The kingdom of God - 6C - Missions

SERMON TOPIC: The kingdom of God - 6C - Missions

Speaker: Gavin Paynter

Language: ENGLISH

Date: 14 December 2008

Topic Groups: PROPHECY, MISSIONS, KINGDOM OF GOD

Sermon synopsis: What are the characteristics of those who keep the 'Great Commission' of Jesus? The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. So how will they hear the gospel unless we respond to the call - to send and support workers, to go ourselves, and to translate the Bible into the common tongue of the unreached?
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The 7 parables of

the kingdom - Part 6C

The Pearl of great price

Matt 13:45-46 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

Jesus taught 7 consecutive ‘kingdom’ parables in Matthew 13. The parables, if understood, reveal the secrets of “knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 13:11).

The 7 parables refer to 7 church ages. Like the other kingdom parables, the “Pearl of Great Price” parable also represents a period in Church history from approximately AD 1700 to 1900, which can be classified as the “Missionary Church”.

No.

PARABLE

+/ - PERIOD

CHURCH AGE

1

The Sower

AD 30 – 100

Apostolic Church

2

The Wheat and Weeds

AD 100 – 300

Persecuted Church

3

The Mustard Seed

AD 300 – 600

State Church (Constantine)

4

The Leaven

AD 600 – 1500

Papal Church (Roman Catholic)

5

The Hidden Treasure

AD 1500 – 1700

Reformation Church (Protestant)

6

The Pearl of Great Price

AD 1700 – 1900

Missionary Church

The Seven Church Ages

Impact on

culture

Matt 5:13-16 You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

We should not ask, “What is wrong with the world?” for that diagnosis has already been given. Rather, we should ask, “What has happened to the salt and light?” (John Stott)

1 Pet 2:12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

The salt & light

Historian Robert Fogel identifies numerous reforms in the period of the 3rd Great Awakening, especially the battles involving child labour, compulsory elementary education and the protection of women from exploitation in factories. In addition there was a major crusade for the prohibition of alcohol. 1

Christian based reform was also responsible for addressing the issues of feeding the poor, the abolition of slavery, and the establishment of orphanages, schools, hospitals and prisons.

The YMCA 3 became a force in many cities, as did denominational youth groups such as the Epworth League (Methodist) and the Walther League (Lutheran). 1

Primarily because of the China Inland Mission’s campaign against the Opium trade, Hudson Taylor has been referred to as one of the most significant Europeans to visit China in the 19th Century. 2

1 Source: Wikipedia 2 Source: Wapedia 3 The YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) began among evangelicals and was founded in London in 1844, by a young man named George Williams. At the time, the organization was dedicated to putting Christian principles into practice. Young men who came to London for work were often living in squalid and unsafe conditions, and the YMCA was dedicated to replacing life on the streets with prayer and Bible study.

Impact on culture

While involved in the slave trade along the West coast of Africa, in 1747 the ship John Newton was on encountered a storm which nearly swamped it. Only by God’s grace were they able to limp back to land. During this storm Newton was awakened to the Gospel and he later became a Church of England pastor, who is best remembered for writing the words to ‘Amazing Grace.’

John Newton lived to be 82 years old and continued to preach and have an active ministry until beset by fading health in the last 2 years of his life. Even then, Newton never ceased to be amazed by God’s grace and told his friends: “My memory is nearly gone; but I remember 2 things; That I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour.” 2

“When I get to heaven, I shall see 3 wonders there. The first wonder will be to see many there whom I did not expect to see; the second wonder will be to miss many people who I did expect to see; and the third and greatest of all will be to find myself there.”

1 “Great Missionaries: members.aol.com 2 www.wholesomewords.org

Amazing Grace

John Newton (1725-1807)

Abolition of slavery

John Newton influenced William Wilberforce, a young British politician who was the chief instrument in banning slavery from the British empire.

When General Charles Gordon went to Sudan, 7 out of every 8 black people in Sudan were slaves. Gordon was a dedicated evangelical Christian who succeeded in setting many slaves free and eradicating the slave trade in Sudan. 1

David Livingstone raised in Europe so powerful a feeling against the slave trade that through him slavery may be considered as having received its death blow. 2

1 www.higherpraise.com 2 Source: www.christian- action.org.za

William Wilberforce (1759 -1833)

Charles Gordon (1833 - 1885)

Abolition of slavery

The young Scottish missionary, Alexander Mackay, was eager to win as a Christian the powerful King M’tesa, who ruled over Uganda. Soon after his arrival at the capital, he wrote in his diary of an important appearance at the king’s court: “Sunday, January 26, 1879. Held service in court. Read Matthew 11:1-30, about Jesus and John the Baptist. The spirit of God seemed to be working. I never had such a blessed service.” 1

Mackay’s favourite Bible character was John the Baptist, and he revelled in Matthew 3:3 and other passages which tell of the prophet’s commission to prepare the way for the coming of the Saviour. As announced by John the Baptist himself, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” (Matthew 3:3) 1

To King M’tesa the missionary said: “When, in ancient days, the people failed to keep the commandments of God and continued in their sinful ways, God determined to send His only Son to earth to redeem sinners and sent John the Baptist to prepare the people for His coming. I am here, O King, to prepare a way for the coming of God’s Son and I want you to join me in pointing the people of this land to the Lamb of God, who alone can take away the sin of the world.” 1

1 Source: wholesomewords.org

The missionary, however, was not the only person who appeared before the king and his chiefs. In walked a tall, swarthy Arab in flowing robes and a red fez, followed by a number of black men, who deposited on the floor their bales of cloth and guns. “I have come,” said the Arab, pointing to the bales on the floor, “to exchange these things for men and women and children. I will give you one of these links of red cloth for one man, one of these guns for 2 men and 100 of these percussion caps for one woman.” 1

McKay knew that the king was accustomed to selling his own people, as well as captives, as slaves. He could see that the king was especially eager for the guns and ammunition, for they would enable him to conquer and enslave his enemies. Should he risk the king’s disfavour, and even hazard his own life, by opposing this traffic in human lives? He remembered that, though it cost him his head, John the Baptist did not hesitate to reprove a king. 1 1 Source: wholesomewords.org

Abolition of slavery

Alexander Mackay (1849-1890)

Abolition of slavery

Nerved by this courageous example, he declared: “O King M’tesa, the people of this land made you their king and look to you as their father. Will you sell your children, knowing that they will be chained, put into slave-sticks, beaten with whips; that most of them will die of mistreatment on the way and the rest be taken as slaves to some strange country? Can you be a party to these crimes, even for the sake of some guns? Will you sell scores or hundreds of your people, or your captives, whose bodies are so marvelously created of God, for a few bolts of red cloth which any man can make in a few days?” 1

The Arab slave-dealer scowled. No man had ever dared talk to the king like this before and the chiefs stirred uneasily, wondering if M’tesa would imprison the bold foreigner or perhaps put him to death. Instead, he dismissed the angry Arab and announced, “The white man is right. I shall no more sell my people as slaves.” 1

With joyful, grateful heart the missionary went to his hut. Later the same day he wrote in his diary: “Afternoon. The King sent a message with present of a goat, saying it was a blessed passage I read today.” “A blessed passage!” agreed Mackay, to whom the passage had long been a favorite. Indeed, the purpose of his life, as he conceived it, was to be a Christian road-maker, preparing a way for the coming of Christ. 1 1 Source: wholesomewords.org

Robert Raikes was an Anglican layman who initiated the Sunday School Movement. He had inherited a business from his father and initially covered most of the costs himself. The movement started in 1780 with a school for boys (and later girls too) in the slums. Raikes had been involved with those incarcerated at the county Poor Law (part of the jail at that time) and saw that crime would be better prevented than cured. He saw schooling as the best intervention. The best available time was Sunday as the boys were often working in the factories the other 6 days. The best available teachers, were lay people. The textbook was the Bible, and the curriculum included learning to read. 1

By 1831, Sunday School in Great Britain was ministering weekly to 1,250,000 children, approximately 25% of the population. As these schools preceded the first state funding of schools for the common public, they are sometimes seen as a forerunner to the current English school system. 1 1 Source: Wikipedia

Sunday School

Robert Raikes (1736–1811)

Prussian-born George Müller’s early life was not marked by righteousness - on the contrary, he was a thief, liar and gambler. While his mother was dying, he, at 14 years of age, was playing cards with friends and drinking. 1 Müller’s worldly-minded father hoped to provide him with a religious education that would allow him to take a lucrative position as a clergyman in the state church. While studying divinity at university a friend invited him to attend Christian house meetings, where he was born again. 2

Müller, who initially came to England as a missionary, moved to Bristol in 1832 to begin working at Bethesda chapel. He continued preaching there until his death, even while devoted to his other ministries. 2

The work of Müller and his wife with orphans began in 1836 with the preparation of their own home in Bristol for the accommodation of 30 girls. Soon after, 3 more houses were furnished, growing the total of children to 130. In 1845, as growth continued, Müller decided that a separate building designed to house 300 children was necessary, and in 1849, at Ashley Down, Bristol, that home opened. By 1870, more than 2,000 children were being accommodated in 5 homes. Every morning after breakfast there was a time of Bible reading and prayer, and every child was given a Bible upon leaving the orphanage. 2 1 Source: J. Gilchrist Lawson 2 Source: Wikipedia

Orphanages

William Booth was a British Methodist preacher who founded the Salvation Army in 1865 and became the first General. This Christian movement, with a quasi-military structure and government - but with no physical weaponry, has spread from London, England, to many parts of the world and is known for being one of the largest distributors of humanitarian aid.

Booth described the organizations approach: “The three S’s best expressed the way in which the Army administered to the ‘down and outs’: first, soup; second, soap; and finally, salvation.” 1

William preached to the poor, and Catherine Booth spoke to the wealthy, gaining financial support for their work. The Salvation Army’s main converts were at first alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes and other ‘undesirables’ of society. These ‘undesirables’ were not welcomed into polite Christian society, which prompted the Booths to start their own church. 1

1 Source: Wikipedia

Caring for the poor

William Booth (1829–1912)

The 6th

kingdom age -

Missions &

Evangelism

The Great Commission

In what is known as “The Great Commission”, after his resurrection Jesus, on various occasions, instructed His disciples:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matt 28:18-20)

“Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned…” Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it. (Mark 16:15-20)

“This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:46-47)

“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” (John 20:21)

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

Love

Faithfulness

People of action

People of Prayer

Faith

Passion for the lost

Joy

Characteristics of

those who keep the

Great Commission

As the Father has sent me, I am sending you

“Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love.” (Roland Allen, Missionary to China & Kenya)

Mary Slessor (1848-1915) spent 40 years in Calabar and became known as ‘The White Queen Of Calabar.’ In this land there was a wicked custom of murdering twin babies as they were considered to be bad luck. Mary stepped in to prevent their murder and personally raised many of these twins herself. 1

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” (Elie Wiesel – Holocaust survivor & author)

1 Source: www.middletownbiblechurch.org

1) Love

Roland Allen (1868-1947)

Irish missionary, Amy Carmichael opened an orphanage in India and founded a mission which became a sanctuary for over 1000 children who would otherwise have faced a bleak future. 1

“You can give without loving. But you cannot love without giving.” That is what Amy used to say, and she lived it. Lived it so deeply it could get her into lots of trouble. One time it seemed sure Amy Carmichael would be arrested and thrust inside an Indian prison on kidnapping charges. And technically Amy was a kidnapper. Many times over in fact! 13 years earlier, in 1901, Amy sheltered her first temple runaway. 2

1 Source: Wikipedia 2 Christian History Institute

Amy Carmichael

1) Love

Temple children were young girls dedicated to the gods and forced into prostitution to earn money for the priests. Over the years, Amy had rescued many children, often at the cost of extreme exhaustion and personal danger. 1

One of her recent rescues was 5-year-old Kohila. Kohila’s guardians wanted her back. Amy refused to return the little child to certain abuse. Instead, she made plans to cause the girl to ‘disappear’ to a safe place. Amy was too well known to spirit Kohila away herself. So she arranged for someone else to do it. The plot was discovered. Charges were brought against her. Thus Amy faced a 7 year prison term. 1

Amy did not go to prison. A telegram arrived on February 7, 1914, saying, “Criminal case dismissed.” No explanation was ever forthcoming, but those who know Amy’s Lord suspect He had a hand in the decision. 1 1 Christian History Institute

1) Love

Robert Morrison (1782-1834)

Robert Morrison was the first missionary to China. 7 years passed before he baptized his first convert and the total number of converts as a result of his work remained small.

“The ‘romance’ of a missionary is often made up of monotony and drudgery; there often is no glamour in it; it doesn’t stir a man’s spirit or blood … It’s not the flash in the pan but the steady giving forth of light, it’s shining on and on that we need out here. Our job is to make all hear the Word. God’s job is to give penetration to His Word.” (C.T. Studd)

2) Faithfulness

2) Faithfulness

William Carey baptizes his first convert, Krishna Pal

Though it took Adoniram Judson 6 years for his first convert, within 2 years he had 18 baptized converts and a Burmese church started. 1 As he himself said, winning a convert in those regions was “like drawing the eye-tooth of a live tiger.” 2

William Carey spent 7 years in India before seeing his first convert. 3

1 Source: believersweb.org 2 middletownbiblechurch.org 3 Christian History Institute

In 1840 David Livingstone received his medical diploma and was ordained. The opium war shut him out of China where he had thought to go; but while waiting he met Dr. Moffat, who said he had seen in Africa “the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary had ever been.” “I will go at once to Africa,” said Livingstone. He returned, for one night, to his old home. The next morning at the family altar, David read Psalms 121 and 135, then prayed. Father and son walked together to Glasgow, Scotland, where they parted to meet no more till earth gives up her dead. 1

“Sympathy is no substitute for action.” (David Livingstone)

1 www.wholesomewords.org

3) People of action

David Livingstone (1813-73)

“Obedience to God’s will is the secret of spiritual knowledge and insight. It is not willingness to know, but willingness to DO (obey) God’s will that brings certainty.” (Eric Liddell, Scottish Olympic Champion 1 and Missionary to China)

“I would rather sail and hit a rock than sit and rot in dry dock.” (Dr. Lester Roloff 2)

“I like what I’m doing better than what you’re not doing.” (Dr. Charles Keen) 1 The 1981 film ‘Chariots of Fire’ commemorated the Olympic triumphs of Eric Liddell. 2 Roloff (1914-82) was an American fundamental Independent Baptist preacher, and founder of teen homes across the southern US.

3) People of action

Eric Liddell (1902 - 45)

“I am convinced that when we stand before God… we will discover that every soul ever brought to a knowledge of Christ was in some way related to intercessory prayer.” (Dick Eastman – author & president of Every Home for Christ)

“Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees.” (Hudson Taylor)

“The history of missions is the history of answered prayer. From Pentecost to the Haystack meeting in New England and from the days when Robert Morrison landed in China to the martyrdom of John and Betty Stam, prayer has been the source of power and the secret of spiritual triumph… It is the key to the whole mission problem. All human means are secondary.” (Samuel Zwemer, 1867-1952, American missionary)

“If you are sick, fast and pray; if the language is hard to learn, fast and pray; if the people will not hear you, fast and pray, if you have nothing to eat, fast and pray.” (Frederick Franson - a missionary sent out by D. L. Moody’s church in Chicago & the founder of TEAM)

“Prayer needs no passport, visa or work permit. There is no such thing as a ‘closed country’ as far as prayer is concerned… much of the history of mission could be written in terms of God moving in response to persistent prayer.” (Stephan Gaukroger - Senior Pastor of Goldhill Baptist Church)

4) People of Prayer

Hudson Taylor founded the China Inland Mission which was established on the principle of faith. No direct solicitation for funds was ever made - the missionaries were to look to God alone and not to men for their financial support. None of the workers was guaranteed any fixed salary. 1

“God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.” (Hudson Taylor)

Taylor spent 51 years in China. The society that he began was responsible for bringing over 800 missionaries to the country who began 125 schools and directly resulted in 18,000 Christian conversions, as well as the establishment of more than 300 stations of work with more than 500 local helpers in all 18 provinces.

“I have found that there are 3 stages in every great work of God; first, it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done.” (Hudson Taylor)

1 www.middletownbiblechurch.org/ missions

5) Faith

Hudson & Maria Taylor

On Hudson Taylor’s first trip to China the ship approached New Guinea and was just 30 miles off land. The Captain was troubled because a strong current was carrying the ship rapidly towards sunken reefs. As they drifted nearer to shore they could see the natives rushing about the sands and lighting fires every here and there. They were cannibals. Hudson tells what happened, “After standing together on the deck for some time in silence, the captain said to me, ‘Well, we have done everything that can be done; we can only await the (tragic) result.’ A thought occurred to me, and I replied, ‘No, there is one thing we have not done yet.’ ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘4 of us on board are Christians,’ I answered, ‘let us each return to his own cabin, and in agreed prayer ask the Lord to give us immediately a breeze.’” Hudson Taylor continues: “This they did. I had a good but very brief season in prayer and then felt so satisfied that our request was granted that I could not continue asking, and very soon went up again on deck.” Hudson then asked the officer who was standing there to let down the sail. “‘What would be the good of that?’ he replied. In just a few minutes the breeze had indeed come and the multitude of naked savages whom we had seen on the beach had no wreckage that night.”

5) Faith

“Few books on the subject of China missions were accessible to me. I learned, however, that the Congregational minister of my native town possessed a copy of Medhurt’s China, and I called upon him to ask a loan of the book. This he kindly granted, asking me why I wished to read it. I told him that God had called me to spend my life in missionary service in that land. ‘And how do you propose to go there?’ he inquired. I answered that I did not at all know; that it seemed to me probable that I should need to do as the 12 and the 70 had done in Judea – go without purse or scrip, relying on Him who had called me to supply all my need. Kindly placing his hand upon my shoulder, the minister replied, ‘Ah, my boy, as grown older you will get wiser than that. Such an idea would do very well in the days when Christ Himself was on earth, but not now.’ I have grown older since then, but not wiser. I am more than ever convinced that if we were to take the direction of our Master and the assurances He gave to His first disciples more fully as our guide, we should find them to be just as suited to our times as to those in which they were originally given.” (Hudson Taylor)

5) Faith

David Brainerd’s heart became burdened for the salvation of the Indians. At that time, there was almost no attempt being made to reach them. Church leaders argued whether they even possessed souls to be saved. Brainerd ignored their contempt and preached all along the eastern coast, traveling thousands of miles on horseback in all kinds of weather. 2

David’s first journey to the Forks of the Delaware to reach that ferocious tribe resulted in a miracle. Encamped at the outskirts of their settlement, he planned to enter their community the next morning to preach to them. Unknown to him, his every move was being watched by warriors who had been sent to kill him. “But when the braves drew closer to Brainerd’s tent, they saw the paleface on his knees. And as he prayed, suddenly a rattlesnake slipped to his side, lifted up its ugly head to strike, flicked its forked tongue almost in his face, and then without any apparent reason, glided swiftly away into the brushwood. ‘The Great Spirit is with the paleface!’ the Indians said; and thus they accorded him a prophet’s welcome.” 1

1 F.W. Boreham 2 www.swordofthelord.com

5) Faith

David Brainerd (1718-1747)

John Paton said he knew of 50 times when his life was in imminent danger and his escape was due solely to the grace of God. 1 Time and again the savages on Tanna lifted their guns to shoot him, or raised their axes to bash him in the head, but always they held back as if restrained by a greater power. 2 On one occasion savages surrounded the mission house and set fire to the church and the fence connecting the church and mission house. Paton ran out and tore up the burning fence, while savages raised their clubs and shouted, “Kill him!” At this moment a roaring sound came from the South as a tornado suddenly approached. The wind carried the flames away from the house. Had the wind come in the opposite direction Paton would have been consumed. It also brought with it a torrent of tropical rain which quenched the flames of the burning church. 1 The savages fled in terror. The next day, a sail appeared and the missionaries escaped on the boat. 2

1 Source: www.middletownbiblechurch.org/ missions 2 Christian History Institute

5) Faith

John Paton (1824-1907)

While travelling the back roads of Virginia, circuit rider Robert Sheffey (1820–1902) came upon a ‘moonshiner’ who made whiskey. Robert told the man that his ‘work’ was hurting many people, for when men get drunk, they beat their wife and children, they don’t work, and many other hurtful things happen that are not good. The man hit him for his effort. Robert got down on his knees before the Lord and prayed, “Lord cause a mighty oak tree to fall on this still, and break it into many pieces, Amen.” The moonshiner began to laugh, he said, “There ain’t any oak tree within 200 yards of this place!” That night, a storm came and lightning hit an oak tree high up in the mountain, above the moonshiners cabin. The oak, a very large one, came rolling down the mountain side and wrecked his still. Robert’s prayer was answered. Not only did the man not make any more whiskey; he instead turned to the Lord! 1

1 Source: www.matthew548.com

5) Faith

Once when she was about to visit the Buddhist village of Hirose in Japan, Amy Carmichael asked the Lord what she should ask of Him before she went. She felt impressed to pray for one soul. A young silk-weaver heard their message and became a Christian. Amy’s neuralgia kept her in bed for a month after that. But the next time she went out, she again felt she must pray, and the Lord told her to ask for 2 souls. The silk-weaver brought 2 friends, and they gave themselves to Jesus. 2 weeks later, Amy felt impressed to ask for 4 souls. This was more souls than many missionaries see won to Christ in a year. The visit went badly. Amy wondered if she hadn’t mistaken an arithmetical progression for the leading of the Lord. No one seemed interested in the gospel. Her interpreter Misaki San reminded Amy that the evening service still lay ahead. Not many came to the evening service. Those few seemed distracted. Amy was almost in tears. She wanted to run out, bury herself in the snow. Suddenly the spirit changed. A woman spoke up and asked the way to Christ, and then her son came in and committed himself to the new religion also. At the home of some Christians that evening another woman accepted Christ and the next morning a fourth. Again Amy was ill, this time for a month and a half. For 2 weeks the Lord impressed Amy that she should ask for 8 souls. The other missionaries chided her. “It is not faith,” they said, “but presumption.” 1

1 Christian History Institute

5) Faith

With astonishment, Amy heard them advise her just to pray for a blessing. “Then you won’t be disappointed.” Amy insisted that the Lord himself had wrestled with her. She was terrified, she said, and would never ask this in her own strength. An older missionary agreed with her. He read God’s promise from Jeremiah that nothing is too hard for the Lord. “Let us pray for her,” he said. Needless to say, 8 souls took the Christian way on that visit. 1

On another occasion, Amy Carmichael and Misaki San were asked to send the spirit of the fox out of a violent and murderous man. Village priests had tried their formulas and tortures without success. Trusting that the Lord could drive demons away, the 2 girls prayed and went boldly into the man’s room. As soon as they mentioned the name of Jesus, the man went into an uncontrollable rage. If he had not been tied, he would have leaped upon them. The 2 girls were thrust from the room. Perplexed, they soon recovered their confidence. They assured the man’s wife that they would pray until the spirit left and asked her to send a message when it was gone. Within an hour they had word. The next day, the man himself summoned them, and over the next few days they explained the way of Christ to him and he became a Christian. 1

1 Christian History Institute

5) Faith

Greatest of all George Müller’s undertakings was the erection and maintenance of the great orphanages at Bristol. He began the undertaking with only 2 shillings (50 cents) in his pocket; but in answer to prayer and without making his needs known to human beings, he received the means necessary to erect the great buildings and to feed the orphans day by day for 60 years. 2 Müller never made requests for financial support, nor did he go into debt, even though the 5 homes cost over £100,000 to build. 1

Since 1836, 23,000 children had been educated in the schools and many thousands had been educated in other schools at the expense of the orphanage. In 1834, Müller founded the Scripture Knowledge Institution for Home and Abroad. Not receiving government support and only accepting unsolicited gifts, this organization received and disbursed £1.5 million by the time of Müller’s death, primarily using the money for supporting the orphanages and distributing 64,000 Bibles, 85,000 Testaments and 29,000,000 religious books. Other expenses included the support of 150 missionaries, including Hudson Taylor. 2

1 Source: Wikipedia 2 Source: J. Gilchrist Lawson

5) Faith

The children at the orphanages didn’t go without meals, and Müller said that if they ever did, he would take it as evidence that the Lord did not will the work to continue. 1 Many times, he received unsolicited food donations only hours before they were needed to feed the children, further strengthening his faith in God. 2

Müller related: “It was time for breakfast at one of my orphanages in England and there was no food. Not only was there no food in the kitchen, but there was no money in the home’s account. A young girl whose father was a close friend of mine was visiting the home. I took her hand and said, ‘Come and see what our Father will do.’ In the dining room, long tables were set with empty plates and empty mugs. We sat down at the table with the others and I prayed, “Dear Father, we thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat.” At once, we heard a knock at the door. There stood the local baker. ‘Mr. Müller,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t sleep last night. Somehow, I felt you had no bread for breakfast, so I got up at 2 o’clock this morning and baked you some fresh bread. Here it is.’ Müller thanked him and gave praise to God. Soon, a second knock was heard. It was the milkman. His cart had broken down in front of the orphanage. He said he would like to give the children the milk so he could empty the cart and repair it.” 3

1 Source: J. Gilchrist Lawson 2 Wikipedia 3 www.sermonillustrations.com

5) Faith

At the age of 70, Müller began to make great evangelistic tours, preaching in the US, India, Australia, Japan, China, and nearly 40 other countries. He traveled over 200,000 miles, an incredible achievement for pre-aviation times. His language abilities allowed him to preach in English, French and German. He frequently spoke to as many as 4,500 or 5,000 persons. He continued his tours until he was 90 years of age. He estimated that during these 17 years of evangelistic work he addressed 3 million people. All his expenses were sent in answer to the prayer of faith. 1

D.L. Moody’s early work in the rough areas of Chicago, though so unselfish, had often to encounter opposition, abuse, and even threats of violence. Once his life was menaced in a hovel by 3 savage men. They gave him a chance to pray, however, and when he arose from his knees they had fled, being unable to resist the witness of the Spirit. 1

1 Source: Wikipedia & J. Gilchrist Lawson. 2 Source: www.wholesomewords.org

George Müller (1805–98)

5) Faith

“Once,” Moody said, “I received an invitation to be at the opening of a large billiard-hall. I suppose they thought it was a good joke to invite me. I went before the time came and asked the man if he meant it. He said yes. I asked him if I might bring a friend along. He said I might. I said, ‘If you say or do anything that will grieve my friend, I may speak to him during your exercises.’ They didn’t know what I meant, and knitted their brows and looked puzzled. At last he asked, ‘You are not going to pray, are you? We never want any praying here.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I never go where I cannot pray; but I’ll come round.’ ‘No,’ said he, ‘we don’t want you.’ ‘Well, I’ll come anyway, since you invited me,’ said I. But he rather insisted that I shouldn’t, and finally I told him: ‘We’ll compromise the matter. I won’t come if you will let me pray with you now.’ So he agreed to that, and I got down with one rum-seller on each side of me, and prayed that they might fail in their business, and never have any more success in it from that day. Well, they went on for about 2 months, and then, sure enough, they failed.” 1

1 Source: www.wholesomewords.org

5) Faith

When the Sanhedrin commanded Peter and John not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus, they replied, “… we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:20) Similarly Paul wrote that he was “compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16)

“Lost people matter to God and so they must matter to us.” (Keith Wright, former superintendent of the Kansas City District of the Church Of The Nazarene)

“Let my heart be broken with the things that break God’s heart.” (Bob Pierce, World Vision founder)

“If you found a cure for cancer, wouldn’t it be inconceivable to hide it from the rest of mankind? How much more inconceivable to keep silent the cure from the eternal wages of death.” (Dave Davidson)

David Brainerd:

“I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so that I could but gain souls to Christ.”

“Life itself appeared but an empty bubble, the riches, honours and enjoyments of it extremely tasteless. I longed to be entirely crucified to all things here below.”

6) Passion for the lost

“Watch out for teachers who preach all manner of insight, yet have no passion for the ends of the earth. When they say that it is ‘just not their ministry,’ they are people who have not seen the heart of God and who are not committed to the complete Lordship of Christ.” (John Willis Zumwalt, founder of Heart of God Ministries)

“I continually heard… the wail of the perishing heathen in the South Seas.” (John Paton, Missionary to the South Sea Islands)

“I am ready to burn out for God. I am ready to endure any hardship, if by any means I might save some. The longing of my heart is to make known my glorious Redeemer to those who have never heard.” (William Burns)

“I will place no value on anything I possess or anything I may do, except in relation to the Kingdom of Christ.” (David Livingstone)

“I am willing to go anywhere, at anytime, to do anything for Jesus.” (Luther Wishard)

John Wesley: “Give me 100 men who love only God with all their heart and hate only sin with all their heart, and we will shake the gates of hell and bring in the kingdom of God in one generation.” 2

2 Source: thinkexist.com

6) Passion for the lost

As a youth Amy Carmichael thought she was a Christian, but an evangelist showed her she needed a personal commitment. She gave her heart to Christ. Service to him became the centre and passion of her life. After 3 years of boarding school, Amy returned home because her parents no longer had the money to support her education. Mrs. Carmichael took 16 year old Amy out to buy a dress. Amy found a beautiful one - royal blue - but turned away from it. Her mother was surprised, but Amy explained that clothes were no longer as important to her as they once were now that Christ had given her new purpose in life. She would wait a year until her parents were better able to afford new clothes for her. She never got that dress, because the next year, Mr. Carmichael died unexpectedly. That was the year that Amy started classes and prayer groups for Belfast ragamuffins. She also began a Sunday work with the “shawlies.” These were factory girls so poor that they could not afford hats to wear to church and wore shawls instead. Respectable people didn’t want anything to do with them. Amy saw that they needed Christ just the same as their supposed ‘betters.’ Eventually so many shawlies attended Amy’s classes that she had to find a building large enough to hold 300 and more. 1

1 Christian History Institute

6) Passion for the lost

Amy suffered neuralgia, a disease of the nerves that made her whole body weak and achy and often put her in bed for weeks on end. Friends thought she was foolish when she announced she was going to be a missionary. They predicted that she would soon be back in England for keeps. But Amy was sure God had called her to go overseas. All of her life, she had been learning to listen to his voice. 1

The Carmichaels lost all their money through financial reverses and a change became necessary. Mrs. Carmichael decided to move to England and work for Uncle Jacob. Amy and another sister joined her. Uncle Jacob asked Amy to teach his mill workers about Christ. Amy threw herself into the work, living near the mill in an apartment infested with cockroaches and bed bugs. However, she was constantly sick with neuralgia and had to lie in bed for days at a time. It was clear she must give up the work. 1

It was at the Keswick Convention of 1887 that she heard Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission speak about missionary life. Soon afterward, she became convinced of her calling to missionary work. 2 For years, Amy wanted to be a missionary. Now this desire grew so strong it hurt. She prayed about it and wrote down the reasons she thought it couldn’t possibly be God’s intention. One of the first things on the list was her sickness. 1

1 Source: Christian History Institute 2 Wikipedia

6) Passion for the lost

But in her prayers she seemed to hear the Lord speak as if He were standing in her room, saying “Go.” “Surely, Lord, you don’t mean it,” she said. Again the voice said, “Go.” She agreed. But where should she go? And what about her widowed mother? She wrote to her mom. Mrs. Carmichael replied that the Lord had already spoken to her about it, and told her she must let Amy go. So for over a year Amy tried to find a place to go, but no one wanted her. 1

Nevertheless she set off for Japan in the company of 3 missionary ladies, a letter having been sent ahead offering her assistance to missionaries there. Tears scalded her as she sailed on March 3, 1893. 1

Amy had a constant passion to witness for Christ. On board the ship even the captain was converted to Christian faith after observing how cheerfully Amy faced the dirt and insects onboard. 1

In Japan her neuralgia became so bad that the doctor told her she must leave for a more suitable climate. She subsequently went to India. 1

Amy’s experiences were proof that the Lord truly is in charge of our lives. Even when she became permanently bedridden, God had plans for her. She wrote books that became a deep spiritual witness. 1

1 Source: Christian History Institute

6) Passion for the lost

Amy Carmichael:

“The saddest thing one meets is a nominal Christian.”

“Give me the love that leads the way, The faith that nothing can dismay, The hope no disappointments tire, The passion that will burn like fire. Let me not sink to be a clod; Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.”

Her example as a missionary inspired others (including Jim Elliot and his wife Elisabeth Elliot) to pursue a similar vocation. 1

1 Wikipedia

Amy Carmichael (1867–1951)

6) Passion for the lost

When after earnest prayer, Moody resolved to become a fulltime evangelist, he announced to his employer his decision and was asked in return how he was going to live. “God will provide for me,” he replied, “if he wishes me to keep on; and I shall keep on till I am obliged to stop.” So with a child-like trust in God, he set about his work. He had no home, and he was long content to use as a bed a bench in the room of the YMCA, while a dark coal closet under the stairs served him for praying in secret. His food was plain, and his expenses were less than the contributions forced upon him by his friends. The experience which led him to this work of self-consecration was narrated by him as follows: “I will tell you how I got my first impulse in this personal work for souls. I hadn’t got hold of the idea; there was no one to teach me, and I was going on with the general work of my school in 1860, when a man who was one of my Sunday school teachers came into my place of business one day, looking very ill. I asked him what was the matter, and he replied, ‘I have been bleeding at the lungs, and the doctors have given me up to die.’” 1

1 Source: www.wholesomewords.org

6) Passion for the lost

“‘But you are not afraid to die, are you?’ ‘No, I think not,’ he answered; ‘but there is my class. I must leave it, and there is not one of them converted.’ It was a class of young girls that gave me more trouble than any other class in the whole school; and he had hard work to get along with them. ‘Well,’ said I; ‘can’t you go and call on them before you go away?’ ‘No,’ he said; he was too weak to walk. So I went and got a carriage, and took him round to see those careless scholars. And he pleaded with them and prayed with them, one by one, to give their hearts to Christ. He spent 10 days at this work, and every one of that class was saved.” “The night before he left the city for his home at the East, where he was going to see his mother and to die, we got the teacher and the class together; and such a meeting I never saw on earth. He prayed and I prayed; and then the scholars of their own accord, without my asking them - I didn’t know they could pray - prayed for their teacher, and for themselves that they might all be kept in the way of life, and by-and-by all meet again in heaven. I have thanked God a thousand times for those 10 days of personal work.” 1 1 Source: www.wholesomewords.org

6) Passion for the lost

R.A. Torrey was Moody’s close friend and the first superintendent of Moody Bible Institute. One of the reasons that Torrey listed in his sermon, “Why God Used D.L. Moody” was Moody’s “consuming passion for the salvation of the lost”.

Moody made the resolution, shortly after he himself was saved, that he would never let 24 hours pass without speaking to at least one person about his soul. His was a very busy life, and sometimes he would forget his resolution until the last hour, and sometimes he would get out of bed, dress, go out and talk to someone about his soul. One night Moody was going home from his place of business. It was very late, and it suddenly occurred to him that he had not spoken to one single person that day about accepting Christ. He said to himself: “Here’s a day lost. I have not spoken to anyone today and I shall not see anybody at this late hour.” But as he walked up the street he saw a man standing under a lamppost. The man was a perfect stranger to him, though it turned out afterwards the man knew who Moody was. He stepped up to this stranger and said: “Are you a Christian?” The man replied: “That is none of your business, whether I am a Christian or not. If you were not a sort of a preacher I would knock you into the gutter for your impertinence.” Moody said a few earnest words and passed on.

6) Passion for the lost

The next day that man called upon one of Moody’s prominent business friends and said to him: “That man Moody of yours over on the North Side is doing more harm than he is good… He stepped up to me last night, a perfect stranger, and insulted me. He asked me if I were a Christian… He has got zeal without knowledge.” Moody’s friend sent for him and told him what the man had said. Moody went out of that man’s office somewhat crestfallen. He wondered if he were not doing more harm than he was good, if he really had zeal without knowledge… 1 Weeks passed by. One night Moody was in bed when he heard a tremendous pounding at his front door. He jumped out of bed and rushed to the door. He thought the house was on fire and that the man would break down the door. He opened the door and there stood this man. He said: “Mr. Moody, I have not had a good night’s sleep since that night you spoke to me under the lamppost, and I have come around at this unearthly hour of the night for you to tell me what I have to do to be saved.” Moody took him in and told him what to do to be saved. Then he accepted Christ, and when the Civil War broke out, he went to the front and laid down his life fighting for his country. 1 Torrey comments “it is far better to have zeal without knowledge than it is to have knowledge without zeal.” He talks of those who “give the preachers pointers” but “have so little zeal that they do not lead one soul to Christ in a whole year.”

6) Passion for the lost

Another night Moody got home and had gone to bed before it occurred to him that he had not spoken to a soul that day about accepting Christ. “Well,” he said to himself, “it is no good getting up now; there will be nobody on the street at this hour of the night.” But he got up, dressed and went to the front door. It was pouring rain. “Oh,” he said, “there will be no one out in this pouring rain. Just then he heard the patter of a man’s feet as he came down the street, holding an umbrella over his head. Then Moody darted out and rushed up to the man and said: “May I share the shelter of your umbrella?” “Certainly,” the man replied. Then Moody said: “Have you any shelter in the time of storm?” and preached Jesus to him. Oh, men and women, if we were as full of zeal for the salvation of souls as that, how long would it be before the whole country would be shaken by the power of a mighty, God-sent revival? 1

1 “Why God used D.L. Moody” - R.A. Torrey

6) Passion for the lost

Moody was a man on fire for God. Not only was he always “on the job” himself but he was always getting others to work as well. He once invited me down to Northfield to spend a month there with the schools, speaking first to one school and then crossing the river to the other. I was obliged to use the ferry a great deal; it was before the present bridge was built at that point. One day he said to me: “Torrey, did you know that that ferryman that ferries you across every day was unconverted?” He did not tell me to speak to him, but I knew what he meant. When some days later it was told him that the ferryman was saved, he was exceedingly happy. 1

One time he was going to Milwaukee, and in the seat that he had chosen sat a traveling man. Moody sat down beside him and immediately began to talk with him. “Where are you going?” Moody asked. When told the name of the town he said: “We will soon be there; we’ll have to get down to business at once. Are you saved?” The man said that he was not, and Moody took out his Bible and there on the train showed him the way of salvation. Then he said: “Now, you must take Christ.” The man did; he was converted right there on the train. 1 1 “Why God used D.L. Moody” - R.A. Torrey

6) Passion for the lost

Once, when walking down a certain street in Chicago, Moody stepped up to a man, a perfect stranger to him, and said: “Sir, are you a Christian?” “You mind your own business,” was the reply. Moody replied: “This is my business.” The man said, “Well, then, you must be Moody.” Out in Chicago they used to call him in those early days ‘Crazy Moody,’ because day and night he was speaking to everybody he got a chance to speak to about being saved. 1

On one occasion in Chicago Moody saw a little girl standing on the street with a bucket in her hand. He went up to her and invited her to his Sunday school, telling her what a pleasant place it was. She promised to go the following Sunday, but she did not do so. Moody watched for her for weeks, and then one day he saw her on the street again, at some distance from him. He started toward her, but she saw him too and started to run away. Moody followed her. Down she went one street, Moody after her; up she went another street, Moody after her, through an alley, Moody still following; out on another street, Moody after her; then she dashed into a saloon and Moody dashed after her. 2

1 Source: www.wholesomewords.org 2 “Why God used D.L. Moody” - R.A. Torrey

6) Passion for the lost

She ran out the back door and up a flight of stairs, Moody still following; she dashed into a room, Moody following; she threw herself under the bed and Moody reached under the bed and pulled her out by the foot, and led her to Christ. 1 He found that her mother was a widow who had once seen better circumstances, but had gone down until now she was living over this saloon. She had several children. Moody led the mother and all the family to Christ. Several of the children were prominent members of the Moody Church until they moved away, and afterwards became prominent in churches elsewhere. This particular child, whom he pulled from underneath the bed, was, when I was the pastor of the Moody Church, the wife of one of the most prominent officers in the church. Only 2 or 3 years ago, as I came out of a ticket office in Memphis, Tennessee, a fine-looking young man followed me. He said, “Are you not Dr. Torrey?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “I am so and so.” He was the son of this woman. He was then a traveling man, and an officer in the church where he lived. When Moody pulled that little child out from under the bed by the foot he was pulling a whole family into the Kingdom of God, and eternity alone will reveal how many succeeding generations he was pulling into the Kingdom of God. 1

1 “Why God used D.L. Moody” - R.A. Torrey

6) Passion for the lost

Ex-President Wilson said that he once went into a barber shop and took a chair next to the one in which D.L. Moody was sitting, though he did not know that Moody was there. He had not been in the chair very long before, as ex-President Wilson phrased it, he “knew there was a personality in the other chair,” and he began to listen to the conversation going on; he heard Moody tell the barber about the Way of Life, and President Wilson said, “I have never forgotten that scene to this day.” 1

When Dwight L. Moody was in London during one of his famous evangelistic tours, several British clergymen visited him. They wanted to know how and why this poorly educated American was so effective in winning throngs of people to Christ. Moody took the 3 men to the window of his hotel room and asked each in turn what he saw. One by one, the men described the people in the park below. Then Moody looked out the window with tears rolling down his cheeks. “What do you see, Mr. Moody?” asked one of the men. “I see countless thousands of souls that will one day spend eternity in hell if they do not find the Saviour.” Obviously, D. L. Moody saw people differently than the average observer does. And because he saw eternal souls where others saw only people strolling in a park, Moody approached life with a different agenda. 2

1 www.wholesomewords.org 2 forgivenmoments.blogspot.com

6) Passion for the lost

D. L. Moody:

“In Proverbs we read: ‘He that winneth souls is wise.’ If any man, women, or child by a godly life and example can win one soul to God, his life will not have been a failure. He will have outshone all the mighty men of his day, because he will have set a stream in motion that will flow on and on forever and ever.”

“If I know my own heart today, I would rather die than live as I once did, a mere nominal Christian, and not used by God in building up His kingdom. It seems a poor empty life to live for the sake of self. Let us seek to be useful. Let us seek to be vessels meet for the Master’s use, that God, the Holy Spirit, may shine fully through us.”

6) Passion for the lost

Ex-millionaire C.T. Studd said, “I cannot tell you what joy it gave me to bring the first soul to the Lord Jesus Christ. I have tasted almost all the pleasures that this world can give. I do not suppose there is one that I have not experienced, but I can tell you that those pleasures were as nothing compared to the joy that the saving of that one soul gave me.”

“At the moment I put the bread and wine into those dark hands, once stained with the blood of cannibalism, now stretched out to receive and partake the emblems and seals of the Redeemer’s love, I had a foretaste of the joy of glory that well nigh broke my heart to pieces. I shall never taste a deeper bliss, till I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus himself.” (John Paton, Missionary to the South Sea Islands)

7) Joy

“… there is the joy of one’s own salvation. I thought, when I first tasted that, it was the most delicious joy I had ever known, and that I could never get beyond it. But I found, afterward, there was something more joyful that, namely, the joy of the salvation of others.” (D.L. Moody)

In 1897, Samuel Zwemer and his wife and 2 daughters sailed to the Persian Gulf to work among the Muslims of Bahrain Their evangelism was largely fruitless. In July 1904, both the daughters, ages 4 and 7, died within 8 days of each other. Nevertheless, 50 years later Zwemer looked back on this period and wrote, “The sheer joy of it all comes back. Gladly would I do it all over again.” (Samuel Zwemer, Missionary to the Muslims of Saudi Arabia)

“Surely there can be no greater joy than that of saving souls.” (Lottie Moon, 1840–1912, Missionary to China)

7) Joy

The harvest is plentiful

The workers are few

How will they hear?

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THE PLEA

The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.

Matt 9:36-37 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”

“The 3.5 billion unreached people on earth would form a single file line that would stretch around the equator 25 times! Can you picture 25 lines of Christless people, trampling endlessly toward hell? Let that vision stay with you day and night.” (Larry Stockstill)

1) The harvest is plentiful

Matt 9:37 “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”

“Jesus was moved with compassion concerning the miseries of men. He saw them as lost, hungry, sick and bewildered. And just as His Father’s heart had been moved in love to send Christ into the world to redeem them, so our Lord’s own heart was moved in compassion toward them.” (G. Christian Weiss)

“Our God of Grace often gives us a second chance, but there is no second chance to harvest a ripe crop.” (Kurt von Schleicher)

“Last June at the mouth of the Congo there awaited a thousand prospectors, traders, merchants and gold seekers, waiting to rush into these regions as soon as the government opened the door to them, for rumour declared that there is an abundance of gold. If such men hear so loudly the call of gold and obey it, can it be that the ears of Christ’s soldiers are deaf to the call of God? Are gamblers for gold so many, and gamblers for God so few?” (C.T. Studd)

“If I had 1,000 lives, I’d give them all for China.” (Hudson Taylor)

This is not only our best shot at the global harvest; it’s our only shot. When it comes to your target and the direction of your life’s influence, aim well.

2) The workers are few

“No one has the right to hear the gospel twice, while there remains someone who has not heard it once.” (Oswald J. Smith)

“If 10 men are carrying a log - 9 of them on the little end and one at the heavy end - and you want to help, which end will you lift on?” (William Borden, as he reflected on the numbers of Christian workers in the U.S. as compared to those among unreached peoples in China.)

“Believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story.” (K.P. Yohannan, founder of Gospel for Asia Bible Society)

Jesus told the twelve, “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town.” (Matt 10:14)

“God requires no person to spend his or her life reiterating the gospel to people who will not receive it. He wants everyone to have an opportunity to hear. Then He would have us move on to other areas. The mistake of the church has been that she sits down to convert all the people in one country to the neglect of the great masses who have never had the chance to hear the gospel - not even once!” (A.B. Simpson)

2) The workers are few

We have eternity to tell of victories won for Christ, but we have only a few hours before sunset to win them.

“I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light.” (John Keith Falconer, 1886-1963, founder of the Keith-Falconer Mission)

“I believe that in each generation God has ‘called’ enough men and women to evangelize all the yet unreached tribes of the earth….Everywhere I go, I constantly meet with men and women who say to me, ‘When I was young, I wanted to be a missionary, but I got married instead.’ Or, ‘My parents dissuaded me,’ or some such thing. No, it is not God who does not call. It is man who will not respond!” (Isobel Kuhn, missionary to China & Thailand)

“We do not adequately confess Christ as the God of all men if we seek to be his witnesses only among our neighbours. We must seek at the same time to confess him to the ends of the earth.” (Leslie Newbigin)

“I am driven to keep going for Christ by the filling of the Holy Spirit and the knowledge that the harvest is not forever. It will soon be past.” (Bill Bright)

“We have the means of evangelizing our country, but they are slumbering in the pews of our churches.” (John Stott)

2) The workers are few

As Mary Slessor boarded the ship as a missionary to Calabar she saw that the cargo being loaded included barrels and barrels of whiskey. “How sad,” Mary thought, “Scotland is sending hundreds of barrels of whiskey to Africa, but only one missionary!” 1

“This generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of souls on the earth!” (Keith Green, 1953–1982, an American gospel singer)

“As we seek to find out why, with such millions of Christians, the real army of God that is fighting the hosts of darkness is so small, the only answer is – lack of heart. The enthusiasm of the kingdom is missing. And that is because there is so little enthusiasm for the King.” (Andrew Murray)

“If you want the Kingdom speeded, go out and speed it yourselves. Only obedience rationalizes prayer. Only missions can redeem your intercessions from insincerity.” (William Carey)

“We have a need for 200,000 new missionaries for a new millennium so that everyone in the world should receive the Gospel and that a church should be planted in every people group.” (George Verwer, founder of Operation Mobilization)

2) The workers are few

Rom 10:13-15 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

After the wonderful promise “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”, Paul asks 4 questions:

How can they call on the one they have not believed in?

How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?

How can they hear without someone preaching to them?

How can they preach unless they are sent?

“The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time.” (Carl F. H. Henry, 1913–2003, an American evangelical Christian theologian who served as the first editor-in-chief of the magazine Christianity Today)

“Today 5 out of 6 non-Christians in our world have no hope unless missionaries come to them and plant the church among them.” (David Bryant)

3) How will they hear?

Untold millions remain untold.

“We talk of the Second Coming; half the world has never heard of the first.” (Oswald J. Smith)

In 1843 Livingstone visited the chief Sechéle, whose child he treated successfully. Some of the questions of this chief were difficult to answer: “Since it is true that all who died unforgiven are lost forever, why did your nation not come to tell us of it before now! My ancestors are all gone, and none of them knew anything of what you tell me. How is this?”

3) How will they hear?

“Behind the shameful apathy and lethargy of the church, that allows one thousand million… human beings to go to their graves in ignorance of the Gospel, there lies a practical doubt, if not denial, of their lost condition.” (A.T. Pierson, co-founder of the SVM and AIM)

“I meet a good many people who say to me, ‘I cannot believe that the heathen are lost, because they have not heard the Gospel’; and I fully agree with them. I believe they are lost, because they are now in sin and go on in sin. It is not a delusion as to whether people will be lost. We are lost, because it is a state of nature. The unconverted are lost already, but they can learn that Jesus Christ came to seek and to save, not those who are in danger of being lost, but those that are lost.” (Hudson Taylor)

“Men are in this plight, not because they are unevangelized, but because they are men. Sin is the destroyer of the soul and the destruction of the knowledge of God which is life. And it is not the failure to have heard the Gospel which makes men sinners. The Gospel would save them if they heard it and accepted it, but it is not the ignorance or rejection of the Gospel which destroys them, it is the knowledge of sin.” (Robert E. Speer)

“Someone asked ‘Will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved?’ It is more a question with me whether we - who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not - can be saved.” (C. H. Spurgeon)

3) How will they hear?

“I would never have thought of going out to China had I not believed that the Chinese were lost and needed Christ.” (Hudson Taylor)

Similar convictions were shared by Carey, Judson, Livingstone, Martyn, Brainerd, and many others. Indeed, the singular success which attended their missionary careers can only be interpreted in the light of their belief in the lost condition of the heathen, and the compulsion that was laid upon them to put forth their best efforts to take the Gospel to lost and dying men. Were they mistaken in their belief? Did they misread the Scriptures? Has further evidence been adduced to disprove their convictions? 1

“It is to be kept in mind that the generations of men do not wait for the convenience of the church in respect to their evangelization. Men are born and die whether or not Christians are ready to give them the Gospel. And hence, if the church of any generation does not evangelize the heathen of that generation, those heathen will never be evangelized at all. It is always true in the work of evangelization that the present can never anticipate the future, and that the future can never replace the past. What is to be done in soul saving must be done by that generation.” (J. Oswald Sanders, director of the OMF, formerly China Inland Mission)

1 Biblical School of World Evangelism - Missions Quotes

3) How will they hear?

“There are individuals ripe to receive the Lord in the most resistant and hostile situations. We must take the Gospel to them.” (Virgil Amos)

“How do Christians discharge this trust committed to them? They let three-fourths of the world sleep the sleep of death, ignorant of the simple truth that a Saviour died for them. Content if they can be useful in the little circle of their acquaintances, they quietly sit and see whole nations perish for the lack of knowledge.” (Adoniram Judson, Missionary to Burma, present-day Myanmar)

“You would believe in pioneer missions if your family were part of an unevangelized people group.” (Norm Lewis, missionary to Argentina for 15 years, author of ‘Triumphant Missionary Ministry in the Local Church’)

Do we pray, ‘Thy Kingdom come,’ but never say, ‘Here am I, Lord, send me’?

3) How will they hear?

Rom 10:17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

We saw in our last study how the spread of Christianity correlated with the translation of the Scripture into the native language of the people being evangelised.

“380 million people still do not have the first verse of Scripture.” (Wycliffe Bible Translators)

“The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner.” (William Cameron Townsend)

“Why doesn’t your God speak my language?” (Guatemalan Indian to Cam Townsend, founder Wycliffe Bible Translators)

a) Bible translation

It is imperative that those serving God at home or abroad have the support (prayer, encouragement & financial) of a home-base church.

Rom 10:14-15 And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?

In the first missions-based church, God called Paul and Barnabas, but instructed the church to send them.

Acts 13:1-3 In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers… While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

Robert Wilder brought a burning message on “Go into all the world” where he said that he had learned from a certain Christian woman the wonderful secret of how to work for Christ 24 hours a day and to keep on doing so all the year round. When asked how it was possible, she replied: “I work 12 hours and when I have to rest, my representative in India, whom I support, begins her day and works the other 12.” Wilder urged those who could not go to the foreign field to support a representative and thus work 24 hours a day for Christ.

b) Send = Support

Matt 10:5-8 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “… Freely you have received, freely give.”

“Not every believer has the missionary gift, but every Christian is called to some kind of involvement in missions. We are called to advance the gospel in some way and to participate in the fulfilling of God’s purposes in our generation.” (David Shibley)

Rom 12:6-8 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift… is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously…

“To understand the role of mobilizers, think of World War II as a parallel. Only 10% of the American population went to the war. Of those, only 1% were actually on the firing lines. However, for them to be successful in their mission, the entire country had to be mobilized!” (Phil Parshall)

“No local church can afford to go without the encouragement and nourishment that will come to it by sending away its best people.” (David Penman)

“If you want to go fast, go alone: if you want to go far, go together.” (African Proverb)

b) Send = Support

Paul told the Ephesian elders, “In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (Acts 20:35)

Oswald J. Smith (1889-1986), Canadian pastor & evangelist, raised some $14 million for foreign missions, more than any other pastor in history. Half of this was from his own church. Smith said:

“The church that does not evangelize will fossilize.”

"You must go or send a substitute.”

“Oh my friend let me urge you in the few short years that remain, to turn from everything else, to bend every effort to send out the Gospel, for this is the one and only task that Jesus left His church to do. This and this alone is the most important work of the hour. Are we doing it?”

“It is not in our choice to spread the gospel or not. It is our death if we do not.” (Peter Taylor Forsyth, 1848-1921, a Scottish theologian.)

“The Church must send or the church will end.” (Mendell Taylor, former Dean and Professor of History at Bethany Nazarene College)

b) Send = Support

Matt 9:37-38 “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

“In no other way can the believer become as fully involved with God’s work, especially the work of world evangelism, as in intercessory prayer.” (Dick Eastman, president of Every Home for Christ)

“We can reach our world, if we will. The greatest lack today is not people or funds. The greatest need is prayer.” (Wesley Duewel, head of OMS International)

“If missions languish, it is because the whole life of godliness is feeble. The command to go everywhere and preach to everybody is not obeyed until the will is lost by self-surrender in the will of God. Living, praying, giving and going will always be found together.” (Arthur T. Pierson, former lecturer at Moody Bible Institute & lecturer on missions in prominent evangelical colleges in England and Scotland.)

b) Support = Prayer

“Every step in the progress of missions is directly traceable to prayer.” (A.T. Pierson)

“In our lifetime, wouldn’t it be sad if we spent more time washing dishes or swatting flies or mowing the yard or watching television than praying for world missions?” (Dave Davidson)

“A little prayer, little power; no prayer, no power.” (A Chinese Christian motto)

“Satan will always find you something to do when you ought to be occupied about that (prayer and Bible study), if it is only arranging a window blind.” (Hudson Taylor)

b) Support = Prayer

“The only heroes who operate alone are figures of fiction. The true stories of accomplishment and significance always unfold as stories of teamwork. In Christ, one’s life fame and self-importance for God-granted greatness and blessing is by walking in partnership with others.” (Steve Hawthorne, Founder/ Director of WayMakers and Perspectives Author)

Missionaries do get discouraged:

“I pray that no missionary will ever be as lonely as I have been.” (Lottie Moon, missionary to China)

“I had feelings of fear about the future… The devil kept on whispering, ‘It’s all right now, but what about afterwards? You are going to be very lonely’ … And I turned to my God in a kind of desperation and said, ‘Lord, what can I do? How can I go on to the end?’ And He said, ‘None of them that trust in Me shall be desolate.’ That word has been with me ever since.” (Amy Carmichael)

Even the apostle Paul appreciated encouragement while on his missionary journeys, writing “But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming but also by the comfort you had given him.” (2 Cor 7:6-7)

b) Support = Encouragement

“A person must overeat by at least $2 worth of food per month to maintain one excess pound of flesh. Yet $2 per month is more than what 90% of all Christians in America give to missions. If the average mission supporter is only 5 pounds overweight, it means he spends (to his own hurt) at least 5 times as much as he gives for missions. If he were to choose simple food (as well as not overeat), he could give 10 times as much as he does to missions and not modify his standard of living in any other way!” (Ralph Winter, Founder/ Director of the US Centre for World Missions)

“Some retorted upon me, `There are heathen at home; let us seek and save, first of all, the lost ones perishing at our doors.”’ We must evangelize our home front first, before we worry about the rest of the world. Aren’t there millions of sinners living all around us? Isn’t it logical and right to preach to them first?’ “This I felt to be most true, and an appalling fact; but I unfailingly observed that those who made this retort neglected those home heathen themselves. They would ungrudgingly spend more on a fashionable party at dinner or tea, on concert or ball or theatre, or on some ostentatious display, or worldly or selfish indulgence, ten times more, perhaps in a single day, than they would give in a year, or in half a lifetime, for the conversion of the whole heathen world, either at home or abroad.” (John Paton, Missionary from Scotland to the South Sea Islands)

b) Support = Financial

“Today Christians spend more money on dog food than missions.” (Leonard Ravenhill)

“No one can do everything, but everyone can do something; and together, we can change the world.” (Ron Sider, Author of Rich Christians in An Age of Hunger)

“God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, and unfed millions.” (John Piper)

God doesn’t bless us to increase our standard of living, God blesses us to increase our standard of giving.

“If God wills the evangelization of the world, and you refuse to support missions, then you are opposed to the will of God.” (Oswald J. Smith)

“Jesus will judge us not only for what we did, but also for what we could have done and didn’t.” (George Otis)

b) Support = Financial

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8)

“Oh, that I might be a flaming fire in the service of the Lord. Here I am, Lord, send me; send me to the ends of the earth… send me from all that is called earthly comfort; send me even to death itself if it be but in Thy service and to promote Thy Kingdom.” (David Brainerd)

After wrestling with deep doubts about going to the mission field, Amanda Smith said, “To stay here and disobey God - I can’t afford to take the consequence. I would rather go and obey God than to stay here and know that I disobeyed.” (Amanda Berry Smith, 1837–1915, a former slave who founded an Orphans’ Home for African-American children in Chicago.)

“As long as there are millions destitute of the Word of God and knowledge of Jesus Christ, it will be impossible for me to devote time and energy to those who have both.” (J.L. Ewen)

“The command has been to ‘go,’ but we have stayed - in body, gifts, prayer and influence.” (Robert Savage, Latin American Mission)

“We are debtors to every man to give him the gospel in the same measure in which we have received it.” (P.F. Bresee, founder of the Church of the Nazarene)

c) Go

“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.” (Charles Spurgeon)

“Let us not glide through this world and then slip quietly into heaven, without having blown the trumpet loud and long for our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Let us see to it that the devil will hold a thanksgiving service… when he gets the news of our departure from the field of battle.” (C.T. Studd)

c) Go

“If we have not enough in our religion to share it with all the world, it is doomed here at home.” (David Livingstone)

God can and will open doors:

“When God’s finger points, God’s hand will open the door.” (Clarence Jones)

“There are no closed doors to the gospel – provided that, once you get inside, you don’t care if you ever come out.” (Brother Andrew, founder of Open Doors)

c) Go

The call:

“It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home.” (Hudson Taylor)

“‘Not called!’ did you say? ‘Not heard the call,’ I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face – whose mercy you have professed to obey – and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.” (William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army)

“Why do you need a voice when you have a verse?” (Jim Elliot, honour student, all-star athlete, missionary martyred at age 28)

c) Go

On January 8, 1956 five young missionaries landed on a small beach on the Curaray River in the jungles of Ecuador. Their names were Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, Jim Elliot and Roger Youderian. 1 Other Indians feared the Aucas but the missionaries were determined to reach them. Said Elliot: “Our orders are: the Gospel to every creature.”

This was to be their second contact with the warlike Auca Indians. The first had been made 2 days earlier, and the Aucas had been cautious but friendly. This time, however, the savage Aucas attacked the missionaries without warning. All 5 were killed, and their plane destroyed. News of the slayings shocked the world, but caused Christians to earnestly pray for this needy tribe and for the other missionaries who now took up the task of reaching them. Other missionaries, including the widows of some of the 5 men who died, did reach the Aucas. Gradually, they realized that the missionaries had come to help them, and began to listen to the gospel of God’s love. 1

Since then the majority of this Auca tribe has turned to Christ, including 5 of the men who killed the missionaries. 2 of these former killers now minister the gospel to their tribe. On one day they baptized 2 of Nate Saint’s children in the Curaray River – at the very place where they had slain the missionaries 10 years earlier! 1 1 Source: www.middletownbiblechurch.org/ missions

5 Modern Missionary Martyrs

“The way I see it, we ought to be willing to die. In the military, we are taught that to obtain our objectives, we have to be willing to be expendable. Missionaries must face that same expendability.” (Nate Saint)

“I would rather die now than to live a life of oblivious ease in so sick a world.” (Nate Saint)

“God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like You, Lord Jesus.” (Jim Elliot)

5 Modern Missionary Martyrs

Steve Saint with 4 Waodani tribesman, 3 of whom were involved in spearing his father.

“He makes His ministers a flame of fire,” Elliot wrote while a student at Wheaton College. “Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of ‘other things.’ Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be aflame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this my soul—short life? In me there dwells the spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God’s house consumed Him.”

No fool

Jim Elliot (1927-56)

“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” (Jim Elliot)

“He makes His ministers a flame of fire,” Elliot wrote while a student at Wheaton College. “Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of ‘other things.’ Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be aflame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this my soul—short life? In me there dwells the spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God’s house consumed Him.”

No fool

Jim Elliot (1927-56)

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35)

“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” (Jim Elliot)

The harvest is plentiful

BUT

The workers are few

SO

How will they hear?

UNLESS

WE:

Translate Bibles

Send (Support)

Prayer

Encouragement

Financial

Go

APPENDICES

Appendix 1: George Müller

Appendix 2: Mission quotes

Appendix 3: John Newton

Appendix 4: All things to all men

Appendix 5: Amy Carmichael

Although George Müller became famous as one of the greatest men of prayer known to history, he was not always a saint. He wandered very deep into sin before he was brought to Christ. His father was a revenue collector for the government, and was a worldly-minded man. He supplied George and his brother with plenty of money when they were boys, and they spent it very foolishly. George deceived his father about how much money he spent, and also as to how he spent it. He also stole the government money during his father’s absence.

At 10 years of age, George was sent to the cathedral classical school at Halberstadt. His father wanted to make a Lutheran clergyman of him, not that he might serve God, but that he might have an easy and comfortable living from the State Church. “My time,” says he. “was now spent in studying, reading novels, and indulging, though so young, in sinful practices. Thus it continued until I was 14 years old, when my mother was suddenly removed. The night she was dying, I, not knowing of her illness, was playing cards until 2 in the morning, and on the next day, being the Lord’s day, I went with some of my companions in sin to a tavern, and then, being filled with strong beer, we went about the streets half intoxicated.”

Appendix 1: George Müller

“I grew worse and worse,” says he. “3 or 4 days before I was confirmed (and thus admitted to partake of the Lord’s supper), I was guilty of gross immorality; and the very day before my confirmation, when I was in the vestry with the clergyman to confess my sins (according to the usual practice), after a formal manner, I defrauded him; for I handed over to him only a twelfth part of the fee which my father had given me for him.”

A few solemn thoughts and desires to lead a better life came to him, but he continued to plunge deeper and deeper into sin. Lying, stealing, gambling, novel-reading, licentiousness, extravagance, and almost every form of sin was indulged in by him. No one would have imagined that the sinful youth would ever become eminent for his faith in God and for his power in prayer. He robbed his father of certain rents which his father had entrusted him to collect, falsifying the accounts of what he had received and pocketing the balance. His money was spent on sinful pleasures, and once he was reduced to such poverty that, in order to satisfy his hunger, he stole a piece of coarse bread, the allowance of a soldier who was quartered in the house where he was. In 1821 he set off on an excursion to Magdeburg, where he spent six days in “much sin.”

Appendix 1: George Müller

He then went to Brunswick, and put up at an expensive hotel until his money was exhausted. He then put up at a fine hotel in a neighboring village, intending to defraud the hotel-keeper. But his best clothes were taken in lieu of what he owed. He then walked 6 miles to another inn, where he was arrested for trying to defraud the landlord. He was imprisoned for this crime when 16 years of age.

After his imprisonment young Müller returned to his home and received a severe thrashing from his angry father. He remained as sinful in heart as ever, but in order to regain his father’s confidence he began to lead a very exemplary life outwardly, until he had the confidence of all around him. His father decided to send him to the classical school at Halle, where the discipline was very strict, but George had no intention of going there. He went to Nordhausen instead, and by using many lies and entreaties persuaded his father to allow him to remain there for 2 years and 6 months, till Easter, 1825. Here he studied diligently, was held up as an example to the other students, and became proficient in Latin, French, History, and his own language (German).

Appendix 1: George Müller

“But whilst I was outwardly gaining the esteem of my fellow-creatures, I did not care in the least about God, but lived secretly in much sin, in consequence of which I was taken ill, and for 13 weeks confined to my room. All this time I had no real sorrow of heart, yet being under certain natural impressions of religion, I read through Klopstock’s works, without weariness. I cared nothing about the Word of God.”

“Now and then I felt I ought to become a different person, and I tried to amend my conduct, particularly when I went to the Lord’s supper, as I used to do twice every year, with the other young men. The day previous to attending that ordinance I used to refrain from certain things, and on the day itself I was serious, and also swore once or twice to God with the emblem of the broken body in my mouth, to become better, thinking that for the oath’s sake I should be induced to reform. But after one or two days were over, all was forgotten, and I was as bad as before.”

He entered the University of Halle as a divinity student, with good testimonials. This qualified him to preach in the Lutheran state church. While at the university he spent all his money in profligate living. “When my money was spent,” says he, “I pawned my watch and part of my linen and clothes, or borrowed in other ways.”

Appendix 1: George Müller

“Yet in the midst of all this I had a desire to renounce this wretched life, for I had no enjoyment in it, and had sense enough left to see, that the end one day or other would be miserable; for I should never get a living. But I had no sorrow of heart on account of offending God.”

At the University he formed the acquaintance of a miserable backslider, named Beta, who was trying by means of worldly pleasures to drown out his conviction of sin. They plunged into sin together, and in June, 1825, George was again taken sick. After his recovery they forged letters purporting to be from his parents. With these they obtained passports and set out to see Switzerland. Müller stole from the friends who accompanied him and the journey did not cost him so much as it did them. They returned home to finish up the vacation and then went back to the University, Müller having lied to his father about the trip to Switzerland.

At the University of Halle there were about 900 divinity students. All of these were allowed to preach, but Müller estimates that not 9 of them feared the Lord. “One Saturday afternoon, about the middle of November, 1825,” says he, “I had taken a walk with my friend Beta. On our return he said to me, that he was in the habit of going on Saturday evenings to the house of a Christian, where there was a meeting.”

Appendix 1: George Müller

“On further inquiry he told me that they read the Bible, sang, prayed, and read a printed sermon. No sooner had I heard this, but it was to me as if I had found something after which I had been seeking all my life long. I immediately wished to go with my friend, who was not at once willing to take me; for knowing me as a merry young man, he thought I should not like this meeting. At last, however, he said he would call for me.”

Describing the meeting, Müller said: “We went together in the evening. As I did not know the manners of the brethren, and the joy they have in seeing poor sinners, even in any measure caring about the things of God, I made an apology for coming. The kind answer of this dear brother I shall never forget. He said: ‘Come as often as you please; house and heart are open to you.’”

After a hymn was sung they fell upon their knees, and a brother, named Kayser, who afterwards became a missionary to Africa, asked God’s blessing on the meeting. “This kneeling down made a deep impression upon me,” says Müller, “for I had never either seen any one on his knees, nor had I ever myself prayed on my knees. He then read a chapter and a printed sermon; for no regular meetings for expounding the Scriptures were allowed in Prussia, except an ordained clergyman was present. At the close we sang another hymn, and then the master of the house prayed.”

Appendix 1: George Müller

The meeting made a deep impression upon Müller. “I was happy, though if I had been asked why I was happy, I could not clearly have explained it. When we walked home, I said to Beta, all we have seen on our journey to Switzerland, and all our former pleasures, are as nothing in comparison with this evening. Whether I fell on my knees when I returned home I do not remember; but this I know, that I lay peaceful and happy in my bed. This shows that the Lord may begin his work in different ways. For I have not the least doubt that on that evening He began a work of grace in me, though I obtained joy without any deep sorrow of heart, and with scarcely any knowledge. But that evening was the turning point in my life. The next day, and Monday, and once or twice besides, I went again to the house of this brother, where I read the Scriptures with him and another brother; for it was too long for me to wait until Saturday came again. Now my life became very different, though not so, that my sins were all given up at once. My wicked companions were given up; the going to taverns was discontinued; the habitual practice of telling falsehoods was no longer indulged in, but still a few times more I spoke an untruth… I now no longer lived habitually in sin, though I was still often overcome and sometimes even by open sins, though far less frequently than before, and not without sorrow of heart.”

Appendix 1: George Müller

“I read the Scriptures, prayed often, loved the brethren, went to church from right motives and stood on the side of Christ, though laughed at by my fellow students.”

For a few weeks after his conversion Müller made rapid advancement in the Christian life, and he was greatly desirous of becoming a missionary. But he fell in love with a Roman Catholic girl, and for some time the Lord was well nigh forgotten. Then Müller saw a young missionary giving up all the luxuries of a beautiful home for Christ. This opened his eyes to his own selfishness and enabled him to give up the girl who had taken the place of Christ in his heart.

“It was at this time that I began to enjoy the peace of God, which passeth all understanding. In this my joy I wrote to my father and brother, entreating them to seek the Lord, and telling them how happy I was; thinking, that if the way to happiness were set before them, they would gladly embrace it. To my great surprise an angry answer was returned.”

George could not enter any German missionary training institution without the consent of his father, and this he could not obtain. His father was deeply grieved that after educating him so that he could obtain a comfortable living as a clergyman he should turn missionary.

Appendix 1: George Müller

George felt that he could no longer accept any money from him. The Lord graciously sent him means with which to complete his education. He taught German to some American college professors at the University, and they handsomely remunerated him for his services. He was now the means of winning a number of souls to Christ. He gave away thousands of religious tracts and papers, and spoke to many persons concerning the salvation of their souls.

Although, before his conversion, Müller had written to his father and told him about sermons he had preached, he never really preached a sermon until some time after his conversion. He thought to please his father by making him believe that he was preaching. His first sermon was a printed one which he had memorized for the occasion. He had but little liberty in preaching it. The second time he preached extemporaneously and had some degree of liberty. “I now preached frequently,” says he, “both in the churches of the villages and towns, but never had any enjoyment in doing so, except when speaking in a simple way; though the repetition of sermons which had been committed to memory brought more praise from my fellow creatures. But from neither way of preaching did I see any fruit. It may be that the last day will show the benefit even of those feeble endeavours.”

Appendix 1: George Müller

“One reason why the Lord did not permit me to see fruit, seems to me, that I should have been most probably lifted up by success. It may be also because I prayed exceedingly little respecting the ministry of the Word, and because I walked so little with God, and was so rarely a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the Master’s use.”

The true believers at the University increased from 6 to about 20 in number before Müller left. They often met in Müller’s room to pray, sing and read the Bible. He sometimes walked 10 or 15 miles to hear a really pious minister preach.

In 1827 Müller volunteered to go as a missionary pastor to the Germans at Bucharest, but the war between the Turks and Russians prevented this. In 1828, at the suggestion of their agent, he offered himself to the London Missionary Society as a missionary to the Jews. He was well versed in the Hebrew language and had a great love for it. The Society desired him to come to London that they might see him personally. Through the providence of God he finally secured exemption for life from serving in the Prussian army, and he went to England in 1829, at 24 years of age. He was not able to speak the English language for some time after he landed in England and then only in a very broken manner at first.

Appendix 1: George Müller

Soon after coming to England Müller received a deeper Christian experience which entirely revolutionized his life. “I came weak in body to England and in consequence of much study, as I suppose, I was taken ill on May 15, and was soon, at least in my own estimation, apparently beyond recovery. The weaker I got in body, the happier I was in spirit. Never in my whole life had I seen myself so vile, so guilty, so altogether what I ought not to have been, as at that time. It was as if every sin of which I had been guilty was brought to my remembrance; but at the same time I could realize that all my sins were completely forgiven - that I was washed and made clean, completely clean, in the blood of Jesus. The result of this was great peace. I longed exceedingly to depart and to be with Christ… After I had been ill about a fortnight my medical attendant unexpectedly pronounced me better. This, instead of giving me joy, bowed me down, so great was my desire to be with the Lord; though almost immediately afterwards grace was given me to submit myself to the will of God.”

That Müller always regarded the above experience as one which deepened his whole spiritual life is clearly shown by a letter of his which … says: “I became a believer in the Lord Jesus in the beginning of November, 1825, now 69 years and 8 months. For the first 4 years afterwards, it was for a good part in great weakness; but in July, 1829, now 66 years since, it came with me to an entire and full surrender of heart.”

Appendix 1: George Müller

“I gave myself fully to the Lord. Honours, pleasures, money, my physical powers, my mental powers, all were laid down at the feet of Jesus, and I became a great lover of the Word of God. I found my all in God, and thus in all my trials of a temporal and spiritual character, it has remained for 66 years. My faith is not merely exercised regarding temporal things, but regarding everything, because I cleave to the Word. My knowledge of God and His Word is that which helps me.”

Being advised to go into the country for his health, he prayed about it and finally decided to go. He went to Devonshire, where the great blessing he had already received was greatly augmented by his conversations and prayers with a Spirit-filled minister whom he first heard preach at Teignmouth. Through the conversations and sermons of this minister he was led to see as never before “that the Word of God alone is our standard of judgment in spiritual things; that it can be explained only by His Holy Spirit; and that in our day, as well as in former times, He is the teacher of His people. The office of the Holy Spirit I had not experimentally understood before that time,” says he. “The result of this was, that the first evening that I shut myself into my room to give myself to prayer and meditation over the Scriptures, I learned more in a few hours than I had done during a period of several months previously.”

Appendix 1: George Müller

Again, he says: “In addition to these truths, it pleased the Lord to lead me to see a higher standard of devotedness than I had seen before.”

On his return to London, Müller sought to lead his brethren in the training seminary into the deeper truths he had been brought to realize. “One brother in particular,” says he, “was brought into the same state in which I was; and others, I trust, were more or less benefited. Several times, when I went to my room after family prayer, I found communion with God so sweet that I continued in prayer until after 12, and then being full of joy, went into the room of the brother just referred to, and finding him also in a similar frame of heart, we continued praying until 1 or 2, and even then I was a few times so full of joy that I could scarcely sleep, and at 6 in the morning again called the brethren together for prayer.”

Müller’s health declined in London and his soul was also now on fire for God in such a way that he could not settle down to the routine of daily studies. His newly acquired belief in the near coming of Christ also urged him forward to work for the salvation of souls. He felt that the Lord was leading him to begin at once the Christian work he was longing to do, and as the London Missionary Society did not see proper to send him out without the prescribed course of training, he decided to go at once and trust the Lord for the means of support. Soon after this he became pastor of Ebenezer Chapel, Teignmouth, Devonshire.

Appendix 1: George Müller

His marriage to Miss Mary Groves, a Devonshire lady, followed. She was always of the same mind as her husband and their married life was a very happy one. Not long after his marriage he began to have conscientious scruples about receiving a regular salary, and also about the renting of pews in his church. He felt that the latter was giving the “man with the ring on his finger” the best seat, and the poorer brother the footstool, and the former was taking money from those who did not give “cheerfully” or “as the Lord had prospered them.” These 2 customs were discontinued by him. He and his wife told their needs to no one but the Lord. Occasionally reports were spread that they were starving; but though at times their faith was tried, their income was greater than before. He and his wife gave away freely all that they had above their present needs, and trusted the Lord for their "daily bread."

Müller preached in many surrounding towns, and many souls were brought to Christ in his meetings. In 1832 he felt profoundly impressed that, his work was ended in Teignmouth, and when he went to Bristol the same year he was as profoundly impressed that the Lord would have him work there. When the Spirit, the Word, and the providence of God agree, we may be quite certain that the Lord is leading us, for these three are always in harmony and cannot disagree.

Appendix 1: George Müller

Not only did Müller feel led of the Lord to work in Bristol, but the providence of God opened the way, and it seemed in harmony with the Word of God.

Müller began his labours in Bristol in 1832, as co-pastor with his friend Mr. Craik, who had been called to that city. Without salaries or rented pews their labours were greatly blessed at Gideon and Bethesda Chapels. The membership more than quadrupled in numbers in a short time. 10 days after the opening of Bethesda there was such a crowd of persons inquiring the way of salvation that it took 4 hours to minister to them. Subsequently Gideon Chapel was relinquished, and in the course of time 2 neighboring chapels were secured. These churches, though calling themselves non-sectarian, were usually classed with the people commonly known as Plymouth Brethren. Müller continued to preach to them as long as he lived, even after he began his great work for the orphans. At the time of his death he had a congregation of about 2000 persons at Bethesda Chapel. SOURCE: “Deeper Experiences of Famous Christians” by J. Gilchrist Lawson.

“There was a day when I died; died to self, my opinions, preferences, tastes and will; died to the world, its approval or censure; died to the approval or blame even of my brethren or friends; and since then I have studied only to show myself approved unto God.” (G. Mueller)

Appendix 1: George Müller

“To learn strong faith is to endure great trials. I have learned my faith by standing firm amid severe testings.” (George Müller)

“We are all missionaries. Wherever we go, we either bring people nearer to Christ, or we repel them from Christ.” (Eric Liddell, Missionary to China)

“They are a body who have perhaps excelled all mankind in solid and unequivocal proofs of the love of Christ and ardent, active zeal in His service. It is a zeal tempered with prudence, softened with meekness and supported by a courage which no danger can intimidate and a quiet certainty no hardship can exhaust.” (William Wilberforce, great evangelical English social reformer, writing concerning the Moravians)

“The church which ceases to be evangelistic will soon cease to be evangelical.” (Alexander Duff, Missionary to India)

It is your responsibility to know the facts:

“God cannot lead you on the basis of facts that you do not know.” (David Bryant)

“God cannot bless your ignorance – no matter how much you dedicate it!” (David Mays)

Appendix 2: Mission quotes

Newton’s own epitaph:

JOHN NEWTON, Clerk Once an infidel and libertine, A servant of slaves in Africa, Was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour, JESUS CHRIST, Preserved, restored, pardoned, And appointed to preach the faith He had long laboured to destroy, Near sixteen years at Olney, in Bucks, And twenty eight years in this church. On February 1, 1750, he married MARY, daughter of the late George Catlett, of Chatham, Kent, He resigned her to the Lord who gave her, On the 15th day of December, 1790.

Appendix 3: John Newton

Paul wrote, “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews… To those not having the law I became like one not having the law… so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” (1 Cor 9:19-22)

Raised in a family “of culture and means,” Lottie Moon at first thought of the Chinese as an inferior people, and insisted on wearing American clothes to maintain a degree of distance from the “heathen” people. But gradually she came to realize that the more she shed her westernized trappings and identified with the Chinese people, the more their simple curiosity about foreigners (and sometimes rejection) turned into genuine interest in the Gospel. She began wearing Chinese clothes, adopted Chinese customs, learned to be sensitive to Chinese culture, and came to respect and admire Chinese culture and learning. In turn she gained love and respect from many Chinese people. 1

Mary Slessor preached by her life. One of her Nigerian friends said, “Ma Slessor didn’t stand up on a mountain top and preach to us. She came right down and lived among us, ate our food, slept in our huts, showed us what was right and wrong by her example.” 2

1 Source: Wikipedia 2 www.middletownbiblechurch.org/ missions

Appendix 4: All things to all men

Hudson Taylor was known for his sensitivity to Chinese culture and zeal for evangelism. He adopted wearing native Chinese clothing even though this was rare among missionaries of that time. Under his leadership, the CIM was singularly non-denominational in practice and accepted members from all Protestant groups, including individuals from the working class and single women as well as multinational recruits.

Once in Japan, even before she learned the language, Amy Carmichael went out to witness. Her interpreter, Misaki San, suggested Amy wear a kimono, but Amy was cold and her neuralgia was bothering her. She preferred her western dress and kept it on. The 2 visited a sick old woman who seemed interested in the Gospel. Just as Amy was about to ask her if she would repent, the woman caught sight of her fur-lined gloves and asked what they were. Driving home, Amy wept bitter tears. Never again would she risk so much for so little, she promised. From then on she wore Japanese clothes while witnessing. 1

In an effort to respect Indian culture, members of Dohnavur Fellowship (the organization founded by Amy) wore Indian dress and the children were given Indian names. Amy herself dressed in Indian clothes and dyed her skin with coffee. 2

1 Source: Christian History Institute 2 www.middletownbiblechurch.org/ missions

Appendix 4: All things to all men

When Amy Carmichael was a child, her mother had said that if she prayed, the Lord would answer. Amy had brown eyes. She prayed for blue. In the morning she jumped out of bed and ran to the mirror. Mrs. Carmichael heard her wail in disappointment. It took Mrs. Carmichael several minutes of careful explanation before Amy understood that “no” was an answer too. God meant Amy to have brown eyes for a reason, explained Mrs. Carmichael. Just what the reason was, she might never know. But meanwhile, brown eyes were perfectly lovely. Amy wasn’t so sure. Smiling Irish blue would always be her favorite colour, even if God said “No.” 1

When Amy went to India she learned about the temple girls. Even Christians were against Amy when she stepped into the struggle to end the wicked service required of the little girls. They thought she exaggerated the situation. Indeed, the truth of what went on behind the scenes was so hard to get at, that Amy found she must pretend to be an Indian and visit the temples herself. Dressed in a sari with her skin stained, she could pass as a Hindu. Now she understood why God had given her brown eyes. Blue eyes would have been a dead giveaway! 1

1 Source: Christian History Institute

Appendix 5: Amy Carmichael

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