowned their years of sacrificial service with the gift of their lives have not died in vain. They challenge us to match their sacrifices with ours, to carry on the work they were doing, to take up the torch they threw down, and to hold it high."

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References:

"Covell NHK Broadcast/ Story," by Hisayoshi Saito: James Covell

"I Led the Attack on Pearl Harbor," Decision, December, 1991,

Mitsuo Fuchida/John A. Barbour

"Hopevale - From Life To LIFE" and "Hopevale Revisited" by

Laura Lee Marques, 1990

Information from David Covell and Alice Covell Bender, 1997

Roberta Stephens is an American Baptist missionary in Japan and Ann Borquist is a former American Baptist missionary to the Philippines.

[Dan O. Yoshii, a Baptist Christian who was born in a Japanese Relocation Camp during the war, has done extensive research on this story to find how Fuchida became connected with Peggy Covell - it was not as direct as many accounts suggest. Professor Katherine Scott Sturdevant of Pikes Peak Community College is also researching it. If anyone has personal knowledge of the Covell/Kanegasaki/Fuchida connection, please contact Prof. Sturdevant at Katherine.Sturdevant@ppcc.edu]

For many months, our ministry team joined thousands of believers around the world in praying for the release of missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham. Philippine rebels had kidnapped them from a resort where they were celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary and held them for ransom for more than a year. Well, when a Philippine army unit moved in to rescue the hostages, Martin Burnham was killed by a stray bullet and Mrs. Burnham was wounded. For both of them, a terrible ordeal ended in the jungle that night. Gracia went home to America, and Martin went home to heaven. At his memorial service, it was reported that the last thing the couple did before the raid was to pray together. Mr. Burnham told his wife, "We might not leave this jungle alive, but at least we can leave this world serving the Lord with gladness. We can serve Him right here, where we are, and with gladness." Wow!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Joy In The Jungle."

Other hostages testified to how Martin Burnham had lived that out. Chained each night to a tree by a guard, he made it a point to thank the guard and wish him a good night. He offered to carry belongings ... not only for other hostages, but for his captors. And he initiated many discussions with the rebels, including their leader, about Christian faith and principles.

You know, we all have things in our environment that are unpleasant - people that irritate or hurt us, circumstances that get us down, little injustices, stubborn problems. But when we look at the grace that God gave Martin Burnham - and we know we have access to that same grace - I have to ask, "What's our excuse for a bad attitude?"

In Genesis 39, beginning in verse 20, our word for today from the Word of God, we see a Biblical model of capturing your environment instead of letting your environment capture you. Joseph has been sold into slavery by his own brothers and bought by a major Egyptian military leader. Joseph does such a good job in that household that he is put in charge of everything there, but then he's accused by his master's wife of something he did not do and he's thrown into the king's prison. The Bible says, "But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him." Again, he is so responsible in that prison now that he is again put in charge.

And when two of the prisoners, former officials of the king, are troubled by prophetic dreams, the Bible says, "When Joseph came to them the next morning, he saw that they were dejected. So he asked, 'Why are your faces so sad today?'" Notice - he's in prison for something he hasn't done. But he's not all grumpy and pity-partying - he's looking for people he can help. Just like a missionary hostage who made up his mind he was going to make that jungle the best place it could possibly be - that he was going to be all about other people instead of being all about himself and he would serve the Lord with gladness until the day he died.

Well, it's that kind of attitude that's going to enable you to have joy in the jungle that you're in right now - being all about your Lord and all about other people. If you belong to Jesus, there is nothing in your situation that can ever justify or excuse a negative attitude! If a missionary hostage could serve the Lord with gladness where he was, surely you can serve the Lord with gladness where you are. There are always people who need you. There's always a word for Jesus to be spoken. There's always a difference to be made - no matter what the circumstances!

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Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

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