Awakened

William Wilberforce - Free At Last

2011-08-27T18:05:00.000-07:00

February is black history month. I often wonder what it would have been like to be a pastor during the struggle for Civil Rights under Martin Luther King Jr. I have been to his church in Alabama and have read all I can about that time period that wasn’t all that long ago. Sometimes I ponder on the American Civil War, I sit and think if I were Pastor of Preaching Christ Church then, where would we land on such critical issues? Would I preach for justice?

I pray that if I had been alive during those seasons of struggle for freedom, that I would have chosen to stand against public opinion and labored with those who believed in equality. I have the highest admiration for those who fought for the oppressed and spoke for those without a voice.

The Slave Trade Industry was just a part of society for people living in the 18th Century, most never considered the horrendous conditions of those living as slaves, especially the young William Wilberforce. He was born into a wealthy family August 24, 1759. Receiving his education from St. John’s (Cambridge), he decided to enter politics at age 21, being elected to Parliament in 1780.

Wilberforce was soundly converted to evangelical Christianity in 1785 through the Anglican Church. This was a significant turning point as God would set a course, not only for his life, but for the entire nation. He wasn’t sure if he could remain a Christian and still remain in politics. His spiritual mentor was none other than John Newton, that great giant of the faith who was once a slave trader himself, who after receiving the rich grace of salvation, wrote our beloved hymn, “Amazing Grace.” He helped William see the influence he could have within parliament as a Christ-follower against the Slave Trade Industry. William wrote, “So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the Trade’s wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition.”

Now assured of God’s calling to politics, he said, “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.” Although he was small of stature and frail because of various ailments, often being bedridden for weeks at a time, God raised him up as a “lighting rod” before Parliament to lead the way for the abolition of slavery in England.

The fight for freedom would be long and bitter. The Abolitionist had to decide which to attack first, the institution of slavery or the profitable Slave Trade Industry. They chose Slave Trade. William made his first argument against the evils of the Trade to Parliament in May 1789. The members of Parliament scoffed at him as the Trade was considered vital to England’s economy. The bill didn’t even come up for vote until two years later. It lost by a landslide, 163 to 88.

William and his Abolitionists remained steadfast even though the entire decade of the 1790’s would seem unfruitful for the Cause. They tried educating the public through pamphlets, books, rallies and petitions.

Breakthrough came 18 long years later. On February 23, 1807, Parliament voted to end the Slave Trade, it passed by a nearly 18 to 1 margin. The bill to end Slave Trade became law in March 25, 1807. While they won the victory over the battle of slave trade, the war was far from over. Even though this bill abolished the Trade, it did not grant freedom to those who were already living under slavery.

Failing health caused Wilberforce to resign from politics in 1825. However, he remained active in promoting the Abolition of Slavery in England. He passed his leadership onto the younger generation, who was just a passionate to see slavery end. At age 71, he made his last public appearance to the Anti-Slavery Society in 1830.

The Slavery Abolition Bill passed on July 26, 1833. William died 3 days later. The victory had been won. This statesmen and great humanitarian was buried near his life-long friend, William Pitt, England’s youngest Prime Minister, in Westminster Abbey. The Slavery Abolition Bill became law in England on August 29, 1833, nearly one year later, on July 31, 1834, all 800,000 slaves in the British Empire was “Free at Last!”

Wilberforce made many other contributions to England as he set to “renew society.” He joined Hannah More in a social project Association for a Better Observance of Sunday, in which they provided all children with regular education in reading, personal hygiene and religion. He was a member of the Royal Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. He was also instrumental in encouraging Christian missionaries to go to India.

The world is changed because of William Wilberforce. To learn more about slavery in the 21st Century and the abolition of slavery in 2011, I encourage you to visit, www.thea21campaign.org.

D.L. Moody - Reaching Chicago's Poor & Needy

2011-07-27T18:10:00.000-07:00

On a cold January day in 2008, I stood outside the Moody Memorial Church in Chicago. I was already familiar with the congregation’s history. I have loved many of its great pastors from Ironside to Redpath, from Wiersbe to their current pastor, Erwin Lutzer, who took the church the year I was born! But I have especially loved their founder, Dwight L. Moody. From day one, the church built upon the core value of caring for the poor and needy. However, I didn’t fully comprehend how true it was until I read the dedication plaque on the building itself. “Ever welcome to this house of God are strangers and the poor.” Tears came to my eyes as I thought of the countless people who are now in eternity with God because this local church opened its doors to the ones others would have turned away.

It amazes me that a church of such prestige would welcome the poor and needy. We’re talking about a congregation and a pastor who was a household name in the United States. They were (and are) the leaders in education (The Moody Institute) in publication (Moody Publishing) and in radio (Songs in the night; The Moody Church Hour and Running to Win). I stood there and prayed, “Father, let my church always be a home for the poor and needy.”

The Moody Church was not always so influential. It didn’t even begin as a church, but rather as an outreach to children. In the mid-1800’s at the age of 17, he moved from his home and large family in Northfield, Massachusetts to Boston where his uncle owned a shoe store. His uncle agreed to hire Dwight on the condition he would attend church. It was at the Congregation Church of Mount Vernon that Moody’s life would forever change. His Sunday School teacher, Mr. Edward Kimball, began to talk to Dwight about God’s love for him and how God had a plan for his life. He was soundly converted and would eventually dedicate his life to sharing the good news of the Gospel of Christ.

After the Civil War, which he was not able to enlist for, but still served many of the Union soldiers on the front lines, he married Emma C. Revell. They went on to have 3 children, a girl named Emma Reynolds Moody and two sons, William Revell and Paul Dwight Moody. His family moved to Chicago where he felt a deep burden to reach out to the street children he saw every day. He began a “Sunday School” that exploded in growth. By 1860, over 1,000 children and their parents were attending his program

So important was the aggressive work of this evangelist that even President-elect, Abraham Lincoln attended one of the services! It was the most innovative and well known outreach of the day. Naturally because of the growth from God’s blessings, they decided to become a local church. After searching for a permanent location, they built and dedicated a building on the corner of Illinois and Wells Street in Chicago. They named it, The Illinois Street Church and dedicated the building on December 30, 1864.

Moody was a remarkable pastor with an evangelist’s heart and it always showed in his passionate sermons. An anonymous man penned his conversion experience by saying this of Moody, “I went to hear Mr. Moody with no other idea than to have something to laugh at. I knew he was no scholar, and I felt sure I could find many flaws in his argument. But I found I could not get at the man. He stood there hiding behind the Bible and just fired one Bible text after another at me till they went home to my heart straight as bullets from a rifle. I tell you, Moody’s power is in the way he has his Bible at the tip of his tongue.”

On a Fall Sunday in 1871, Moody preached to a regular packed Illinois Street Church. However, no one anticipated the devastating event that was only hours away. To this day, the Great Chicago Fire is not fully known. The blaze began Sunday night October 8th and burned till the next day, October 9th. The devastation included over 300 deaths, 18,000 buildings were burned or destroyed and nearly 1/3 of Chicago’s 300,000 plus population was left homeless. It was one of the deadliest and costly events of the 19th Century. The Illinois Street Church was completely destroyed as well as Moody’s home and the homes of most of his church members.

But Chicago was a unique city. They immediately began rebuilding their city, and Moody’s people did the same. In less than three months, their new church was built. His congregation renamed themselves The Chicago Avenue Church after moving to another location. Their new structure was dedicated in June 1876 and was built to seat 10,000 people. Chicago built itself up in such a way it would become a major city in the United States in both population and economic growth.

The influence Moody had upon evangelical Christianity is hard to express in such a small article. Here are a few highlights of his preaching career. In the Spring of 1872, he did a preaching trip to England. This is when his popularity really exploded. He preached around 100 times on this trip. Many times, crowds of 2,000 – 4,000 people gathered to hear him. In one meeting at the Botanic Garden Palace, there was an estimated crowd of 15,000-30,000 people. When visiting Scotland, he met and worked with the famous Andrew Bonar. Even the “Prince of Preachers”, Charles Spurgeon invited Moody to speak at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. Moody also met the world renowned missionary to China, Hudson Taylor and aggressively supported the China Inland Missions. It is refreshing to me to research and read about these great relationships the people of God had with one another (especially in an era where they didn’t have the technology of communication such as phones, faxes, emails or websites). I’m always saddened to hear of one church leader making accusations against another church leader in the media. These men are a great example of Godly relationships to us today.

When Moody returned home to the United States, God’s blessings on his ministry continued to grow at an incredible rate. On January 19, 1876, President Grant and some of his cabinet attended one of Moody’s services. Moody lived and ministered at a time that our nation was healing through the Civil War. Indeed he was born, “For such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).

Mr. Moody’s final sermon came in the Great Hall of Kansas City on November 16, 1899. Feeling very ill, he boarded a train home to Chicago. He died a few days later surrounded by friends and family. While it’s not certain what caused his death, it is believed to be congestive heart failure.

Moody is famously quoted in one of his sermons as saying, “Someday you will read in the papers that D.L. Moody of East Northfield, is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now; I shall have gone up higher, that is all, out of this cold clay tenement into a house that is immortal – a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint; a body fashioned like unto His glorious body.”

The Chicago Avenue Church was renamed “The Moody Memorial Church” in D.L. Moody’s honor 10 years after his death. It continues to be a beacon of light and has stayed true to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You can learn more about the Moody Church by visiting their website at, www.moodychurch.org.

George Whitefield - A Mighty Oak of Righteousness

2011-04-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

When the Lord places His hand on a person’s life, they are never the same again. God put His hand on George Whitefield, the effects were so strong; we can still feel them to this day over 200 years later. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones said Whitefield was the greatest preacher England ever produced. Spurgeon told his students that if he could model his life after anyone it would be George Whitefield. We in the United States could never calculate the impact his ministry had in early Colonial America. It was his powerful, sin-convicting preaching that influenced much of the Great Awakening.

Whitefield kept a relentless schedule during his 34 years of public ministry. It is estimated he preached between 40 to 60 hours each week, delivering some 18,000 sermons. Missionary work was very close to the evangelist’s heart. He took 7 mission trips to America, preaching up and down the east coast from Boston to Georgia. He took 3 preaching tours to Ireland and 14 trips to Scotland. Thousands upon thousands would gather to hear him in Great Britain. Benjamin Franklin, a close friend, estimated that when Whitefield preached outdoors, some 30,000 people could hear him.

He was born in Gloucester, England on December 16, 1714. His family owned the Bell Inn, however, his father passed away when George was only two years old. Eight years later his mother remarried a man named Capel Longden. Home life for George and it caused him to rebel in nearly everything. His mother ended up leaving Longden 5 years into the marriage.

In 1733, while enrolled at Oxford University, God began to awaken his heart through the help of new friends, the Wesley brothers. He had already committed to pray three times per day as well as fasting weekly and while he was doing other “religious exercises”, it felt as though something more was missing. He asked John Wesley if he could borrow a book, the classic, “Life of God in the Soul of Man” by Henry Scrougal. From this book, Whitefield says he learned, “I must be born again, or be damned.”

In the Spring of 1735, George Whitefield repented of his sin and confessed Jesus Christ becoming “Born Again.” He continued to grow in his walk with Christ. Matthew Henry’s Commentary was a valuable tool in the early years of learning how to walk with God.

It didn’t take long before Whitefield knew he was called to ministry. Friends and family were astonished at his first sermon. It seemed that Scripture poured out of him. Clearly Whitefield was born to do this. At one point he wrote , “Heavenly Father, for Thy dear Son’s sake, keep me from climbing.” This kind of humility would be a characteristic that would mark his entire ministry. Soon, thousands came to hear him, packing churches throughout London and Bristol. Even though he was enjoying a great deal of success in England, Whitefield felt a calling to visit the newly settled colony of Georgia. His voyage was delayed but he was able to use that time to publish 6 of his sermons which ended up sweeping Great Britain. In 1938 he was able to set sail for the new world.

He spent 3 months proclaiming the Gospel in America and God blessed with multitudes coming to Christ. Little did he know how much things had changed for him in England. The popularity he had enjoyed before coming to America had dissipated. Although he had been ordained in the Church of England, it seemed churches were closed to his ministry. Over time, he realized how the Sovereign hand of the Lord was pushing outside of churches to minister in open fields to common, everyday people. Remarkably, thousands came out to hear him until eventually tens of thousands came!

In August of 1739, Whitefield returned to America and found great success. This is when he met the influential Benjamin Franklin, and they became good friends often corresponding with one another. His preaching itinerary took him up and down the East coast. He prayerfully opened an orphanage called Bethesda in Georgia that was a life-long project he labored extensively over.

While his ministry in the colonies thrived, it seemed his ministry in England continued to suffer. Returning home in 1741, he got the shocking news that John Wesley had published a great deal of criticism about his ministry, publically attacking him for preaching the doctrines of grace. Most people know the Wesley’s were Armenians and Whitefield was a Calvinist. Nevertheless, Whitefield tried his best to keep the feud a private matter. While church history honors both Whitefield and Wesley, things could have been handled in a much better way. The important thing is that we, the church of today, learn from this example that brothers in Christ can disagree without being disagreeable. One of the greatest lessons I have learned in my pastoral ministry is that God blesses some people I disagree with!

The life of Whitefield was marked by humility. His supporters begged him to retaliate and defend himself, but the wise and mature Calvinist simply said, “Let my name be forgotten, let me be trodden under the feet of all men, if Jesus may thereby be glorified…Let us look above names and parties; let Jesus be our all in all…I care not who is uppermost. I know my place…even to be the servant of all.” He also wrote, “Oh, that I may learn from all I see to desire to be nothing and to think it my highest privilege to be an assistant to all but the head of none.” That my friend is humility.

Whitefield had the right perception concerning the Body of Christ and the many differences that can often separate and divide our fellowship. He said, “…I will strengthen the hands of all of every denomination that preach Jesus Christ in sincerity.” Now I am not an ecumenical pastor who believes that anyone with the name “Christian” is all inclusive. I believe that Christians who differ in issues of eternal security, baptism, tongues, spiritual gifts can still have spiritual fellowship through the redemption and rich grace of Jesus Christ. People who do not believe in the deity of Christ, the blood atonement, grace by faith and the authority of Scripture I could not fellowship with nor labor with. Those issues are non-negotiable doctrines.

A good current example is Rob Bell’s latest book, “Love Wins.” I have encouraged my congregation to steer clear of this dangerous work. Rob Bell is teaching universalism, that everyone will ultimately be redeemed and go to Heaven. If every person will one day end up in Heaven, then why would Christ have to die?

The point is this, Christians, the people of God, can enjoy fellowship and even labor together although we do not agree on each point of doctrine. I have always said that if two people think exactly alike then one is not thinking! Next month we will explore John Wesley’s life and in June, we will discuss Charles Simeon. Wesley and Simeon are marvelous examples of how Armenians and Calvinist can work together in Evangelicalism and still glorify God.

Toward the end of his life his health grew worse, yet he continued to travel and preach. He once had to travel to Holland to allow his health to recovery. After many more trips and countless sermons, he decided to sail once more to the American colonies.

His battered, weakened body barely made it to America for his final mission trip in 1769. He was very ill when he arrived. Beginning in 1790, he preached his last itinerary to large crowds as people flocked to hear him from city to city. He preached his final sermon on September 29, 1770. He died the following morning in the church’s parsonage in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where he is buried today. Over 6,000 people attended his funeral.

Lillian Trasher - Mother of the Nile

2011-03-01T13:30:00.000-08:00

Lillian Trasher – Mother of the Nile

In less than two weeks, Lillian Trasher would be married to Tom Jordan. For you who have anticipated your wedding, you know that kind of excitement as you count down every day and give careful attention to each small detail so it will be the most special day of your life. But for Lillian, she couldn’t seem to get excited let alone focus on the details of her wedding. She knew God had a call on her life to be a missionary.

She was going to have to choose between living a life of comfort, with a husband, a safe home, a safe income and the security of friends and family, or she was going to follow what seemed like a reckless call to pursue the will of God. That’s a lot to struggle with two weeks before you are to be married!

She talked to Tom, her beloved fiancé, and sadly he was not willing to live a missionary’s life. As hard as it was, Lillian broke off the wedding and trusted in the Lord with all her might. Now before you judge her or even feel sorry for her, you probably need to know that she lived an absolute thrilling life. Just in her lifetime, she fed, clothed, housed and educated over 10,000 orphan children! She asked the Lord for 12 children and before she died, she looked out of her bedroom window at her orphanage and saw 1,200 orphan children in the courtyard! Oh please don’t feel that Lillian missed out in life, rather, she didn’t waste her life but lived in the fullness of God’s will.

The Biography of Lillian Trasher was a book I couldn’t put down. I read it all in two days and where they ever two life-changing days for me. Her journey was thrilling. It seemed that each step she took was a step of faith. God wasn’t behind her pushing her in the back to walk in some dark, unknown place alone. No! He was in front of her just as a good shepherd always is. He walked before her, bidding her to come and follow Him down this amazing journey of faith. Does He not do the same for us? Is He bidding you to come and follow Him today?

Lillian was born in Jacksonville, Florida on September 28, 1887. It is ironic that she shared the same birth date with George Mueller. He operated an orphanage in Bristol, England. He and his wife Mary had no income, yet they cared for over 10,000 orphans as well throughout their lifetime. Lillian always had a deep appreciation and respect for the Mueller’s. She grew up in Brunswick, Georgia as a Roman Catholic but after reading much Scripture and through Godly influences, she gave her life to Christ and began to develop a very close walk with the Lord.

As Lillian searched for God’s will in her life, she sensed God was calling her to Africa. While trying to make the decision on where she would serve God as a missionary, she was invited attended a conference for missionary women in Petersburg. It was there she met Pastor Perlsford. He had been serving in the city of Assuit in Egypt and invited Lillian to come there to serve with his ministry.

Her family begged her not to go. Her friends tried to tell her how dangerous it was for a single female to travel and live alone in a foreign land. It seemed no one understood excpet her sister Jennie! Still not desiring to be out of the will of God, they prayed and asked the Lord to confirm their plans. One day the Lord took Lillian to Acts 7:34, the Scripture read, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.” Could God have been more clear?

Lillian and Jennie arrived in Assuit, Egypt on October 26, 1910. Four months later on February 10, 1911 Lillian opened her first orphanage. Did you know that today you can visit Lillian’s orphanage in Egypt? I go to Egypt quite frequently, and people there often ask me if I’ve ever heard of “Mama” Lillian as she was affectionately called. Actually, it’s not uncommon to find little girls named Lillian in Upper Egypt because of the vast influence she has carried there.

She is buried just outside the city of Assuit, yet her work goes on strong. Today, it is home to 650 children and widows. The 12 acre campus has 13 major buildings including nurseries, girls and boys dormitories, residence for the staff, a bakery, a barn for cattle, and a vocational training center. They have sports and recreation facilities, playgrounds and a large garden. It is one of the largest orphanages in the world!

Over the last century, the orphanage in Assuit has served over 25,000 orphans and widows to the glory of God! Do not ever underestimate what God can do through you. Lillian was penniless and she didn’t have the support of friends or her family, except her sister Jennie. Yet, with God’s favor and with faith in their hearts, they have changed countless lives for eternity. What can God do through you?

Have you ever felt like no one supported you? Has your family discouraged you? Have friends tried to talk you out of pursuing God’s plans for your life? Well, be encouraged that Lillian and Jennie Trasher changed lives even when people didn’t support them. With God, all things are possible!

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their afflictions, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” James 1:27

A.W. Tozer - A Voice to the Church

2011-01-27T12:10:00.001-08:00

The aim of this month’s article is to convince you to begin reading the books of A.W. Tozer. I think it’s an appropriate goal for the New Year! I have needed his voice in my life and ministry. These dangerous, murky waters of the affluent American Church can deceive my young heart fast. There is a seriousness and reverence toward God that has been lost in much of today’s church. Tozer’s writings can remedy this.

I went to a conference this year of over 10,000 pastors and church leaders in which one of the key note speakers wasn’t even a Christian. One pastor stood up and bragged that his session would not include any Scripture. I was shocked and disappointed. You know what Tozer would say about that? He once wrote, “It is doubtful we can be Christian in anything unless we are Christian in everything.” Oh the Church needs this today! Everything we do as Christians should be stained by the blood of Christ…everything!

How can there be a separation to what is secular and what is Godly? How can we, who have tasted of the grace of God, be satisfied with anything less? No! Tozer’s ministry was different. His life was marked by prayer, holiness and deep thinking. He wrote, “It appears that too many Christians want to enjoy the thrill of feeling right but are not willing to endure the inconvenience of being right.” This is the day in which we live.

My first encounter with this wall of faith came through the opening pages of his classic book, The Knowledge of the Holy, in which he says, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” This kind of thinking helped me to develop a high view of God. We are sometimes taught that God created us because He was lonely or that He needs us. In reality, God is all-sufficient in Himself. God has not created me because He is bored. God created and redeemed me solely to the praise of His own glory (Ephesians 1:1-14). Having the right perception of God, sin and salvation is everything.

Tozer once said, “It is my opinion that tens of thousands of people, if not millions, have been brought into some kind of religious experience by accepting Christ, and they have not been saved.” If that was true of his time, how much more so is it in our day?

It is good for us to look back at others who have fulfilled their call in life and endured well. Hebrews 13:7 encourages us, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.”

James L. Snyder, who wrote Tozer’s biography, said of him, “He spent more time on his knees than at his desk.” He goes on to say, “His preaching, as well as his writings, were but extensions of his prayer life.”
Oh how we need this in today’s church! In his wonderful book, The Root of Righteousness, Tozer writes, “All things being equal, our prayers are only as powerful as our lives. In the long pull we pray only as well as we live. Some prayers are like a fire escape, used only in times of critical emergency – never very enjoyable, but used as a way of terrified escape from disaster. They do not represent the regular life of the one who offers them; rather are the unusual and uncommon acts of the spiritual amateur.”

Tozer was born in Western Pennsylvania April 21, 1897 as Aiden Wilson, but he preferred to be called A.W. At age 15, his family moved to Akron, Ohio. While he was a good kid and a hard worker, he was by no means a Christian. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit is able to overcome our hardened hearts! While walking home from his job at Goodyear, he stopped to listen to a street preacher. The Gospel went into his heart! He was 17 years-old. Can you imagine the reward this name-less street preacher will have in Heaven? Tozer’s life immediately changed.

Salvation for Tozer wasn’t the end of the Christian experience, it was the beginning! He didn’t view his salvation as a ticket to heaven. Rather, he cultivated a deep relationship with God. While he didn’t have formal education or seminary school under his belt, what he did have was relationship with the Almighty deeply rooted in the Word of God and prayer. He wrote in The Pursuit of God, “…Faith is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart at the Triune God. Believing then, is directing the hearts’ attention to Jesus. It is lifting the mind to ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ and never ceasing that beholding for the rest of our lives.”

In 1916, he felt called to preach. He was only 19 years-old. He moved to Nutter Fort, WV to pastor his first congregation. He wasn’t there long before accepting the call to pastor Chicago’s Southside Alliance Church. This would be his preaching ministry for the next 31 years. The church grew from 80 to over 800 under his direction. Preaching wasn’t going to be the only way God would use Tozer. When he turned 30 years old, he began to pen some of his thoughts. His writing ability quickly grew and so did his reputation. In 1950, Tozer became the editor of the Alliance Weekly. The subscription doubled immediately. He served in this position until his death in 1963.

The greatest contribution Tozer has left to the church is the more than 40 books he authored. His voice is as strong and clear today as it was 50 years ago.

William Borden - An Extraordinary Life

2010-12-05T22:14:00.000-08:00

William Whiting Borden was born on November 1, 1887. Born into a millionaire’s family, his life was not that of a typical American boy. Both the Borden’s and the Whiting’s (his mother’s family) were wealthy and influential. His father made a fortune by investing in silver mining in Colorado. It was his mother, however, who gave him a spiritual foundation, for she had a heart for the Lord. While her family may have had money, she valued the things of God more. She was a very active member of the Chicago Avenue Church, now called, “Moody Memorial Church.”

In 1894, Dr. R.A. Torrey spoke on world missions at the Moody Church. At the end, he called for people to surrender their lives to missions. Of those who stood in response was 7 year old William Borden! He wore a little sailor’s outfit, but that day, he surrendered his young heart to the Lord to become a missionary.

He carried the desire for missions within him all the way up to graduation. He completed high school ranked 4th in his class of 48 boys. What was more remarkable is that he was only 16 years old. His family enrolled him into Yale University, but he was too young to attend. So, as a graduation gift, his parents sent him on a sailing trip around the world. Oh how God would use this in William’s life!

He left San Francisco on September 20, 1904. Aboard the S.S. Korea, were several missionary couples heading to Asia. These missionaries fueled the flame for the Gospel in William’s heart. Yet, there wouldn’t be anything like seeing it first-hand. He was devastated by the poverty he saw in China and India. He wrote to his parents, “I pray every day for my dear family, I also pray that God would take my life into His hands and use it for the furtherance of His kingdom as He sees best. I have so much of everything in this life, and there are so many millions who have nothing and live in darkness.”

Most didn’t understand his desire for missions. When he got home, a friend told him he was, “wasting his life becoming a missionary”. Rather than defending himself, he simply replied, “You have never seen heathenism.”His father expected William to become a business man in the families company. “I am glad that you have told father about my desire to become a missionary. I am thinking about it all the time and looking forward to it with a good deal of anticipation.” After reading Robert Speer’s book on missions, he wrote, “I knelt right down and prayed more earnestly than I have for some time for the mission work and for God’s plan for my life…pray that I may be guided in everything small and great.”

Throughout his college years, he engaged in all types of ministry. He established the Yale Hope Mission, a homeless shelter. He taught Sunday School in an African Methodist Episcopal Church and he donated an incredible $70,000.00 to different mission organizations.

On December 17, 1912, he set sail for Cairo, Egypt. He was going to study Arabic as well as the Muslim culture under Dr. Zwemer. He began feeling bad just before the Easter Season of 1913. He had cerebral meningitis. He died April 9, 1913 at age 26.

Dr. Zwemer said at William’s memorial service, “By some the victory has to be won over poverty…but Borden won the victory over an environment of wealth. He felt that life consisted not in, ‘in the abundance of things a man possesseth,’ but in the abundance of things which possess a man…Apart from faith in Christ, there is no explanation for such a life.”

In 2006 I led a team of 21 to Cairo. One of my goals was to show them the reality of Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasure on earth…but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven…for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

So we hired a tour guide to take us to the Cairo Museum, a fascinating place I could spend days in. We went through the King Tut exhibit, there I saw more gold, jewels and treasures my eyes have ever seen. After leaving the museum, we drove to the Old City district to a graveyard that simply read, “American Missionary Cemetery.”

I assure you, our tour guide was none too happy taking us to Old Cairo to search for a missionaries grave! But I just had to see it for myself! Finally, we found it. A huge concrete memorial over 6ft. covers his resting place with concrete railings on each side. An elderly lady who cared for the graves offered to wash it for us. A teenager on the team took some flowers and laid them on his grave.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a Scripture come to life like I did that day. To go from King Tut’s extravagant exhibit with all the wealth that young man possessed…to William Borden, a 26 year old missionary who died and left all his fortune to global missions. What’s the difference? You can go to Cairo and see all of King Tut’s wealth. You will have to wait for Heaven to see William’s treasure! Oh that you and I would live such a life that eternity will be our reward!

The Mighty Prayers of John Knox

2010-10-05T18:19:00.000-07:00

John Knox was a trumpet in the hands of God. “One man with God is the majority” he would often say. Queen Bloody Mary said of him, “I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.” Even at his funeral, someone said, “Here is one who never feared the face of man.” The aim of this article is that you would gain a tremendous appreciation in the way God raised up a man named John Knox in which his impact is still felt to this day.

It’s difficult to understand the life and ministry of John Knox without realizing the world around him. Controversy and questions can surround the Reformers, but unless you take time to look into the times in which they lived, you will miss the weightiness of God’s call on these men as well as the significance of their legacy to the Church.

Knox was growing up in one of the most exciting periods of Church history, the Protestant Reformation. God had used Luther in Germany, Zwingli in Switzerland and Calvin in France, and while the Reformation was sweeping through mainland Europe, Scotland was yet to be awakened. However, God was about to raise up men as trumpets in Scotland that would proclaim the Gospel far and wide.

A young reformer named Patrick Hamilton (1504-1528) was touching Scotland with the doctrines of the Reformation. The Catholic Church burned him at the stake for it. Knox was only 15 years old and was impacted by this event. John Foxe tells the story of Patrick in his Acts and Monuments.

There isn’t much recorded about the early life of John Knox. What we do know is that he was ordained a Catholic Priest sometime between 1530-1540. Shortly after becoming a priest, he was converted to Protestantism by the friendship and preaching of George Wishart, probably the most influential Reformer in Scotland prior to Knox. Wishart also did the important work of translating the first Helvetic Confession for the English speaking world. George Wishart would pay a tremendous price for the Gospel to be preached. He was executed by being burned at the stake on March 1, 1546. Wishart was the single greatest influence in Knox’s life

In our day, to not be Catholic or Protestant can be a matter of preference. In the day in which Knox lived, it meant you would lose your life to not be Catholic, or at least to speak out openly and oppose the teaching of the Catholic Church. In saying this, maybe you will understand why this particular article mentions Catholicism so much.

The Catholic Church was more interested in preserving tradition above Scripture. Therefore, normal everyday people weren’t allowed to have Bibles. Only priest could read Bibles. Men like John Knox thought differently and risked their lives to see it changed. The Catholic Church taught Mass, Purgatory and making prayers to dead saints. They sold indulgences, literally “Salvation Certificates” for money. The Pope had the authority to release anyone from Purgatory, but would charge money to do so. For a better understanding of the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church in this period of history, see Martin Luther’s 95 thesis.

In 1547, Knox went to live with Protestants in the St. Andrew’s Castle. There were about 150 altogether. He would soon become their pastor. The Castle was attacked and overcome by French Catholics. Knox and his parishioners were taken hostage.

The French held Knox captive for 19 months living in horrendous conditions. His health was never the same after his arrest. Christians in England negotiated his release. The next phase of Knox’s life would be going to England rather than his beloved Scotland. He was used greatly by God to spread the Reformation in Engalnd.

His ministry in England was short lived when Queen Mary Tutor took the throne in 1553, it forced Knox to flee and take exile in Geneva, Switzerland. This was now the home city of John Calvin. The city of Geneva was a refuge for Protestants in Europe at this time. Many fled to Geneva as Queen Mary earned her infamous title, “Queen Bloody Mary” executing hundreds of Protestant Christians in the name of the Roman Catholic Church.

When God opened the door for Knox to visit with Queen Mary, he took the opportunity to boldly preach the Gospel to her. He spoke to the most powerful woman in the world about repentance and he did it with a Godly resolve. As I said earlier, Queen Mary is quoted as saying, “I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.”

It astounds me when I think of his courage. Could you imagine walking into the Queen’s court…the queen who is responsible for hundreds of murders and to preach repentance to her? Amazing! I believe he was a man who could say with the Apostle Paul, “…thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel” (Romans 15:20).

What about you? Is your Christian life marked by boldness? Are you courageous for Christ? For some of us, it’s hard to talk to our friends about salvation, let alone a blood-thirsty monarch. Will it one day be said of you, “Here is one who never feared the face of man?” I hope so! “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes.” Romans 1:16

Queen Bloody Mary & The Sovereignty of God

2010-09-26T18:16:00.000-07:00

Mary I, Queen of England is known today as, “Queen Bloody Mary.” She single handedly murdered hundreds of Christians and ravaged the Church of England. You might wonder why we would take this column that is dedicated to men and women who glorified God with their lives…only to write about a wicked woman?

The answer is Isaiah 46:10. If you believe this Scripture, it will help interpret the way history unfolds. Think about this, had Mary been born a male…or even if a son had been born to King Henry VIII and Catherine to ascend to the throne then England’s history would have been completely different. So why does God allow certain events? Why was Queen Mary allowed to usurp the throne and execute such a bloody reign?

The answer is Isaiah 46:10! Now if you are a Deists who believes God is neither involved nor interested in the affairs of men then you won’t believe this Scripture. If you believe open theism thinking God Himself does not know the future…that God has left the future “open” to man’s choices to shape his destiny…well, then you probably won’t believe this Scripture either. For me, Isaiah 46:10 and others like it, shapes my thinking and feeling about God’s absolute sovereignty, His ultimate plans and the outcome of historic events.

So what does Isaiah 46:10 say? God is, “declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’” Do you really believe this? Now, what does all this have to do with Queen Mary?

Her story begins with King Henry VIII falling in love with his brother’s wife, Catherine of Aragon. He cleverly devices a way to gain permission from the Pope to annual their marriage, allowing the King and Catherine to wed. Mary was the only child from this union to survive childhood. As time passed, King Henry began to doubt the validity of his marriage because it had failed to produce a male heir. So, through Cardinal Wosley, the trusted Catholic advisor to the King and Lord Chancellor of England, they requested for the marriage to Catherine of Aragon be annulled.

This was a huge problem for Rome. To say the marriage could be annulled would be admitting the first annulment was a mistake and that was a prideful assumption the Pope would not make. Infuriated, the King Henry arrested Cardinal Wosley and replaced him with Thomas Cramner, the author of The Book of Common Prayer.

This was a turning point in history, for it was Thomas Cramner and Thomas Cromwell (influenced by the ideas of that young German shaking the foundations of Europe, Martin Luther) who convinced King Henry to break England from the Roman Catholic Church.

King Henry did just that. He broke from Rome. He established the Church of England, in which he was the head of the Church. He granted himself the annulment and married Anne Boleyn. When this happened, Mary the Princess was now an “illegitimate child.” She lost her title of Princess and simply was “Lady Mary.”

Devastated by her father’s rejection, she remained devoutly Catholic as she watched England change. Now at this time, Protestantism was growing stronger and the Reformation throughout Europe was in full swing. Mary’s young heart burned with anger, and Satan was poised to use her as a weapon against the Church.

Due to Henry’s only son dying as a teenager, Mary worked circumstances to her favor to where she could take the throne of England and restore Catholicism as the nation’s religion. Yet it would not come without a great price for God’s people.

She restored England to Rome and instituted many Catholic practices. She tried to weaken the Protestant Church with 4 years of persecution. The wealthy within the church was able to flee to mainland Europe (around 800). Those remaining were left to endure the hardships of her 5 year reign. In all, she executed 247 Protestants by burning them at the stake.

So how does God’s purpose stand in the life of Queen Bloody Mary? If Isaiah 46:10 is a declaration of God’s sovereignty, then where do we see it in her reign? Acts 8:1 sheds a great deal of light on our subject. Persecution had come to the early church and Scripture says, “They were scattered” from Jerusalem into other regions. The word picture for scattered is a sower spreading seed. When God scattered His Church out of Jerusalem, the Church grew and advanced throughout the world.

A similar scattering happened in the persecution of Queen Mary, known as the Marian Persecutions. Men like John Foxe, who authored, Foxes Book of Martyrs forged the Church ahead in this time period. John Knox of Scotland fled to Geneva where the Lord connected him to John Calvin. Returning to Scotland, Knox brought back with him a wealth of knowledge and the spirit of the Reformation.

England would never be the same as Mary’s half sister, Queen Elizabeth would soon ascend to the throne. A strong Protestant, and as the Reformation swept the nation, England would go on to produce some of the greatest thinkers, preachers and missionaries the world has ever known. So the point of this month’s article is simply this…rather it be a ruthless Queen Mary or a hardened Pharaoh’s heart, God will get His glory (Romans 9:17).

Amy Carmichael

2010-08-15T18:29:00.000-07:00

This month, my wife, Sadie, and I found out we are having a baby girl. Lord willing, Piper Kate Roberts will be born December 25th. If there is anyone in Church history I hope she admires, it is the life of Amy Carmichael. She had a singular focus in life and it was Jesus. She once wrote, “The saddest thing one meets is a nominal Christian”, meaning, a Christian in name only, rather than in heart and lifestyle. Read carefully her prayer to be used by God, “Give me the Love that leads the way, the Faith that nothing can dismay, the Hope no disappointments tire, the Passion that’ll burn like fire. Let me not sink to be a clod. Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.”

She would not allow herself to be attached in this world. Her commitment to follow Christ was fierce. She wrote, “I wish Thy way. And when in me myself should rise, and long for something otherwise, then Lord, take sword and spear and slay.” Have you ever prayed a prayer like that? Can we like that…Is our love for God so focused, so committed, so deep as this?
She once said, “We profess to be strangers and pilgrims, seeking after a country of our own, yet we settle down in the most un-stranger-like fashion, exactly as if we were quite at home and meant to stay as long as we could…”

She arrived in India in 1895. However, her work began long before that. Search for whom God has called in the Scriptures and you will find they were busy when God called them. God does not use lazy people. He uses those who are already about His work…even if they don’t have the full knowing or understanding of where they are going to end up. I often counsel with people who “want” to do something for the Lord but they are not doing anything. There is no excuse for this. There is always something to do to honor and serve God…always.

Amy’s work didn’t begin in India…it began at home in Northern Ireland. Her father owned a mill but passed away when she was 18. She recognized a need among the working girls of the factory. They couldn’t afford expensive hats to wear to Church. The women of the Church would look down upon the girls who couldn’t “dress right” for the “Lord’s house.” Know any churches like that today?
Amy had a heart for such ladies. So, she began a Bible class for the girls working at the factory. It grew so large that she had to find a separate building that could hold 300 plus women!

On January 13, 1892, she felt she heard the Lord say, “Go Ye.” Those are beautiful words to a missionary’s heart! Most of the people in Amy’s life thought she was crazy. She wasn’t healthy enough to be a missionary, especially an overseas missionary. Earlier she had been diagnosed with neuralgia, a disease that wreaks havoc on your nervous system and weakens the entire body, often putting Amy in bed for weeks at a time. Not to mention, she wasn’t married either. She was actually rejected from CIM as a missionary because of her “frailty.” But God chooses what He wants to use, not friends, family, boards or committees.

Her missionary work in India began to change in 1899. She took her first child refugee in and this would lead to her eventually beginning a mission, which would develop into an orphanage and later the Dohnavur Fellowship. In March 1901 she began rescuing orphan children from the Hindu Temples. These abandoned, helpless children were forced to become prostitutes earning money for the wicked priest.

It’s interesting to note that Amy’s mother taught her how to pray at a young age. Well, as a little Irish girl, Amy wanted blue eyes, but God had given her brown eyes. She never understood why. One night, when she was little, she prayed that God would give her blue eyes. She awoke the next morning and ran to look in the mirror just knowing God had answered her prayer. To her sadness, her eyes were still brown.

Now, in 1901, she understood clearly why God had given her brown eyes. With the right head covering, she could disguise herself as a Hindu woman going to the temple. If God had given her blue eyes, she would have never had this ministry of rescuing children. He really does do all things well!

Amy would continue rescuing countless children from sex trafficking within these temples. Only once did she face serious charges for “kidnapping.” She rescued a 5 year old girl named Kohila. Her “guardians” demanded her back. Amy wasn’t about to send this defenseless girl back in harm’s way, so she arranged for the girl to “disappear.” Amy was charged with kidnapping and faced 7 years imprisonment. Suddenly, after much prayer, her case was declared, “dismissed” without any explanation on February 7, 1914. She saw God’s sovereign hand working in her favor!

Amy Carmichael left a lasting legacy in global missions. She left everything to follow Christ and often at great risk to her life. She died, at age 84, on January 18, 1951 in Dohnavur, India and was buried there, yet her impact on India and the Church remains to this day.

Mary Slessor - A Single Woman's Impact on Africa

2010-07-27T18:18:00.000-07:00

I am by no means a speed reader. I prefer to take my time and savor the books I read. Yet the biography of Mary Slessor was different. It was one book I couldn’t put down. I completed it in one day and I still smile when I think of her life.

Mary was a fiery red head born in Aberdeen, Scotland December 2, 1848. She grew up in a difficult home. Her father was an alcoholic and was often abusive. Her mother, however, was a godly woman and committed to raising her children in the fear of the Lord. She was a member of the Belmont Street United Presbyterian Church. Mary said of her mother, “I had my missions enthusiasm from her.” Her mother got Mary involved in local missions at an early age teaching Sunday School classes to the poor.

There were 7 children in the Slessor home. Her father was a shoemaker but couldn’t make enough money in Aberdeen. So in 1859, he moved the entire family to Dundee hoping to find better work. His plan did not work very well and so he drank more and more and spent the family’s money. Her home life was hard. Sadly, only 4 of her siblings survived childhood. In addition to that sorrow, all the children but Mary died before age 30. Mary worked in the cotton mills of Dundee, Scotland until she was 27 years old to help support the family.

One thing I find so amazing in Mary’s life is that in her childhood, she read stories of David Livingstone’s missions activity in Africa. She dreamed of serving the Lord like that herself and reading Livingstone’s adventures fanned the flame.

May I take a moment to say something to parents of small children? Hey mom or dad…do you teach your children about missions and missionaries? Do you instill a love and passion in them for spreading the gospel and supporting missionaries? I can remember the way my mom talked about missionaries. I remember hearing her stories about Africa. My imagination ran wild as a kid and when missionaries came to my church, they were heroes in my eyes because of what my mom taught me about missions. You know what? Missionaries are still my heroes! The life of a missionary is filled with adventure, joy, sacrifice, hope and danger all at the same time. Teach your children to admire this and to look up too it!

So, at age 28, Mary quit the cotton mills. Her hero, David Livingstone, had fought the fight and finished his course and was now buried in Westminster Abby in London. Who would take his place? Who would sail to the “Dark Continent” filled with danger and uncertainty…yet filled with souls desperately needing the hope of the Gospel of Christ? Mary would…and Mary did!

As a single woman, she boarded a ship to sail the Atlantic toward Calabar (Nigeria). She became very sick multiple times on that hard voyage over the ocean, but she endured as a good missionary. As she settled into the life of a missionary, it became clear to her that she had to push inland just as Livingstone had done years ago. She lived with other missionaries for 3 years before stepping out on her own to push inland. It was dangerous for Livingstone…it was nearly suicide for a pale skinned, blue eyed, red hair single female.

In all of her enthusiasm for pushing inland, Malaria struck her body stopping her dead in her tracks. This sickness would delay her work by a year and half. I can’t imagine how discouraging this was to Mary. But God is sovereign! He knew why things needed to be delayed. Oh that we would trust His wisdom and sovereignty!

Once she recovered, she moved to Old Town, Calabar and immediately began her mission. Because life was not valued, babies were brought to her and in God’s love; she could not turn one away. As more babies came, she began to train the young girls of the village how to care for the infants and they began serving with her.

Witch doctors taught that if twins were born, it was a curse on the entire village so twin babies were murdered immediately. Mary heard of twins being born and she set out to rescue them. It was a boy and girl…she took both to her home to raise. Sadly, the boy was kidnapped and killed, but the girl survived. Heartbroken, Mary adopted the girl and named her Janie.

Mary spent a total of 39 years in Calabar. She stood 5 ft. tall but always stood her ground with witch doctors, chiefs, warriors and murderers. She rescued 100’s of babies, prisoners, slaves and wives from being murdered or mistreated.

She died at age 67 on January 13, 1915 of jungle disease. Janie and other of her “children” were by her side. She replaced David Livingstone in carrying the burden for Africa and in 1998; she replaced David one last time. She was commemorated on Clydesdale Bank notes replacing Dr. David Livingstone on the £10 notes.

David Livingstone

2010-06-15T18:25:00.000-07:00

David Livingstone was a remarkable missionary and explorer who sacrificially gave himself for the people of Africa. I have marveled at his life since I was a kid. However, when I went to Malawi, Africa in 2003, I realized just how important this great man was. I was walking from village to village sharing Christ with about 20 other African church leaders when the pastor of the church asked me if I had ever heard of David Livingstone. I smiled really big and said, “Yes, I have!” He continued, “You know, Mr. Livingstone is the reason my people are free.” I knew exactly what he meant. David Livingstone abhorred the slave trade and fought against it his entire life, drawing world-wide attention to its evils.

He was born into a poor family in Blantyre, Scotland March 19, 1813. His father sold tea and as he would make his distribution to customers, he always passed along the Gospel through Christian books and literature. Because his family was not wealthy, David began working in the cotton mills in 1823 at the age of 10. It didn’t take long to discover how brilliant of a mind God had given him. By age 22 he had studied Greek, Theology and Medicine at Anderson College and Glasgow University. By 1838, David knew his calling in life was to be a missionary.

He applied to the London Missionary Society and was accepted. At first, he set his heart on China. However, the Opium War of 1838 in China closed the door. Besides, God had other plans for China and those plans came through a young Englishman named James Hudson Taylor.

In 1839, everything changed for Livingstone. He was invited to hear Robert Moffat speak, the great missionary to South Africa. David was burdened by what he heard about Africa that night. Most notably, Moffat said, “I have seen, at different times, the smoke of a thousand villages – villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in the world.”

When David heard those words, the course for his life was set! At age 26, he left his home and everything familiar to him to sail the Atlantic Ocean for Africa. He would never be the same, nor would Africa!

He arrived in South Africa on July 31, 1841. He was appointed to the Kuruman Mission which was founded and operated by Robert Moffat, who inspired him to come to Africa. David never forgot those “1,000 villages” who had never heard of Christ. He consistently pushed north to find tribes to share the Gospel with. Once, he traveled as far as 700 miles north.

In 1843, he received permission from the London Missionary Society to establish his own mission. He chose the area of Mabotsa. People were receptive to the Gospel but one big problem is that it was infested with lions. David had heard that if a lion is killed in an area, the entire pack will move on. One day, he and an African instructor, Melbalwe, approached a lion to kill it. David shot it with his gun but the bullet didn’t kill the lion. While he tried to re-load, the lion pounced on him crushing his entire left shoulder. The lion mauled his left arm and bit Melbalwe through his thigh. Finally, the lion collapsed and died from the gunshot wound but not before it permanently ruined David’s left arm, he never regained use of it.

Even in this tragedy, we can see how God uses all things to work together for our good! Because of the wound he had to return to Kuruman to have his shoulder and arm tended too by no other than Mary Moffat, the young daughter of Robert Moffat. They found themselves attracted to each other and soon, David proposed to her. He left Kuruman after his shoulder had healed to go back to Mabotsa to build him and his future wife a suitable home. Mary and David were married in March 1844 with Robert Moffat performing the ceremony.

They remained in Mobatso for one year before they began traveling to explore more of Africa. In the spring of 1850 came one crushing blow. Their baby daughter died of malaria in Kologeng. Life as a missionary was hard and no one understood this more than Mary but it still didn’t ease the pain.

His family desperately needed a furlough, so he took Mary and their children to Cape Town, and sent them home to England for a rest on April 23, 1852. He was unable to accompany them but had planned to meet with them in England in a couple of years.

It was in November 1853 that Livingstone took his most famous journey. He and 27 Makololo men traveled 1,500 miles of jungle to find the West coast of Africa. This journey was treacherous as they battled terrible weather conditions, hunger, hostile tribesmen, crocodiles, snakes and other wild animals, not to mention sickness, dysentery and other fevers. Once they arrived to the coast, David met some ship captains who offered him a ride home to England. The 27 Makololo men were scared because they didn’t know how to get back home, David was their navigator! Livingstone turned down what seemed to be an offer of a life-time in order to lead the Makololo men back home. It meant so much to these African men that he would choose to travel those harsh conditions with them rather than go home to England. They were not used to such kindness and friendship. By the way, the ship that was to take David home to England sank in the middle of the Atlantic! Thank God that Livingstone didn’t take that ship!

Before leaving for England, he was determined to open up a passage to the Eastern coast of Africa just as he had done in the West coast. Sekeletu gave him 120 tribesmen to accompany him on this journey and what a journey it was! Only 50 miles into the expedition, he discovered a set of mighty waterfalls, which he named, “Victoria Falls.” He finally arrived in Quilimane and was ready to take his first furlough home. By this time, he was the first white man to ever travel the interior of Africa and to go coast to coast!

Livingstone had a mixture of emotions arriving in London. This was his first time home in 16 years. Many things had changed. First of all, his father had passed away while he was in Africa. He also learned that the London Missionary Society (LMS) had wanted to part ways with him as a missionary. In their opinion, he had abandoned the work of a missionary because it seemed he was focusing more on expeditions than mission stations. This really hurt David. He felt he was doing exactly what God had called him to do.

While the LMS has a great reputation and did tremendous work, it’s important to note here that people are not always going to agree with what God has called you to do. It is far more important to please God rather than man. Time proved that David was making the right decisions. While he lost his status with the LMS, he didn’t know the London Royal Geographical Society was interested in him. They presented to him their gold metal, their highest honor. He continued to receive honors on his first furlough home. Oxford University, Cambridge University and Glasgow University all awarded him honorary degrees. He was named by the British Empire as Britain’s Consul for the East coast of Africa, which meant a government salary, government backed funding and new equipment to work with in Africa. He was encouraged to write a book, so he wrote Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa which had great success. Don’t think for a moment that all this success went to his head. David was not comfortable speaking or writing. He was a missionary to African tribes and that was the only place he was comfortable!

At age 45, David, his wife and their youngest son returned to Africa in March of 1858. This would prove to be the hardest stage of David’s life. His wife’s health began to fail as soon as they landed. She and their youngest son remained with her father and mother at the Kuruman Mission Station while David and his team pushed further inland. On this expedition, there were multiple problems. For example, his team was no longer the tribesmen he used to travel with. Rather, they were white Englishmen who seemed to be more of a hindrance than a help. The boat given to them by the government was always slow and hard to maintain. David’s younger brother traveled with him and he didn’t have what it took to be a missionary nor an explorer. This led to a strained relationship for the next 6 years. Not to mention, Mary delivered a baby girl born November 16, 1858, which David didn’t even know he had until she was 1 year old. Life was very, very difficult as a missionary in Africa.

In January 1862, Mary had finally rejoined her husband deep in the continent of Africa. She herself had been quite busy. Once her health regained, she left Kuruman and took their youngest son and new born daughter back to England to stay with the rest of her children. She made her way back to South Africa and met her husband in Zambezi. You can imagine the joy of their reunion after a four year separation from one another. However, their joy only lasted 3 months as Mary became very ill in April. Sadly, she passed from this life on April 27, 1862. It was the hardest season of David’s life. At 49 years old, he was a widower. David buried her under a massive baobab tree at Shupange. 18 years David and Mary were husband and wife, of that 18 years, they were together only half of the time.

In all of this discouragement, there were many, many successes in David’s ministry. At last, in the 1860’s he was able to establish a mission station in the interior of Africa. This was one of David’s dreams. He also discovered Lake Nyasa, the Shire River and Lake Shirwa during this time period.

While still trying to cope with the death of his beloved wife, tensions were beginning to grow as slave trade was increasing and the Portuguese of the East coast were trying to destroy David’s ministry, even lying to local African’s that they were children of Mr. Livingstone and then trapping them as slaves. He decided to return home to England to spend much needed time with his children. One of the saddest lessons David’s life teaches us is that he didn’t spend enough time with his family. That was his one regret in life and one that I hope we all will consider. What will eternity be if we win the world to Christ but lose our own families?

When David came back to England, he found out that his mother had also passed away and that one of his sons, Robert, had gone to America to fight against slavery in the American Civil War. He died in battle and is buried at Gettysburg Cemetery.

While David’s life had changed dramatically over the last few years suffering much loss in his family, he knew he had one more expedition in him. So, the London Royal Geographical Society planned and sponsored one last expedition that would last from 1866-1873.

He didn’t have much contact with the outside world through these years. It had even been rumored that he had been killed in Africa. While he wasn’t dead, he did come close. At one time, an African Tribesmen threw a spear at him missing his head by an inch; the spear did cut the back of his neck. An enormous tree fell and missed him by only a few feet. He suffered malaria, dysentery, sores, loss of blood, and hunger. At one point, Arab slave traders destroyed all his mail and plundered all his supplies. At this point, David was at his lowest point.

But on October 26, 1871, an Englishman came bursting through the African bush. It was none other than Henry Stanley! Out of his mouth came the now famous line, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Although it was J.B. Bennet of the New York Herald that sent Mr. Stanley to find David at all cost to confirm if he was dead or alive, we know it was the Lord that sent Mr. Stanley to Dr. Livingstone! Henry stayed the entire winter with David and later said, “I was converted by him, although he had not tried to do it.”

Henry promised to send David fresh supplies along with a new team of men from Zanzibar Island. They arrived in March of 1872. The new party began to move toward Lake Tanganyika and Lake Bangweolo. This would be David’s last trek through Africa. They reached the South side of Lake Tanganyika and mapped all the way to the day before his death.

They made camp that night and by this time, Dr. Livingstone was so weak he couldn’t walk. He was suffering from dysentery and malaria. At 4am on May 1, 1873 they heard a strange noise. His team found him dead on his knees inside his hut.

The African’s carefully prepared his body. They removed his heart and buried it under a beautiful mulva tree in Zambia, knowing that David’s heart belonged in the soil of the continent he fiercely loved. They carved a wooden monument for him. To preserve his body, they filled it with salt and laid it to rest in the sun for 14 days. At the end of those two weeks, they carefully wrapped his body in cloth, enclosed it in the bark of a Myonge tree and sewed it all into a thick sail cloth. They attached it to a large pole and the African men carried his body, along with his journals, for 9 months across 1,000 miles of African soil to the Island of Zanzibar to deliver him to the British government.

I had the privilege of visiting our brothers and sisters in Zanzibar in September of 2009. I went to host a pastor’s conference for 200 pastors and to meet with the persecuted church leaders on this Islamic island. They took me to St. Mary’s Church in Stonetown. There, they have displayed the monuments to slave trade and a wooden cross made from the Mulva tree where David’s heart is buried. Once again, opening my eyes to the impact he made on Africa.

His body was shipped to London in February 1874. It arrived April 15, 1874 and he was buried in Westminster Abbey along with the Kings and great men and women of Britain on April 18, 1874. At his funeral were his children, Mr. Henry Stanley, many of his close friends in Africa and Robert Moffat, who began it all with is speech in London when David was a mere 25 years old!

Listen to how David summed up his life by his own words, “God had only one Son, and he made that Son a missionary. If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice.”

Peter Cartwright - God's Plowman

2010-05-27T18:17:00.000-07:00

You don’t have to travel far to realize how blessed our region is with the gospel. There are numerous gospel-spreading Churches. I went to preach in Kuwait in 2007 and I remember trying to wrap my mind around the fact that there existed only 2 evangelical Churches in all of Kuwait. In Yemen, there are not any known Churches. In Saudi Arabia, there are not any known Churches…yet we know God has a remnant! But could you imagine not being allowed to gather and worship in a church?

Well, there is a reason why our region is blessed with the gospel. The reason is because of the faithful ministry of men like Peter Cartwright (1785-1873). He was a circuit riding preacher shortly after the American Revolutionary War. Our good Methodist friends will appreciate this article because Peter was a strong Methodist and labored very hard for the denomination. What impresses me the most about Peter Cartwright was his stand against slavery. He grew up in Logan County KY, only one mile from the TN state line.

As slave trade grew more popular among the Church, he preached against it fiercely. He would preach that Scripture taught us to love our neighbor as our self. How could Christians own slaves and fulfill this Scripture? As a result, thousands of slaves obtained their freedom due to his preaching!

I often wonder if Preaching Christ Church existed in the days of slave trade, and if I were its pastor, would we have fought against this evil? I hope so. I hope, even if we were in the South, that we would have stood against slavery and preached strongly the Word of God.

As time went on, slavery became worse within the Church. He moved his family and ministry to Illinois because it was a free state. When the Methodist Church divided over slavery, he sided with the anti-slavery side. He and Abraham Lincoln entered politics together and became good friends.

For our purposes in this month’s article, I thought it would be best to share Peter’s conversion in his own words. This is taken from his autobiography, The Backwoods Preacher written in 1856.

Peter felt the conviction of his sin and toiled with the Lord to seek repentance. I hope you enjoy reading of his conversion. It is my prayer that God will send His Holy Spirit to bring conviction like this back to the Churches of our region!

Some days after this, I retired to a cave on my father’s farm to pray in secret. My soul was in agony; I wept; I prayed, and said, “Now, Lord, if there is mercy for me, let me find it.” And it really seemed to me that I could almost lay hold of the Saviour, and realize a reconciled God. All of a sudden, such a fear of the devil fell upon me that it really appeared to me that he was surely personally there, to seize and drag me down to hell, soul and body, and such a horror fell on me that I sprang to my feet and ran to my mother at the house. My mother told me this was a device of Satan to prevent me from finding the blessing then. Three months rolled away, and still I did not find the blessing of the pardon of my sins…

In the Spring of this year, Mr. M’Grady, a minister of the Presbyterian Church, who had a congregation and meeting-house, as we then called them, about three miles north of my father’s house, appointed a sacramental meeting in this congregation, and invited the Methodist preachers to attend with them, and especially John Page, who was a powerful Gospel minister, and was very popular among the Presbyterians. Accordingly he came, and preached with great power and success.

There were no camp-meetings in regular form at this time, but as there was a great waking up among the Churches, from the revival that had broken out at Cane Ridge…many flocked to those sacramental meetings. The church would not hold the tenth part of the congregation. Accordinly, the officers of the Church erected a stand in a contiguous shady grove, and prepared seats for a large congregation.

The people crowded to the meeting from far and near. They came in their large wagons, with victuals mostly prepared. The women slept in the wagons, and the men under them. Many stayed on the ground night and day for a number of nights and days together. Others were provided for among the neighbors around. The power of God was wonderfully displayed; scores of sinners fell under the preaching, like men slain in mighty battle; Christians shouted aloud for joy.

To this meeting I repaired, a guilty, wretched sinner. On the Saturday evening of said meeting, I went, with weeping multitudes, and bowed before the stand, and earnestly prayed for mercy. In the midst of a solemn struggle of soul, an impression was made on my mind, as though a voice said to me, “Thy sins are all forgiven thee.” Divine light flashed all around me, unspeakable joy sprung up in my soul. I rose to my feet, opened my eyes, and it really seemed as if I was in heaven; the trees, the leaves on them, and everything seemed, and I really thought were, praising God. My mother raised the shout, my Christian friends crowded around me and joined me in praising God; and though I have been since then, in many instances, unfaithful, yet I have never, for one moment, doubted that the Lord did, then and there, forgive my sins and give me religion…

“Lord, may You send this kind of revival that will soundly convert sinners into life-long Christ followers! Help us to not lead people to a decision…but to repentance through Your kindness. In Christ’s Name, Amen!” – Pastor Chad

Dietrich Bonhoeffer - The Cost of Discipleship

2010-04-10T18:20:00.000-07:00

“The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.” (The Cost of Discipleship)

I can’t think of a better devotional than Dietrich Bonhoeffer for Easter! “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” We don’t say things like that in our churches, do we? Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a gift to the Body of Christ. He was unique because he understood the importance of suffering. This is one thing the Church has lost sight of.

This Easter season, we’ll see an increase in the attendance of our churches. As people pour into our sanctuaries most sermons will be something like this…“Accept Christ and your life will be better.” “Come to Christ and you won’t be disappointed.” “Invite Jesus into your heart and you will be happy!”
This is not what Bonhoeffer preached. I don’t think it’s what the true Gospel is. God used Dietrich Bonhoeffer to navigate His people through Germany’s darkest hour. From 1933-1945, Bonhoeffer helped organize a movement of evangelical Christians known as the Confessing Church. It opposed Nazism and the Nazi-based German Christian Church movement.

Dietrich was a young pastor, theologian and author who was active in seeing Germany free from the wicked grip of Nazism. He had opportunities to leave Germany. He had friends both in the United States and the United Kingdom who offered him exile. Yet he refused their offers in order to stay and strengthen the underground Confessing Church.

It was on April 6, 1943 that Bonhoeffer was arrested. While in custody at the Tegel Military Prison, he vigorously wrote to strengthen and encourage the Church. He awaited trial for two years. He was secretly transferred to Flossenburg Concentration Camp in February of 1945.

After his Sunday service for the prisoners of Flossenburg, he was led away to be tried. The Nazi regime condemned him to death. The sentencing was to be carried out the following day, April 9, 1945. They hung this thirty-nine year-old pastor with a thin wire meant for strangulation.

The doctor who witnessed the martyrdom wrote in his journal that evening, “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer ... kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”

My question this Easter season is this, “Where are the Bonhoeffer’s who will challenge us to this kind of Christianity?” Read carefully what Bonhoeffer wrote to the Church, “to endure the cross is not tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.”

Amos 6:1 is a strong warning to the Church. The Bible says, “Woe unto them that are at ease in Zion…” Are you comfortable this Easter? Are you taking any risk at all for the glory of God and the advancement of the Gospel? When I read the works of Bonhoeffer, it shakes me out of my laziness and apathy! The Church needs this kind of message…I need it!

Paul told us what our day would look like. He wrote to the young pastor, Timothy, “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power. Avoid such people.” 2 Timothy 3:1-5 (ESV)

I’m sure you are aware that we are living in the very evil day described in 2 Timothy 3. What is needed is not a selling of the Gospel of Jesus Christ like an infomercial. We need a radical plea for people to respond to the rich grace of God provided through the repentance of sin. I hope you will gain the greatest appreciation for Bonhoeffer through this last quote. This statement is the reason you should go out and purchase a copy of the book, The Cost of Discipleship.

"Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” (The Cost of Discipleship)

Richard Wurbrand - A Faith that Endures

2010-03-02T18:15:00.000-08:00

Few instruments of God have taught the Western Church more about persecution than Richard Wurmbrand. He and his wife, Sabina, faithfully served the suffering church for decades. He was born March 24, 1909 to a Jewish family in Romania.

God formed a mighty union when Richard married Sabina Oster on October 26, 1936. They became Christians in 1938 and immediately began evangelizing the lost, particularly Jews. At this time, WW2 was taking place and Sabina lost nearly all her family to Nazi Concentration Camps. They were persecuted as they reached out to German troops and suffering Jews with Christ’s love.

Then, in 1945, one million Red Army Russian soldiers poured into Romania. On December 30, 1947, Romania became a Communist state. A conference organized by the government brought many religious leaders together where they shamelessly gave loyalty to Communism and spoke of what good it would do for the Romanian Church. Before it came time for Wurmbrand to speak, Sabina whispered to him, “Richard, stand up and wash away this shame from the face of Christ.” He whispered back, “If I do so, you’ll lose your husband.” In which she replied, “I do not wish to have a coward as a husband.”

Boldly, Richard approached the podium that was a live radio broadcast to the entire nation and declared the truth of the Gospel. So enraged where the Communists, they cut the chords to the microphones in the middle of his speech!

The Wurmbrand’s knew the price they would pay. He writes in Tortured for Christ, “When Christians in free countries win a soul for Christ; the new believer may become a member of a quietly living church. But when those in captive nations win someone, we know that he may have to go to prison and that his children may become orphans. The joy of having brought someone to Christ is always mixed with this feeling that there is a price that must be paid.”

While walking to his church on February 29, 1948, Communists kidnapped him and arrested him as, “Prisoner Number 1.” Richard would spend a total of 14 years in Romanian prisons. In Tortured for Christ, he goes into great detail about his persecutions. In 1950, Sabina would be imprisoned and forced to work in labor camps. Their son, Mihai who was 11, was left alone. Sabina was released 3 years later and immediately went back to work within the underground church.

Don’t think that Richard and Sabina ever regretted their stand for Christ. Again he writes, “If a poor man is a great lover of music, he gives his last dollar to listen to a concert. He is then without money, but he does not feel frustrated. He has heard beautiful things. I don’t feel frustrated to have lost many years in prison. I have seen many beautiful things. I myself have been among the weak and insignificant ones in prison, but have had the privilege to be in the same jail with great saints, heroes of faith who equaled the Christian of the first centuries. They went gladly to die for Christ.”

Later he writes, “The tortures and brutality continued without interruption. When I lost consciousness or became too dazed to give the tortures any further hopes of confession, I would be returned to my cell. There I would lie, untended and half dead; to regain a little strength so they could work on me again…They broke four vertebrae in my back, and many other bones. They carved me in a dozen places. They burned and cut eighteen holes in my body. When my family and I were ransomed out of Romania and brought to Norway, doctors in Oslo, seeing all this and the scars in my lungs from Tuberculosis, declared that my being alive today is a pure miracle. According to their medical books, I should have been dead for years. I believe God performed this wonder so that you could hear my voice crying out on behalf of the Underground Church in persecuted countries. He allowed one to come out alive and cry aloud the message of your suffering, faithful brethren.”

In 1964, The Norwegian Mission to the Jews and the Hebrew Christian Alliance ransomed him from the Communist Prison for $10,000. The secret police demanded he be silent concerning the persecutions of himself and other Christians. At the urging of the underground church, his family reluctantly moved to the United States to be a voice for them. He appeared before the US Senate’s Internal Security Subcommittee in Washington D.C. in May of 1966 to testify of the plight of Christians.

One year later, he formed the ministry, “Jesus to the Communist World” and now we know it as, “The Voice of the Martyrs.”

Pastor Richard and Sabina have taught the American Church what Christian love is. I hope you buy the book, Tortured for Christ. But let me leave you with one last statement from this great book, “A flower, if you bruise it under your feet, rewards you by giving you its perfume. Likewise Christians, tortured by the Communists, rewarded their torturers by love. We brought many of our jailors to Christ. And we are dominated by one desire: to give Communists who have made us suffer the best we have, the salvation that comes form our Lord Jesus Christ.”

To learn more about Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, who passed away earlier this decade, visit the Voice of the Martyrs website, www.persecution.com or visit www.rw100.persecution.com.

David Brainerd - Unspeakable Glory

2010-02-01T18:26:00.000-08:00

Isn’t it incredible to think that a missionary who influenced countless people battled depression his entire life? That same man who inspired many to go to the mission field felt his own ministry was a failure. Although David Brainerd was strong spiritually, his body was frail and feeble from Tuberculosis causing him to die at the age of 29.
His desire was to be “a flame for God.” In his journal entry on April 26, 1742, “Oh, that I could spend every moment of my life to God’s glory!” He burned with passion on August 30, 1742 writing, “My soul longs with a vehement desire to live for God.” November 22, 1745 he entered, “I have received my all from God, oh that I could return my all to God.”
David was born into a Puritan family on April 20, 1718 and although he read the Bible through twice each year, he was never soundly converted. It wasn’t until he was 21 that he experienced salvation. Brainerd says, “As I was walking in a dark, thick grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open to the view and apprehension in my soul. It was a new inward apprehension or view that I had of God, such as I never had before, or anything that I had the least remembrance of, so that I stood still and wondered and admired. My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellencies, the loveliness, and the greatness and the other perfections of God. I was swallowed up in Him. At least to that degree, that I had no thought, as I remember, first about my own salvation…and thus, the Lord, I trust, brought me to a hearty desire to exalt Him.” (The Lord’s Day, July 12, 1739)
Shortly after his conversion, he entered Yale. Brainerd’s experience in school was disappointing. In his first year, he was sent home due to illnesses. Added to that, the student body was carnal and unspiritual. When he did return his second year, everything was different, primarily because of a revival George Whitefield held! Most of the school’s faculty considered the revival emotionalism. One of Brainerd’s professors was critical about the Revival; David’s comment toward the issue caused him to be removed from Yale.
Unsure of the direction in his life, Brainerd shepherded a small congregation in Woodbury, Connecticut. It wasn’t long until David knew the calling God had on his life. In August of 1742, he was asked to preach to the Indians. The next March, he resigned his pastorate and became a full time missionary.
Through miraculous events, the Indians gained trust in David’s ministry. They believed the “paleface” was sent by the spirits. Brainerd took every opportunity to teach Scripture. Although the work began slowly, he later saw results. “I have now baptized, in all, 47 persons of the Indians. 23 adults and 24 children…through rich grace, none of them as yet have been left to disgrace their profession of Christianity by any scandalous or unbelieving behavior” David wrote in his journal.
“After public worship was over, I went to my house, proposing to preach again after a short season of intermission. But they soon came in one after another; with tears in their eyes, to know, ‘what they should do to be saved...’ It was an amazing season of power among them, and seemed as if God had ‘bowed the heavens and come down...’ and that God was about to convert the whole world.”
Brainerd’s ministry did not come without the continuous sacrifice of prayer and fasting. In July 1744, David wrote, "This morning about nine I withdrew to the woods for prayer. I was in such anguish that when I rose from my knees I felt extremely weak and overcome, and the sweat ran down my face and body ... I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so that I could but gain souls for Christ. I continued in this frame all the evening and night." Again, he records, "About six at night I lost my way in the wilderness, and wandered over rocks and mountains, through swamps and most dreadful places. I was pinched with cold and distressed with an extreme pain in my head and stomach so that much blood came from me. But God preserved me, and blessed be His name, such fatigues and hardships as these seem to wean me more from the earth and I trust will make heaven the sweeter."
Tuberculosis came again as his body began to give out. He wrote, “Farewell friends, and earthly comforts…I will spend my life to my latest moments in caves and dens of the earth, if the kingdom of Christ may thereby be advanced.”
“It is my fervent longing to be a flame of fire, continually glowing in the divine service, till my latest, my dying moment.” That moment came in the home of Jonathan Edwards on October 9, 1746. At the age of 29, on his deathbed, he whispered, “I was made for eternity. How I long to be with God and to bow in His presence. Oh that the Redeemer may see of the travail of this soul and be satisfied. Oh come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly!” With that said, he passed from his earthly body into his heavenly body free of depression, thoughts of failure and free of pain.

Brother Andrew - God's Smuggler

2010-01-01T18:28:00.000-08:00

In September 2007, I was sitting in the President Hotel in Cairo, Egypt praying if I should travel on to Lebanon. I had already canceled my flight to Beirut two weeks prior because of the political turmoil Hezbollah had brought to the country. Israel and the Syria backed army of Hezbollah had been at war with the Lebanese people caught in the middle, particularly the Christians of Lebanon. I had been invited to Beirut, but Hezbollah had shut down the airport and thousands of soldiers camped out at the University Center in downtown Beirut.

Once the airport had re-opened, I was asked to re-book my flight. Most people advised me not to go on this trip as unstable as the country was. However, I felt the Church needed encouragement then, not when things were okay. So I prayed and had only a window of an hour or so to make a decision as to if I should travel on to Beirut from Cairo. I didn’t want to travel there out of a sense of adventure or anything like it. Yet, I didn’t want to just stay in my safety zone and not bring what encouragement I could to the believers in a difficult hour. I needed assurance from the Scripture as to whether I should go ahead and travel or stay out of Lebanon. Either way would be fine as long as I had 100% confidence from Scripture.

I asked the Lord to lead me and I turned to the book of Acts. In the brand new Bible I was using, I noticed four words on the bottom of the right hand page. It said in Acts 18:9, “And the Lord said…” I knew this would be the confirmation from Scripture I needed. If it said to go on to Lebanon, then I would go. If it gave me the impression to wait, then I would. I just knew I needed the surety of Scripture behind whatever decision I made.

Acts 18:9-10 went on to say, “And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.’” I couldn’t believe what I had just read! I don’t think God could have spoken to me any clearer than He did that afternoon! So I booked the flights immediately and left to meet some believers in Beirut!

Well, not only did I have the help of the Holy Spirit and the surety of the Scriptures…I had another great influence that afternoon. As I was making those difficult decisions that day, I was listening to a sermon by Brother Andrew! He said in that sermon, “There is no country closed to the Gospel. Anyone can get in…not everyone gets out…but anyone, willing, can get in.”

If you are not familiar with this 81 year old missionary, then you need to do some heavy reading on him. A small article could never give you the appreciation for such a life. I would encourage you to read his classic, “God’s Smuggler” along with, “The Narrow Road”, “Light Force”, “Operation Desert Light”, “Secret Believers” and “The Calling.”

Allow me to give you just a brief introduction to the man who God chose to carry the Gospel through seemingly impossible circumstances. Andrew van der Bijl was born May 11, 1928 in Holland. As a young boy, Hitler’s Nazi army took control of Holland and occupied the town Andrew grew up in. He spent most of his days sneaking around the Nazi’s and causing them a great deal of trouble. Little did he know God was preparing him to be a Bible smuggler!

He went on to missionary school in Glasgow, Scotland in the mid 1950’s. Upon graduation, the president of the school told Andrew that he could never be a missionary due to his serious back problems. The president kindly explained that a frail body, such as Andrews, would never hold up under the pressures of a missionary’s life.

Discouraged…but still determined, he went to a youth convention in Communist-controlled Poland in 1955. It was then that he realized the enormous need for Bibles behind the “Iron Curtain.” So with very little money and an old Volkswagen Beetle he traveled all over Europe distributing Bibles and bringing encouragement to the persecuted Church.

Many times he would drive up to a Communist border crawling with police who would search his car. Well, because he had such a small car, there wouldn’t be anywhere to hide the boxes of Bibles. So he would pile the back seat, the trunk and the floor boards with boxes of Bibles. As he drove up to the border, he would pray what he coined as the “Smuggler’s Prayer.” It goes like this, “Dear Lord, when you walked the earth, you made blind eyes open. Now I’m asking you to make open eyes blind.” Time after time, the guards would search his vehicle to find no Bibles…when in fact, there were hundreds!

One last story about Brother Andrew, who is now 81 and still impacting the globe with the Gospel. On the night of June 18, 1981, Brother Andrew’s ministry, Open Doors, smuggled 1 million Bibles into China! He has lived an extraordinary life dedicated to strengthening the suffering Church. Go to your local bookstore, buy the books on Brother Andrew and I promise you won’t be disappointed! He is a model of the passion ordinary Christians can have for an extraordinary call to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Ringing Bells of Hope - The Story of the Salvation Army

2009-12-10T18:31:00.000-08:00

Do you know how it feels to be captivated by breath taking mountains? It makes you feel pretty small, right? As I write these articles each month for Common Ground on heroes of the faith, I sometimes feel pretty small compared to these mighty mountains of men and women of God. If I’m not careful, I find myself measuring my life and ministry to them…and how disappointed I feel when I try to do that. My pastor taught me that mountains do not exists for us to compare ourselves to them. Mountains exist for the glory of God and for our joy!

I do not write these articles each month so that you and I can compare ourselves to these people whom God has used or even so that we can boast about them. These articles are written so that we can joy in the grace and glory of God that was upon their lives and that we may see His grace and glory in our own life.

This month’s mountain is about a couple that was both born in 1829. They faithfully lived out the calling of God on their lives. They married on June 17, 1855 and went on to have eight children that had a phenomenal impact on the Kingdom of God. Our subject is William and Catherine Booth, the founders of the Salvation Army.

In our area, nearly everyone is familiar with the Salvation Army. We see them, especially at this time of year, as they set up around town at retail stores as people do their Christmas shopping. They are known for ringing bells in hopes that we may not forget about the poor and needy during the holiday season. It is my aim that by the end of this article, you may come to understand the purpose behind the founding of the Salvation Army and see the great passion both William and Catherine carried for people to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

William and Catherine met at a friend’s house where William passionately talked about the effects alcoholism had on families. They recognized how they shared the same passions and interests. Both had a great burden for the poor and needy since they were teenagers. They were later married in 1855 and Catherine was always a big part of his ministry.

William was an ordained Methodist pastor in London and while he loved the Methodist Church, he felt his ministry was that of an evangelist more than a pastor. He requested to be released from his pastorate to do full time evangelism but his request was denied. He had no other choice than to break away and begin his own ministry. He and Catherine settled into East London and in 1865 began the Christian Revival Society, or also called the East London Christian Mission and as it later became known as the “Salvation Army.” William would say, “Work as if everything depended on work and pray as if everything depended on prayer.”

God placed a remarkable vision within their hearts that is still making a global impact to this day. Their newspaper was called, “The War Cry,” leaders were known as “officers,” and Christians were “captives.” When they expanded outreach into new cities or even new countries, it was known as an “invasion.” People respectfully called William “General.” Catherine was affectionately known as the “Mother” of the Salvation Army.

The Salvation Army was so serious about the spreading of the Gospel that they would take to the streets as an “army.” People would fall under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the effects were felt so strongly that bars and taverns would have to close due to the lack of business. So angry were the owners of the bars that they began rioting against the Salvation Army. In 1882, 669 Salvationists were attacked and over 60 of the Salvation Armies were vandalized.

But this did not stop the movement! More “lunch rooms” were opened where the poor could get a cup of soup for a quarter of a penny! One could buy an entire meal for only 6 pennies and of course, thousands of meals were given away free.
The Salvation Army now circles the globe. The vision that William and Catherine dedicated their lives too still brings people to the hope of Jesus Christ! The greatest way for me to show you the passion for souls the Booth’s had is for you to read it in William’s own words…

“’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 grates of the 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. And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell Him there you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.”

For comments or questions about this article, email Pastor Chad at missionsflame26@hotmail.com or visit www.preachingchristchurch.com

Happy Birthday John Calvin!

2009-11-10T18:38:00.000-08:00

Calvin’s brilliant thinking, interpretation of Scripture and love for the Church has been a gift to the Body of Christ for a remarkable 500 years. In 2009, Christianity has celebrated the 500th birthday of John Calvin and whether you consider yourself a Calvinist or an Arminian, I hope you can appreciate this article on a man God has now used for a span of five centuries.

It is impossible to write on Calvin without stirring some type of controversy. So why even attempt it you ask? Well, there are a number of things I think Christians should understand about John Calvin. While there are some misunderstandings and even misinterpretations that surround him, you and I as believers in Christ owe an enormous debt of gratitude for what he has done for Christianity.

I encourage you to read some books on Calvin, do some research and form your own opinion of him. For what it’s worth, I personally owe a great deal to Calvin because he taught me to see the Bible through the most accurate lens…the Bible itself! He taught me to interpret Scripture in light of other Scriptures and not allow my reasoning, or logic or even my own emotions to form my theology but rather accurately handle the Word of God and allow Scripture to shape my thinking of God.

Calvin’s interest in spiritual things began as a child. He was born July 10, 1509 in Noyan, France. At age 12 he expressed interest in priesthood within the Catholic Church. As he got older, that desire didn’t leave him. While attending College Royal in Paris, he became friends with a man who would influence his thinking and theology.

His new friend, Nicolas Cop, was quite vocal about reform within the Catholic Church. Tensions began to spill over and in October 1534 both Cop and Calvin were forced to leave Paris. Calvin went on to Basel where he began to write. (If you remember in last month’s edition, we talked about how Johann Gutenberg’s movable type printing press allowed new thoughts and ideas and even Scripture to circulate throughout Europe at an unprecedented pace.) In Basel, he completed the first of his Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536.

Finally Calvin settled in Geneva, Switzerland and established his ministry there. While he was preaching and teaching in the Churches as well as lecturing on theology, his main focus was on writing.

While I encourage you to read books and articles about Calvin to form your own opinion of his teachings, let me first help you understand the world in which Calvin lived. His story is similar to that of Martin Luther, whom we featured in Common Ground’s October edition. He lived in a time that the Roman Church had shut up the truth. They only permitted Scripture to be written in Latin, and only Priests knew Latin. Ordinary people were not allowed to read the Bible for themselves and certainly were not allowed to interpret the Bible.

Men such as John Calvin, Martin Luther and even Erasmus believed every person should have access to God’s Word. They believed people could (and should) study the Bible for themselves rather than relying on what the Priest told them the Bible says. They believed in the average Christian having a copy of the Bible in their own language to such a degree that they risked their lives and lived as “heretics.”

Because the Bible was only allowed to be read by Priests, ordinary Christians believed only what Priests told them were in the Bible. Listen to how Calvin described it, “Among the people themselves, the highest veneration paid to thy Word was to revere it at a distance, as a thing inaccessible, and abstain from all investigations of it. Owing to this supine state of the pastors, and this stupidity of the people, every place was filled with pernicious errors, falsehoods, and superstitions.” And so ordinary Christians began to look to pictures, statues and other artifacts to understand the Bible. Pictures became known as “books of the unlearned” and it’s how the Roman Church wanted things.

Calvin saw the great danger in this. He knew the stability of the Church in future generations depended upon the right interpretation of Scripture. No matter what side of the fence you land on when it comes to Calvinism versus Arminiunism, you should still appreciate how God used Calvin in bringing about the skill to study and interpret the Bible.

There are two primary misunderstandings I would like to clarify concerning Calvin. First is the idea that he began Calvinism. While his writings have shaped the thinking of people like myself that hold to Reformed Theology, it was not Calvin that began Calvinism. Reformed Theology came from the re-discovered truths of the Protestant Reformation along with the 5 Sola’s of Faith. Calvinism came much later through the followers of Calvin debating the followers of Joseph Arminius.

The second misunderstanding is that of the death of Calvin’s theological enemy, Michael Servetus. Now someone may say to you, as they have me, “If John Calvin’s message is the glory of God, how can God be glorified in Calvin killing a man just because he didn’t agree with his doctrine?” This is not really a fair statement and let me explain why…

First of all, Calvin didn’t have Servetus killed. The Protestant Geneva Governing Council condemned Servetus as heretic and carried out the sentencing of death. Calvin tried to reason with Servetus and convert him back. Calvin would not even attend Servetus’ death sentence. Now that doesn’t mean Calvin didn’t think Servetus should not have been killed, but the way we think in the 21st century is, in many ways, more progressive than how they thought in the 16th century. I’m glad we no longer burn those with opposing views at the stake! But please understand that it was the decision of the Council…not Calvin to have Servetus burned at the stake as a heretic. Today, Jehovah Witnesses, some Oneness Pentecostals and other Unitarian groups consider Servetus a hero and martyr.

While Calvin did not rejoice in Servertus’ death as some would suggest, he did fiercely defend right doctrine. This statement by Calvin is a good way to conclude this article…“A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God’s truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.” Happy 500th Birthday John Calvin!

For comments or questions email: missionsflame26@hotmail.com

Martin Luther - The Reformer

2009-10-01T18:34:00.000-07:00

In the early 1500’s, the strength and power of the Roman Catholic Church had reached its height, and so had corruption, spreading even to the Pope himself. The dominion of the Pope was world-wide. While he ruled circa sacra (concerning sacred matters), Emperor Charles V ruled world-wide circa civilia (concerning civil matters.) The King ruled men’s bodies, the Pope ruled men’s souls. The King had the power of the sword while the Pope had the power of the Keys to Heaven and Hell. This was the world in which Martin Luther lived.

The Catholic Church was strong and immensely wealthy. Priests owned large estates, (Also at this time, Priests owned 1/3 of all European land), they had the right to require 10% of all other property as a tithe. They received money for baptisms, marriages, attending deathbeds, conducting funerals and saying masses. They were very wealthy, yet none wealthier than Pope Leo X.

In those days, Bibles were very large, and one Bible was given for each town chained to a podium in the Catholic Church. The problem was that it was written in Latin! It was illegal for Bibles to be translated into any language but Latin, meaning that normal towns people could not read nor understand God’s Word, they relied on what Priests told them. Why were Bibles only allowed in Latin? Because the Pope didn’t want anyone challenging his authority or doctrine. This is why they burned William Tyndale at the stake, because he translated the first English Bible. You and I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to William Tyndale for giving us our first English Bible.

Indulgences

It was the selling of indulgences that pushed Martin Luther over the edge. An Indulgence was a certificate the Catholic Church sold that promised to remove people’s loved ones out of purgatory into Heaven if they paid enough money. In other words, it was a Salvation certificate. The Catholic Church believes that the Pope has the power to transfer a soul from Purgatory to Heaven. This troubled Martin Luther and he began to speak against it.

The Pope claimed the money was going toward wars being fought in the name of the Church, yet in reality, the money went toward constructing St. Peter’s Church in Rome and collecting even more expensive art and artifacts for the Pope. A man by the name of John Tetzel was commissioned by the Pope himself to go from town to town selling these certificates to the poor. When he came to the towns near Wittenberg, Germany, Luther’s people began going and purchasing these certificates though they were poor farmers. This outraged the righteous soul of Martin Luther!

The 95 Theses

Luther sat down and composed 95 challenges to the Catholic Church. He wrote the 95 Theses to challenge the practices and abuses of the Indulgences. It angered him that the Pope had the authority to release souls from Purgatory, yet he refused to help the poor who had no money. He finished the 95 Theses on October 31, 1517 and took them straight to the Castle Church of Wittenberg, Germany and nailed his challenges to the door.

Most people think he defiantly and rebelliously did this to split the Church. This was not Luther’s intention at all. Nailing the 95 Theses to the Church doors was not an act of rebellion. It was a place of public announcements. Furthermore, Luther wrote the 95 Theses in Latin to where only Priests could read it. The local town’s people couldn’t have read it for themselves. His intent was to bring reform to the Church, not split the Church.

Luther discovered justification by faith alone and began changing his beliefs and doctrine. He could no longer accept the teachings of purgatory, praying to dead saints, the devotions to Mary and the sole authority of the Pope.

Diet of Worms – 1521

Word quickly came to the Pope Leo X in Rome of the young monks actions. Furious, the Pope called on Emperor Charles V to put an end to this. Luther was summoned to the Diet of Worms, a Council of 200 princes and the Emperor himself.

In 1521, Luther stood before this mighty Council. They demanded Luther recant. He was intimated and begged for a day to think and pray. They granted him one day to think over his actions. He returned the next day full of faith and boldness. They demanded again that he recant or he would be condemned a heretic of the Church.

Luther boldly said, “Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason – I do not accept the authority of the Popes and Councils, for they have contradicted each other – my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other. God help me. Amen.” That day they condemned Luther as a heretic.

The Reformation Spreads

Things were changing throughout the world, greatly due to Johann Gutenberg inventing the movable type printing press in Germany. He printed a Bible as the first book printed by a machine.

At the same time of the Reformation in Germany, Switzerland was undergoing a Reformation led by Ulrich Zwingli. The printing presses now allowed ideas and Scriptures to spread throughout all of Europe at an unprecedented pace.

Along the same time, God raised up another man that would bring change to the face of the Church. A French Theologian named John Calvin. While it was Luther that ignited the flames of the Reformation, it was Calvin that began to link the Church with his thoughts and writings. His writings were similar to Luther and soon connected churches throughout Switzerland, Scotland, Hungary, England, France and elsewhere. A true Reformation was underway!

The story of the Reformation began with John Wycliff (known as the Morning Star of the Reformation) who discipled John Hus (who was burned at the stake) who influenced Erasmus, who laid the groundwork for Martin Luther, who paved the way for John Calvin, William Tyndale and John Knox. It was the firm belief of these men that every person should have a copy of the Bible,

We owe so much to those who bravely fought, consistently prayed and courageously smuggled Bibles all over Europe, across the English Channel, through the Swiss Alps, Down the Danube River and into Scandinavia. God’s story of Redemption continued to grow with each generation because the Fathers of the Reformation fought for such a cause.

So why is there so much Reformation history in this October issue? The reason is because the last Sunday of the month of October is celebrated as Reformation Sunday. When you’re at your church October 25th, say a prayer of thanks for the Reformers God raised up, “For such a time as this.”

Jonathan Edwards - Awaken America

2009-09-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

Building a Church is hard! Ask any church planter what their favorite Scriptures are and I bet you Matthew 16:18, when Christ says of Himself “I will build my church” is in the top 5! It is a comforting thought when you are working with all your strength, and you’re not sure you’re doing everything right, to read Matthew 16:18 and know that in the end, Christ (not us) ultimately builds His Church!

September 13th is the National Back to Church Sunday as we “ReThink” Church. I believe it’s good for us to “ReThink” Church. I know I shudder when I think of some of the mistakes I’ve made as a young pastor. So I’m right there saying, “Yeah! Let’s re-think what we do, how we do it and why we do this thing we call “Church.”

However, I don’t want to ReThink church just from a cultural perspective (in asking, what do people want?) I’d rather ReThink church from a Biblical perspective, (asking, what does God want?” Culture will change…Scripture won’t (1 Peter 1:25). I ponder a great deal on the changes the Church needs to make and usually my thoughts go back to a critical time for both our nation and the Church…The Great Awakening.

Just as we use kindling for a fire, God used Jonathan Edwards to spark the flames of the Great Awakening, which was a great outpouring upon this nation. The spiritual climate was cold in those days, just as it is in ours. For them, it was Deism that was the challenge, for us, our challenges are apathy, an abundance of sin among God’s people and a lack of solid doctrine leading to a high view of God.

The Church needed a new direction. She needed to feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit and be led to repentance. So much repentance took place in those days that entire cities were changed. Edwards wrote that cities experienced a powerful move of God among the American colonies from Northampton, Massachusetts (where he was a pastor) to Northern Georgia! Even as I write this, my heart cries, “Do it again Lord! Sweep our nation. Bring repentance to Your Church and to the lost! Amen!”

Jonathan Edwards was born October 5, 1703. He had a brilliant mind. He entered Yale University at the age of 13. He went on to be the Associate Pastor under his grandfather and soon became the senior pastor where he would remain for 23 years. The last 7 years of his life he worked as a missionary to the Indians. He would die at a young age of 54 from a smallpox inoculation just months after he became the President of the College of New Jersey, later named, Princeton University.

What Edwards is really known for was his deep theological books, which are still widely read today. His books like Religious Affections, Freedom of the Will, Charity and its Fruits and probably the most notable, The Life of David Brainerd. Edwards took time to write this book after David Brainerd stayed at his home. He passed away of Tuberculosis in 1747. Brainerd loved Edward’s daughter, Jerusha, and she died just months after Brainerd of the same disease after trying to nurse him back to health.

The book, The Life of David Brainerd, mainly taken from Brainerd’s diary, has impacted 200 years of missionaries. Men like Henry Martyn, Robert Morrison, Francis Asbury, Robert Murray McCheney, William Carey, David Livingston, Andrew Murray and Jim Elliot have all expressed the deep impact Edwards and Brainerd have had on their lives.

“Sinners in the Hands of an angry God” was the sermon that shook America! Most people think of Edwards as a loud, boisterous preacher. They picture him yelling and screaming on top of pews. That wasn’t Jonathan Edwards at all. As matter of fact, it was quite opposite. He had a very monotone voice. Because he had poor eyesight, he would hold a lantern in one hand, and use the other hand to read his sermon (yes, read his manuscript sermon!). The power was not in his delivery, but in the prayer with which he saturated his sermons!

So, what does all of this have to do with National Back to Church Sunday? Well, I think the Church needs a new direction and I can’t think of a better direction that looking to the past and how God moved so mightily among His people. As we “ReThink” some things about Church, keep in mind Hebrews 13:7, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.”

Let’s ReThink our Programs.
“Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 3:11

Look at any growing church and you will see a dynamic kid’s church, a thriving student ministry, a strong worship department, effective outreach and a host of other programs. They are needed, and I think necessary to maintaining a healthy church.

However, there is a danger to building a church on programs. Allow me to prove my point, while keeping in mind that all these programs are important and valued to the life of my own congregation. I simply want to bring balance as we “ReThink” church!

Jeremiah 2:13 says, “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold not water.” That’s not written to pagan, heathen lost people! This is written to God’s people and I think the Church needs to revisit this...“my people” have committed evil by forsaking the Lord! This tells me that it’s possible to build a church and leave God out of it! Let’s ReThink this and see if we are guilty of “relying” on our programs more than the power of the Holy Spirit! “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” Psalms 127:1

Let’s ReThink our Priorities
Budgets are important to churches. More than anything, a budget shows the priorities of a congregation. The money will go to whatever matters to that Church. I want to encourage you to not let global and local missions be under-budgeted.

This coming year, pray about raising the budgets for spreading the gospel. The measure of our churches should not be the “seating” capacity but rather its “sending” capacity!

Read the Apostle Paul’s praise to the Thessalonian congregation for their labor in missions, “so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere…” 1 Thessalonians 1:7-8

I love those verses! The phrase “Sounded forth” literally means “blowing trumpets”! They were an example to churches in their day and certainly they are an example to us in the 21st century!

Let’s ReThink our Preaching
The Bible teaches that it is possible for us to empty the cross of its power. “…and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:17-18

Hold to the beautiful truths of sound doctrine. Follow Paul’s instructions in Titus 1:9 and Titus 2:1. Let us not taint something as sacred as preaching with something so secular as a TV series, sitcoms or movies. We can preach a sermon series that we call “relevant” and it can “empty the cross of its power.” Let’s ReThink Church!

Let’s Rethink our Purpose
I try to remind the leaders in my church of 1 Peter 4:11 quite often. It says, “…whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies – in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”

Why does the Church exists? To glorify God in all things! Keep that the driving force of your congregation. Why do we do benevolence ministry? To glorify God! Why do we sing songs with a choir or band? To glorify God! Why do we do missions? To glorify God! Why do we preach? Ultimately to glorify God through the converting and edifying of souls! Do all things to the glory of God!

What if we’re doing Church wrong?
Like any church age, we’re not perfect. If Christ doesn’t return soon, history will one day judge us as we judge past generations in their faithfulness and purity as a church. As I often feel the weightiness of leading a Church, and the pressures of being relevant to our culture yet faithful to the Gospel and the Holy Spirit, I am comforted by Jude 1:24, “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.”

So I encourage all of you who love the Church and are doing your best to make her pleasing to the Lord! Be careful that you’re Biblical and Christ-centered, but also, be encouraged that Christ will build His Church (Matthew 16:18), and He will sustain you till the end (1 Corinthians 1:8) and He will equip you for all that you need. “Now may the God of peace…the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” Hebrews 13:20-21.

To learn more about Preaching Christ Church, visit, www.preachingchristchurch.com

James Hudson Taylor - China Inland Missions

2009-08-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

James Hudson Taylor was an extraordinary man. He courageously followed God’s call into the interior of China being the first white man to carry the Gospel into the heart of China. The respect I have for Mr. Taylor cannot be expressed in a 1,000 word article. I have so much respect for this Godly man that I have a large painting of him in my church office beside my library.

When I was about 11, I read a children’s biography of this mighty man of God. I read how Hudson was in bed one night and while in prayer, he gave himself to the Lord. He spread himself out on the bed and said, “If you send me to China, I will go!” As an 11 year old boy, I prayed that same prayer. I said, “If you will send me into missions, I will go!” Well, that next summer, I had the unique opportunity to spend 3 weeks traveling through Germany, Hungary, Romania and the Ukraine with a missionary friend of my church and family. Since then, Hudson Taylor has impacted my walk with Christ in enormous ways.

He was born May 21, 1832 in Yorkshire, England. His parents were Godly, and they prayed, “Lord, if you give us a son, we pray you use him in China.” Hudson was a good student through school and decided to study both medicine and theology. His parent’s prayer came true September 19, 1853 as he set sail to become a medical missionary to China.

Once Hudson arrived in Ningpo, China he noticed immediately that mission work there wasn’t what he thought it would be. One fault of some missionaries in those days was the mentality that Christians were to “Westernize” the culture. So, they built enormous homes along the coast and “hired” the Chinese as servants in order to influence them with their culture. Many missionaries went to China to change their dress, customs and even language to English.

Hudson didn’t see mission work that way. He wasn’t interested in converting the Chinese to his culture, he desired to convert them to Christ! He couldn’t understand why the missionaries were not penetrating the interior of China with the Gospel. He respected the customs of the Chinese and was eager to adopt them as long as it didn’t violate his Biblical standards. One area he adopted was to wear local clothing men wore and he even grew his hair into a long “pigtail” because this was the culture of the local men. Most missionaries criticized him for these decisions, except one missionary…Maria Dyer!

She respected Hudson for loving the Chinese and desiring to bring the Gospel to their culture. They were happily married January 20, 1858!

Hudson and his bride continued their labor for several more years before returning home to England for a furlough. Their lives would soon change as Hudson knelt upon the beach at Brighton, England and “prayed for twenty-four willing, skillful laborers” to reach the interior of China. This was on June 25, 1865, the night China Inland Missions (CIM) was born! The next morning, he opened a bank account with 50 pounds ($10 USD) in the name of China Inland Missions. One year later, 24 people sailed to China with the Taylor’s to bring the light of the glorious gospel to this dark land!

Throughout the year, the new mission would continue to grow, but because of the Boxer Rebellion the Taylor’s lost 58 missionaries and 21 children, but God continued to send missionaries to them. By the time of his death, CMI had 205 missionary stations throughout China with 849 missionaries serving and 125,000 Chinese converted to Christ!

Hudson Taylor died in Changsha, China on June 3, 1905, but the story does not end here! His work continued on. The ministry God led him to build was so strong that it is still going even to this day! China Inland Mission is now called Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF) and you can visit their website at www.omf.org.

Currently, OMF is praying for 900 new workers to join them in the mission field by 2011. They have 1,300 missionaries serving now! On March 20, 2009, Hudson’s great-grandson, James Hudson Taylor III went to be with the Lord at age 79. He himself was a powerful missionary to East Asia. He died in Hong Kong. Hudson did what few are able to do. He left a legacy, not just of ministry, but for his family to follow in his footsteps to magnify Christ and to seek the salvation of souls! A mighty man of God indeed! I will leave you now with a couple of popular quotes from James Hudson Taylor, missionary to China.

“It is always helpful to us to fix out attention on the God-ward aspect of Christian work; to realize that the work of God does not mean so much man’s work for God, as God’s own work through man.”

“We have no responsibilities save to follow as we are led, and we serve One who is able both to design and to executed, and whose work never fails.”

John Newton - Amazing Grace

2009-07-09T18:37:00.000-07:00

His reputation was known throughout much of the world, from the coasts of Africa (where he was a slave trader) to the docks of England where his name was infamous as a vulgar, blasphemer of God. His name was John Newton.

The old John Newton, before he became a new creation in Christ, was the captain of a ship that sold slaves…it’s how he made his living. He would sail to what was known as the “Dark Continent” in the mid 1700’s and capture Africans to claim them as slaves, ripping families apart just to make money. Fathers, wives, children – it didn’t matter to John Newton, until 1748.

In 1748, someone gave John a copy of “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas A. Kempis. John Newton read that book and in it saw his awful sins and that he needed a Savior. Through the marvelous grace of God, that which John called “Amazing”, he came to Christ and was gloriously saved!

He forsook his wicked lifestyle and became a humble pastor and hymn writer. John Newton was instrumental as an old man in the shaping of William Wilberforce who would spend his entire life fighting slavery and finally saw slavery abolished in England.

We remember John Newton most for giving the Church the hymn that has probably comforted more souls than any song in history, “Amazing Grace.” John Newton was not exaggerating when he penned the words, “…that saved a wretch like me.” John Newton was a wretched man until the grace of God captured his soul. When I read the life of John Newton, I think of the verse in Romans 6:20, “…where sin did abound, grace did much more abound.”

Upon his death bed, as his memory was quickly fading, he was able to re-call one thing. He is known for saying, “This one thing I do remember, that I was a great sinner, but Christ was a great Savior!”

Praise God for John Newton! Praise God for grace that turns Sauls into Pauls and grace that turned a slave trader like John Newton into a humble, loving Pastor. Grace that has turned my life and your life from the domain of darkness into the Kingdom of His Beloved Son!

Let us consider together the great work of God’s grace in our own lives out of
Ephesians 2:2-10 (ESV)
, “in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

As you read this today, why don’t you pause and thank God for the grace He has “lavishly” poured over you and your family. Pray for for those in your life that have not yet experienced the grace of God and ask the Lord to be merciful to those who are yet un-repentant.

Have you experienced God’s Amazing Grace? I’m not asking have you experienced church or religion. I’m not asking if you’ve taken a mission trip or are active in your local church. I’m asking have you experienced the marvelous grace of God that brings about repentance and change? If not, call upon the Lord today. Ask of His forgiveness, ask of His grace and come drink of the well of grace for it is sufficient.

Nehemiah - A Burden of the Lord

2009-06-20T18:33:00.000-07:00

In 52 days, he had accomplished what no one before him had been able to do. He had rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and repaired each of her gates. Nehemiah was an extraordinary leader. There is a truth I am currently leading my congregation into for this summer, “Whenever God wants to do a great work, He lays hold of a willing people.”

How I’ve challenged my congregation with this…and now I would like to challenge you as well. Are you willing to be taken hold by God? Now, let me explain what that means. It doesn’t necessarily mean that God is going to do great things and bring huge blessings into your life. Actually, it might mean just the opposite.

Take Nehemiah for example. When God laid hold of Nehemiah’s heart, he had a great job. He was the cupbearer of the King of Persia, Artaxerxes. This meant he enjoyed a unique position of sharing both the court and the confidence of the most powerful man alive in that day. Rather than living in the destruction of Jerusalem, he enjoyed the luxurious palace of the King. Add to that, he lived 700 miles away from Jerusalem! How easy it would have been for Nehemiah to dismiss the report of Israel’s reproach. He could have said, “What can I do? God has blessed me with a good job, I’m 700 miles away, I love the Lord and God knows that…why should I worry about what happens so far away from me.”

But that wasn’t Nehemiah’s attitude…not even close! In chapter 1 verse 4, he says, “As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.” Whenever God begins to lay hold of His people, He does it by giving them a burden.

A burden of the Lord is a foreign idea to most of today’s Church. Leonard Ravenhill said it like this, “Today’s Church does more playing than it does praying.” How true that is and I hope God will open our eyes to this.

How important is prayer to your church? How important is it to my church? John MacArthur says, “Prayer is often like a parachute. We’re glad it’s there, we just hope we don’t have to use it.” Let me show you how important prayer was to Nehemiah. It took him only 52 days to organize the 42 groups of workers in Jerusalem and complete the walls and gates. It took him 3 months to travel the 700 miles to Jerusalem while picking up materials. However, he spent 4 months (Dec – April) in prayer and fasting before the Lord before he even presented his plan to King Artaxerxes in Nehemiah 2!

WOW! 52 days of work…4 months of prayer…do you see where we’re missing it in today’s church! Prayer is not meant to prepare for the “greater work.” Prayer is the “greater work.”

Prayer is to a church what blood is to our bodies. When the blood stops flowing, the body dies. When prayer stops in a local church, she will die! God forbid this! The church needs to re-examine Nehemiah and follow his Biblical model of calling upon the name of the Lord.

On a hot summer day in the late 1800’s a few Bible college students visited London, England. They wanted to attend service at the great Metropolitan Tabernacle where Charles Spurgeon was the pastor. They arrived very early to ensure good seats. When they got to the front doors of the church, they saw they were too early as the building was locked up. An old gentleman came up behind them and asked if they would like a tour of the property since it was so early. He said he would first take them to the “boiler room” of the church.

The young college men agreed, reluctantly because of the heat of the day, but they didn’t want to be rude to the polite old man. He took them down a long staircase and came to a large door. He quietly opened the door and there were over 600 prayer intercessors on their knees before the Lord praying for that morning’s service. They were astonished!

The old gentleman was none other than C.H. Spurgeon himself! He looked at these future church leaders and said, “This is the boiler room of this church – it’s what makes us tick.”

It is my hope that you will see the great need for God to move in our day. I hope you will spend some time reading through the book of Nehemiah. I pray the Lord burdens your heart the way he did Nehemiah for Jerusalem. In chapter 2, Nehemiah went out at night and discerned the situation of Jerusalem. He was awake while others slept. He was concerned while others were at ease, and he could see more of the situation of the city at night than the priests, nobles and officials could see in the day. Nehemiah was extraordinary…and so it can be with your church and my church if only we will be a people that God can burden and take hold of.

To hear this sermon, visit www.preachingchristchurch.com and click “May 2009”

Adoniram & Ann Judson - Lives of Endurance

2009-05-20T18:42:00.000-07:00

When I think of endurance, my mind goes to Adoniram and Ann Judson, whom it is my joy to introduce to you. I first met this couple in the summer of 2006, in their biography. Though they lived 150 years ago, their story shows me the everlasting promises of God. It encourages me to keep serving without giving up. I hope that same encouragement fills your heart as you read the remarkable testimony of their faithfulness to the Kingdom of God.

Adoniram was born in 1788 to a godly home. His father was a Congregational pastor and his mother was a prayer intercessor. However, it wasn’t until Adoniram was 20 years old that he trusted in Christ. All throughout his childhood, he excelled mentally and even entered Providence College (now Brown University) at age 17, after taking a year off of school due to sickness. It was at Brown that a friend, who was a brilliant Deist, destroyed the faith of Adoniram. His parents were crushed when they found out that Adoniram had lost his faith.

While traveling on horseback one night through a small town, he stopped at a hotel to stay the night because of stormy weather. The clerk explained that there were not any available rooms. He pleaded with the clerk and said he was willing to sleep anywhere just to get out of the weather. The clerk remembered that there was a room with two beds; the problem was that a man was sick and dying and if he could handle the noise throughout the night, he could have the other half of that room. Adoniram agreed and the clerk hung a blanket separating the two beds.

All night, the dying man next to him struggled to breathe, coughing and chocking. Adoniram knew he was near death. Throughout the night, he wondered to himself if the man was ready to meet God? Was the man right with God and ready to have his soul from judgment? He then thought of his friend at Brown and how he would laugh at him for thinking such silly thoughts.

The next morning, while checking out, Adoniram asked the clerk the identity of the man who had died next to his bed. The clerk said, “He was a brilliant young man from Providence College named….” It was the same young deists that had destroyed Adoniram’s faith just 3 years earlier.

Adoniram stood there in shock…“he was lost” he kept thinking, “Lost! Lost! Lost!” The words kept ringing in his head and roaring through his soul. In that moment, Adoniram realized, he was lost too! He immediately returned home and entered Andover Theological Seminary and “sought God for the pardon of his soul.” After being born again, he dedicated his life to God’s service!

It was soon after that Adoniram would help form America’s first Missionary Society. He and his new bride, Ann, would set sail on February 19, 1812, as America’s first missionaries only seven days after their wedding!

After spending a short time with William Carey, the young couple was rejected by the East India Company to be missionaries in India. That would prove to be a sovereign decision made by God! The heartbroken couple was filled with frustration and failure…but God was working, leading them to Rangoon, Burma!

What a dark land Burma is! In the mid-1800’s, Christianity was illegal in the Burman Empire. There wasn’t a single Christian or known Church in existence. Oh how endurance would make this man and his young bride! They settled into Rangoon, which was a crime-infested city. In complete loneliness, God blessed them with a baby boy. Sadly, even that joy was only for a short period. Eight months after Roger William Judson was born, he died of cholera. Because the Burmese wouldn’t touch a dead foreigner, Adoniram had to bury his baby with his own hands. Grief stricken, he dug the grave for his son and conducted his funeral.

For the next 6 years, Adoniram and Ann would labor among the Burmese before seeing their first convert. Moung Nau was the first Burmese known to believe the Gospel and be baptized! Adoniram would write in his journal, “Oh, may it prove to be the beginning of a series of baptisms in the Burman Empire which shall continue in uninterrupted success to the end of the age.”

Adoniram saw as many as 18 Burmese saved and baptized before deep opposition came. God blessed the Judson’s with healthy children, but it was at this time that a war had broken out between the Burmese and the English. Even though Adoniram and Ann were Americans, he was arrested by the Burmese government as a British spy. He was imprisoned for 21 months and condemned to death. He worried about his family…how they were eating, what they were doing for money, if they would be robbed or worse. God took care of them through the 21 months. God also preserved the project Adoniram had been working on for years…the first Bible translated into the Burmese language.

After those agonizing months, Adoniram was freed by the government and he went on to continue his translation work. He and Ann had spent 31 years in Burma before coming home to America for a few months of furlough. They returned to Burma to serve for another 7 years before his death on April 12, 1850. He was 62 years old and was buried at sea.

The Bible that took him nearly 21 years to complete was (and still is) the only Bible the Burmese have in their own language. This was the spirit of this mighty man, once at the capital city of Ava, looking at the enormous Buddhists Temples Judson challenged, “A voice mightier than mine, a still small voice, will ere long sweep away every vestige of thy dominion. The Churches of Jesus Christ will soon supplant these idolatrous monuments and the chanting devotees of Buddha will die away before the Christian’s hymns of praise.”

38 years before arriving in Burma, there was not one single known Christian in the Empire of Burma. Upon his death, the government had legalized Christianity and through the efforts and endurance of Adoniram and Ann Judson, there were legally recorded 300,000 Christians throughout the Empire.

The power of Christ in unfit people

2009-04-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

JESUS HAS RISEN…and the disciples are hiding! That was the scene in John 20. You can read it for yourself. In one of the greatest chapters in the Bible, the phrase in verse 19 strikes me the most, “…the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews.” That really shocks me that the disciples didn’t believe He had risen. Even though God had just displayed His might as never before through the resurrection of His Son, His people (the disciples) refused to believe…kind of sounds like many Christians today, doesn’t it?

While the power of God is moving, there are many who hide in their churches, afraid to engage culture, or some hide in their homes, refusing to be an active part of any church body…still some hide through hurt feelings, bitterness, brokenness, unforgiveness and anger; and all the while, God is demonstrating His power in these final days! What do you think God has to say to those who hide? Just wait, I think the answer might surprise you.

Looking closer at John 20, we see that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb, so early it was still dark, only to find that the stone, that the Roman soldiers had sealed the tomb with, was rolled away. The body of Jesus was gone and Mary panicked. Distraught, she went to find Peter and John. They raced to the tomb, John outrunning Peter. And I like the fact that verse 8 notes when John stooped in to see the empty tomb, it was then that John “believed.” That’s important because verse 9 says that he didn’t understand those Scriptures that taught Christ must be raised from the dead.

All of this had taken place early in the morning, and by late that evening where do we find the disciples? Cowardly hiding in a locked room! I wonder how that disappointed Christ! Should they not have been celebrating His resurrection? Should they not at least have gathered with Mary Magdalene to pray, or at least have visited His mother, Mary? But no…they were hiding for fear of the Jews.

Now, don’t think I’m judging the disciples too harshly. They thought they were going to be put to death along with Christ! I remember when God called me to plant Preaching Christ Church, I wanted to lock myself in a room and hide too. How silly compared to what the disciples were facing! I remember giving God every excuse as to why I shouldn’t start a church. “I’m too young,” “I don’t have any money,” “there’s already so many great churches around here,” “I’m not married yet,” “I’ve never been a lead pastor,” “did I mention I donn’t have any money?” Those are good excuses, right? At least logical ones! Now, eight years later, after seeing God build His own Church and teaching me how to shepherd this precious flock, I’m thankful that God doesn’t operate in the realm of logic…He operates in the realm of faith!

God could have passed over me…looked at me and said, “Chad is so scared; I’ll never be able to use him.” But God didn’t. He did not reject these disciples either! Verse 19 begins by showing their fear, but look what happened at the end of verse 19, “…Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be still.’” Jesus didn’t rebuke them! He didn’t call them names, like “Cowards.” He lovingly said, “Peace be still.” It goes on to say that He showed them His hands and His side and it says, “They were glad when they saw it was the Lord.”

Everything changes when Jesus is near! Some of you reading this might feel like Christ has abandoned you. God’s Word says He hasn’t, “The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth.” Psalms 145:18, “…I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5

The story’s not over, it gets even more amazing! He looks at these men who are hiding in a locked room and He says to them, “’Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’ And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit…’” WOW! Can you believe Jesus said that to the very men who ran from His crucifixion and is now hiding after His resurrection? How many more times has Christ had to show grace to you and me?

So what about you? Are you hiding? Are you running from God? Has God asked you to follow Him somewhere you don’t believe you can go? Does Satan tell you there isn’t any mercy for you; that God has no forgiveness to offer you? Well, fearful disciple let your heart rest in John 20!

God delights in taking the unfit and making them fit! His joy is to take what is unqualified and make them qualified…want proof? Colossians 1:12-14, “Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

www.preachingchristchurch.com

John Owen - Trust in God's Sovereignty

2009-03-10T18:36:00.000-07:00

When the author of Hebrews wrote to his audience of new believers, things were shaky to say the least. Little boys who had grown up carrying their lambs to the Temple for the sacrifice of sin found it no longer necessary, for Christ had become their sacrificial Lamb! The veil that once shattered any confidence of a common man approaching God was now torn, allowing access to a holy God, that he may approach the throne “boldly” to find mercy and grace (Hebrews 4:16). Everything that had been normal to a young Jew in his childhood was now something completely different. The author of Hebrews words it best, “In speaking of a new covenant, He (Christ) makes the first one obsolete…” (Hebrews 8:13).

Try to picture growing up in a church like that. Your father and grandfather taught you to worship God one way, but now, Christ followers are saying to worship God this “new way”. What you learned as God’s covenant with his people as a boy, they now say is “growing old and is ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13). Well, as you can imagine, this was a struggling church…a vulnerable church.

I’m amazed when I hear people say they would rather be a part of the early church than of the church today. The church of the first century struggled just as much as we do. The Galatians had legalistic issues! The Corinthian believers were suing one another, had immortality problems, as well as immaturity when it came to abusing spiritual gifts! Church leaders always had to be on guard against the Gnostics, Nicolatians, and Judaizers, who always tried to infiltrate the Church causing divisions and disunity! It was a difficult time for the infant Church.

Well, just as God took care of the Church then, you can rest assured that He is going to take good care of the Church now! “He will tend his flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs in His arms; He will carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.” Isaiah 40:11, “I am the good shepherd. I know My own and My own know me.” John 10:14

Today, when I hear things like, “There’s a shaking coming to this nation!” It warms my heart and strengthens my confidence in the sovereignty of God that we have “received a kingdom that cannot be shaken…” My hope is not in the economy, it isn’t in the decisions of the government, or even the morality of our nation. My hope is in the promises of God and the purposes He has for His Elect!

So my question is, what are we to do when we survey the landscape of our country and the condition of the Church? For me, I turn to the author of Hebrews once again. “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the Word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:7-8). When I think of what it means to remember our leaders, I include a host of names from every generation of the Church. From Peter, Paul and John to Huss, Wycliffe, and Tyndale, to Luther, Calvin and Zwingli I also add Hudson, Livingstone, and Carey…but there’s one special group that I greatly admire…the Puritans! Scripture says to “remember your leaders…consider the outcome of their way of life.”

No group had a better way of life than the Puritans. While we have tremendous physicians for our bodies today, Puritans were known as the “doctors of the soul”! In these “Shaky” days, the Church needs guidance from Godly leaders, people in whom we can “imitate their faith.” John Owen, Richard Baxter, John Bunyan, Thomas Goodwin and John Eliot are tremendous models of faith!

I also want to note that the author of Hebrews immediately refutes the argument, “We shouldn’t follow man…we should only follow Christ.” Read carefully what the text says, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their life. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” I love the fact that the author teaches us, don’t just get your eyes on men…men who have clay feet! Christ is our ultimate example! Christ is the ultimate model to the Church. However, don’t belittle the fact that God uses men to speak to His Church! When he says, “…who spoke to you the word of God?” I don’t think that limits it to the actual men who wrote Scriptures. I think it means those who expound, teach, and preach the Word to the sheep.

So with all that said, I’m going to close with a few quotes from my favorite Puritan, John Owen:

“Let no man pretend to fear sin that does not fear temptation also! These two are too closely united to be separated. He does not truly hate the fruit who delights in the root.”

“Do you mortify (sin)? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

“A minister may fill his pews, his communion roll, the mouths of the public, but what that minister is on his knees in secret before God Almighty, that he is and no more.”

For more resources on the Puritans, I recommend that you read, Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers (ISBN-10: 0851512283) or Meet the Puritans (ISBN-10: 1601780001) by Joel Bleeke and A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life by J.I. Packer (ISBN-10: 0891078193).

A Doxology of Praise

2009-02-01T18:41:00.000-08:00

We have just wrapped up a month long series on the greatest prayers found in the Bible. This week, I’ve thought a great deal on the subject of Doxologies. Why are they important in Scripture and why should they become important to our prayer life as part of our worship? Most churches today still sing the great hymn, “Doxology”

“Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”

I love singing these words, whether it is with a congregation as we allow the words to resound from our hearts and lips…or if it’s with guys like the David Crowder Band and Passion who are ensuring that a new generation of worshipper know and love this ancient song written in 1551.

But you know what I would rather do…I would rather have the knowledge of what I’m singing. I want to know what a doxology is and how I can come to honor the Lord with more than the words of my mouth, but with the meditations of my heart.

The word “Doxology” comes from two Greek words, “Doxa” meaning “glory” and “Logos” meaning “word.” It means to ascribe to God our highest glory. Scripture gives us many great doxologies (Romans 11:36; Romans 16:25-27; Ephesians 3:20-21; Philippians 4:20; I Peter 4:11; Jude 1:24-25 and Revelation 1:5-6). Ephesians 3:20-21 is among my favorites, “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

These verses mean so much to me. I love church history and when I look back at how God has always had a people in every age; it humbles me that we are the people of God for this generation. We are His chosen people; we are His remnant for today. We stand in this long line of saints, whom He has qualified (Colossians 1:12), who have drunk from the well of grace and have experienced the power of the Holy Spirit to transform our lives…and today, it is us who can say, “Now unto Him who is able…”

So when I think of a doxology, meaning to give God the highest praise, it makes me want to draw all attention to the glory of God! That’s what a doxology does…it points us toward the glory of God. Now, someone might ask, how is that we come to see the glory of God? Paul answers this in 2 Corinthians 4:6, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” For those who really desire to see the glory of God, it is found in one place, the face of Jesus Christ! We see the glory of God in Christ because, according to Hebrews 1:3, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

So here is the challenge the Holy Spirit has been giving me…how often do I really humble myself and draw the attention away from me and toward the glory of God in Christ? How often does my prayer life seem more like a wish list? How often do I eat or drink or whatever I do, to God’s glory? I Corinthians 10:31

So, I’ve been thinking of how my life could become a doxology, how everything about me could bring glory to God. David provided the answer in Psalms 50:15, “and call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.”

How could the way I live and the way I treat others and even the way I pray bring the highest glory to God? That is my aim! You know, our goal as Christians should not be to go to Heaven. That’s what is promised…that’s not my goal! Heaven is not what I’m working for…so what’s my goal? My goal is Ephesians 4:13, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure and the stature of the fullness of Christ.” That is the aim of my life, to glorify God in all things.

Jonathan Edwards, who tasted of true revival during the Great Awakenings, said it best, “God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him.”

“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”
Jude 1:24-25

Christ Among Muslims

2009-01-31T18:41:00.000-08:00

“And thus, I make it my ambition to preach the Gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, ‘Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.’”Romans 15:20-21

In October 2005, I was on a flight to Cairo, Egypt when one question changed my life. I was listening to Brother Andrew’s audio book, Light Force. A book on the church caught in the crossfire of the Middle East. The question Brother Andrew asked was, “have you ever prayed for an Arab Christian? Have you ever prayed for a Palestinian Church?” If felt as though he was sitting with me face to face asking such hard questions.

I thought for a while, and I had to be honest and say, “No, I haven’t ever prayed for an Arab Christian.” Well, that changed quickly. Once I got to Cairo, my heart was immediately connected with the believers there. I have since made many more visits to Cairo and have had the opportunity to preach throughout all of the Middle East sharing the Word of God with our Arab brothers and sisters.

In this month’s article, rather than sharing a biography as I usually do, I would like to share one story of how I saw Romans 15:21 happen before my very eyes. I had been invited to speak for an important Evangelism Conference in Egypt in September 2007. This event was to be broadcast live over all of Europe, North Africa and the entire Middle East through SAT-7. Millions of Muslims would hear the Gospel!

Minutes before I was going to preach, a young man in his 20’s came up behind me and asked if I would lead him to Christ. He explained to me that he was a Muslim and his entire family was Muslim, but he wished to know more about Christ. Because it was only minutes before I was to speak, I asked him if he would stay and listen to the sermon and I would be glad to speak with him after the service. I will never forget his face as the Gospel call went out from that pulpit! Tears flowed with every Scripture! Oh how quick and powerful is God’s Word!

That night, my sermon was from Luke 15 where Christ gives the parable of the lost sheep and how the Shepherd will search until the sheep is found. In my opening statement (as I knew many Muslims were there), I said, “Religion is man seeking for God, but Christianity is God seeking man! I carefully began to explain one Scripture after another of how Christ came to “seek and to save the lost” Luke 19:10, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 and 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” I then compared the Scriptures to John 10, especially verse 16, “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

I gave the Gospel call to the best of my ability, but I knew the Holy Spirit was giving his effectual call! While all ears were hearing me, those who had “ears to hear” were hearing the Shepherd’s call, maybe for the first time, because they were away from the fold…but the Shepherd was searching that night in Cairo, Egypt and guess what…He found that Muslim boy! He found him and brought salvation to him! That night, according to Colossians 1:13, Christ “delivered” that Muslim boy from the “domain of darkness” and “transferred” him to the His “marvelous light!”

Many others were born again in that service, but one other stands out in my mind very clearly. After the invitation had concluded, I was in the courtyard of the church saying goodbye to the saints as I was leaving Egypt around midnight. An elderly man approached me. He grasped my hands and with hot tears streaming down his face, with very broken English he said, “All my life I have searched for Christ. Tonight, Christ found me!”

There are no sweeter words for a missionary than, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also…” Luke 15:16. There are no sweeter words for the church planter than the promise of Christ, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:18. And certainly, there are no sweeter words for the Muslim than Romans 15:21, “Those who have never been told him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.” Oh the joy of seeing Christ among Muslims!

“Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.” Psalms 126:5-6

Christmas Evans - A Story of Grace

2008-12-15T17:00:00.000-08:00

The life of Christmas Evans is a story of grace. He was one of the most remarkable preachers Whales ever produced, attracting thousands when he preached. He was a man who was “spent” for Christ and His Gospel. When he was seeing thousands turn to Christ, he could have easily built an empire to himself and enjoyed the success of ministry. Rather, he chose to shepherd small congregations throughout his life and never received a salary above 17 pounds per year. God used him to bring life where there was death, be it to dead sinner or dead churches!

He was born to Johanna and Samuel Evans on Christmas day of 1766, and so they named him Christmas. His father died when Christmas was just 6 years old, forcing him to live on his uncle’s farm. His uncle, James Lewis, was a drunk and cruel man, depriving Christmas of even a basic education. He could neither read nor write and having no moral or religious training, Christmas was constantly in fights and nearly died on several occasions, once he was almost drowned and another time he was stabbed by a knife. It was during one of these brawls that he lost his right eye.

After turning 17, Christmas came to faith while working for a Presbyterian minister. As he grew in the Lord, he taught himself how to read and write and even began to minister from the Bible on occasions. By 1790, the Baptist had ordained Evans, sending him to preach all over Whales. During one of the outdoor revivals that were so popular among the Welsh, the crowd eagerly anticipated the arrival of two prominent preachers. One man suggested that while they wait, someone should warm up the already excited crowd. Another ministered suggested, “Why not ask the one-eyed lad from the North? I hear he preaches quite wonderfully.” Evans agreed and chose Colossians 1:21 to preach from.

What made Evans so powerful was not just his style of preaching, it was the heart he preached with! He would tell young ministers, “Preach the Gospel of the grace of God intelligently, affectionately, and without shame – all the contents of the great box, from predestination to glorification…let the preacher influence himself; let him reach his own heart, if he would reach the hearts of others; if he would have others feel, he must feel himself.”

He taught himself Greek and Hebrew and made it a point to meditate on the long journeys of where he would preach. “Always have a good book to read,” he encouraged, “instead of indulging in vain conversations…remember this, you cannot commit some loved sin in private, and perform the work of the ministry in public, with facility and acceptance.”

Evans was strong on personal holiness. He said, “The Gospel, as a glass, should be kept clean and clear in the pulpit that the hearers may see the glory of Christ and be changed to the same image.” He would quote Martin Luther, “reading, prayer and temptation are necessary to strengthen, and to purify the talents of a minister.” When writing to a young pastor and said, “Consider, in the first place, the great importance, to a preacher, a blameless life.”

Evans wrote two covenants with the Lord during his life. One on April 10, 1802, which consisted of 13 paragraphs each detailing his commitment to the Lord. He signed each paragraph “Amen. C.E.” The second covenant was made April 24, 1829. Here is a small sample of his devotion.

“Grant Thy blessing upon bitter things, to brighten and quicken me, more and more, and not to depress and make me more lifeless. Suffer me not to be trodden under the proud feet of members, or deacons, for the sake of Thy goodness. Help me to wait silently, and patiently upon Thee, for the fulfillment of these things, and not become enraged, angry and speak unadvisedly with my lips, like Moses, the servant of the Lord. Sustain my heart from sinking, to wait for fresh strength from Zion.”

God answered this prayer and did sustain his heart. He moved for the last time to pastor his final flock, a thirty member church in Caernarvon. They struggled with a serious debt that was a constant weight. Evans wrote in his journal: “I have been thinking of the great goodness of the Lord unto me, throughout my unworthy ministry; and now, in my old age, I see the work prospering wonderfully in my hand, so that there is reason to think that I am, in some degree, a blessing to the Church.”

After six years at this congregation, Evans decided to make one last preaching tour to raise much needed funds to pay off the church debt. He placed a notice in the Welsh Magazine, “This is my last sacrifice for the Redeemer’s cause.” And it was. God blessed the preaching journey and great crowds flocked to hear the old pastor. On July 15, he preached that morning and after finishing the evening sermon, he said in a quiet voice, “This is my last sermon.” On Friday, July 20, 1838, Christmas Evans passed from this life to eternity. His last words were, “Goodbye! Drive on!”

John Bunyan - God's Purpose in Affliction

2008-11-10T18:53:00.000-08:00

“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;
God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”
I Corinthians 1:27

Most Christians will recognize the book, “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Those who have delightfully read and related to Christian’s journey will probably be familiar with its author, John Bunyan. Charles Spurgeon loved reading “Pilgrim’s Progress.” By the time Spurgeon died, he said he had read the book over 100 times and tried reading it at least once a year. He considered Bunyan’s writing the most important book in his life, besides Scripture. He said of Bunyan, “Prick him, and he’ll bleed Bible!”

John Bunyan did not come to Christ until he was a young man. He tells the account of his conversion in his wonderful book, “Grace Abounding to the Chief Sinners.” Listen as Bunyan describes the day he surrendered to Christ, “’Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed: I was loosed from my affliction and irons, my temptations also fled away; so that from that time those dreadful Scriptures of God left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing for the grace and love of God…For by Scripture, I saw that the Man Jesus Christ, as He is distinct from us as touching His bodily presence, so He is our righteousness and sanctification before God. Here therefore I lived for some time, very sweetly at peace with God through Christ…’”

He was born in Elstow, England November 28, 1628 to a poor family. He had very little education. However, after being soundly converted, he became a preacher of the Gospel. Bunyan was a Puritan. Today, Puritans get a bad reputation because they were so strict and legalistic. I wish more Christians read the Puritan authors. George Whitefield, the famous nineteenth century evangelist said that the Puritans were, “Burning and shining lights. When cast out by the black Bartholomew Act, and driven from their respective charges to preach in barns and fields, in the highways and hedges, they in a special manner wrote and preached as men having authority. Though dead, by their writings they yet speak: a peculiar unction attends them to this very hour” (Works, 4:306-307).

Puritans were separatists that called for reform and for England to return to true Biblical Christianity. The Church of England was established by King Henry VIII around 100 years before Bunyan’s birth. King Henry demanded a divorce from the Pope and when the Pope would not grant him his divorce, King Henry formed the Church of England, which is still quite popular to this day. While the Church of England was separate from the Roman Catholic Church, it still resembled Catholicism too much for the Puritans to be a part of it.

Bunyan was born at time that the religious turmoil went hand in hand with the political turmoil. England was in conflict as the Parliament fought against the monarchy. King Charles I took a Catholic princess as his bride, Henrietta Maria of France, much to the dislike of the public and the Puritans. The Westminster Confessions were written during his reign and his monarch brought England to two civil wars. Finally, he was tried and sentenced for high treason and was beheaded on Tuesday, January 30, 1649.

This history is quite important because it leads up to the reason John Bunyan suffered such affliction for his ministry. Bunyan was a Puritan through and through (now that you understand more what a Puritan was) and he suffered for it.

He was indicted for preaching the Gospel without an official license from the established Church of England in 1658. However, he continued to preach for two years before suffering imprisonment. His initial sentence in November 1660 was only for 3 months, but because he refused to stop preaching, he remained captive for 12 years, being without his wife and children.

It was through these 12 long years of imprisonment that “Pilgrim’s Progress” was written. Now that you know the tremendous sacrifice that Bunyan gave, the next time you pick up a copy of “Pilgrim’s Progress”, remember the Scripture given by Paul in 2 Timothy 2:9, “For which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the Word of God is not bound!”

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18

Sheltered Deep within Grace

2008-09-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

I'm getting ready to leave the hotel in Minneapolis and all morning, I've been listening to some great worship music. I love to sit and ponder and reflect God's beautiful sovereignty in salvation. This morning, I'm thinking about how deeply sheltered we are within God's grace.

Richard Sibbs, a Puritan Pastor, once said, "There is more mercy in Christ than there is sin in us." I don't know about your life...but that is good, good news for mine! Paul said in Romans 5:20, "Now the law came in to increase the tresspass." That means that if you're one of those people who think that because you're a good person that you're going to be okay...this is saying that you're not!

If you want to live by works and simply rely on how good you are...or for most cases...how bad others are compared to yourself...then Paul is saying that when you compare your life to the Law (which is God's standard) then not only will your sin abound...it will increase by that Law.

In other words...if I take something that isn't mine, even if it's little, according to the Law, I'm a theif! If I get angry at someone...according to the Law, I've committed murder in my heart. Even if I lust after a girl, according to the Law...I've committed adultary. Are you getting the point?

So, the Law comes not only to reveal sin...but to add to sin. So here I am, even a pastor for crying out loud, with this enormous list of sin that the Law has increased and made longer. But wait! There's a reason why we call this message of Jesus Christ the Gospel...it means Good News!

You can only appreciate good news when you understand how bad the news of total depravity truly is! The good Gospel news is that of Colossians 2:13-14, "And you who were dead in your tresspasses...God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our tresspasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside nailing it to the cross."

Amazing! That is my favorite Scripture in the entire Bible. The "Record of Debt"...what is that? It's my sin that the Law "increased." It's that long list of wrong I've committed against God. What did Jesus Christ do? He took that long list (my debt of sin) and triumphantly nailed it to the cross with his own hands and feet! What a Savior! What a King! What wisdom! What Sovereignty!

Has your sin (or record of debt) been nailed to His cross? Paul finished up this verse by saying that after the Law inceases our sin..."that where sin did abound, grace did much more abound!" That is the beauty of God!

At some point today, will you reflect and marvel at the amazing grace of God?

Amazed,
Pastor Chad
Minneapolis, MN

"Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable aer his ways!" - Romans 11:33

Ray Boltz Announces He's Gay...And How the Church Should Respond

2008-09-28T18:33:00.000-07:00

Ray Boltz was a hero of mine when I was a teenager. His song “Thank You” was the number one Christian song in 1990, followed by “I pledge allegiance to the Lamb,” “The Altar,” “I will praise the Lord” and many others. This week, however, Ray Boltz announced to the Washington Blade that he was now living a homosexual lifestyle.

I was saddened by this news. I can remember hearing him in concert and truly feeling the presence of the Lord. So what do we say to this? How can someone be used of God to write such powerful songs for the church and then not endure to the end in salvation? How can someone who has known the Lord and His Word and His Spirit turn their back on the things of God?

Well, there are several answers to these questions. First of all, it’s always important to remember that God honors His Word and not man. Just as Pastor Bob preaches this morning, it’s God’s Word that is being uplifted..not Pastor Bob. When I lead worship today, it’s not me who is leading you into God’s presence, it’s the Holy Spirit honoring the Word of God.

This actually isn’t new in Christianity. In 1735, Oglethorpe invited John Wesley to come on a preaching trip to Georgia from England. John Wesley came to preach to the Gospel and had many salvations. It wasn’t until 1738 that he was soundly converted himself!

Horatio Spafford, who wrote the powerful hymn “It is well” after the loss of his two daughters by drowning in the Atlantic Ocean, went on to build a ministry in Jerusalem, but by the end of his life in 1888 at age 60, he died believing he himself was the second Messiah.

A hymn that holds a very special place in my heart, “Come Thou Fount” also has a tragic ending. Robert Robinson penned these amazing words at the age of 22 in 1757, however, he did not endure to the end as well and wasted his life.

So, what do we say when someone mightily used of God falls into the depths of sin?
I think there are several Biblical answers given to the Church:

1. What the Church should remember:
Hebrews 13:3, “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
2 Peter 1:10, “Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure…”

2. How the Church should respond to those who have fallen:
a. If they are willing to repent and turn from their sin –
“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.” Galatians 6:1
b. If they are unwilling to repent from their sin –
“Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt, save others by snatching them out of the fire, to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.” Jude 1:21-23

3. What the Church should remember about God our Shepherd:
“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.” Jude 1:24
“Who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Corinthians 1:8

Ray Boltz has become “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” and it is our responsibility to pray for him following what Jude 1:21 commands, “save others by snatching them out of the fire, to others show mercy with great fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.” I hope that this will be a time that you not only pray for those who have fallen, but that you will also examine your own heart and “keep yourselves in the love of God” that you not be “hardened by sin.”

Looking to Christ,
Pastor Chad
Preaching Christ Church

Fanny Crosby

2008-09-01T13:47:00.000-07:00

“And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into the level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.”
Isaiah 42:16 (ESV)

Fanny Crosby is a name I wish every Christian knew! Most of us know the songs she wrote, but far too few know her story. I would like to help change that! She was born March 24, 1820 in New York. She fell ill at 6 weeks old. A man who pretended to be a doctor, yet having no certification, caused her to go blind from maltreatment. Not long after, her father died leaving her and her mother alone. She was mostly raised by her Christian grandmother.

Even as a little girl, it was evident she was very gifted, particularly in poetry. At age 8, she wrote this poem concerning her blindness,

“Oh, what a happy soul I am
Although I cannot see!
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don't,
To weep and sigh because I'm blind
I cannot, and I won't!”

As Fanny grew to an adult, it was clear she was talented, but she wasn’t a Christian, and although she enjoyed great success, even meeting Presidents and other government officials, she wasn’t born-again. In November of 1850, at the age of 30, she began to feel a need for God. She visited quite a number of revival meetings, but it wasn’t until the end of the month, on the 20th of November, that she became born-again! The congregation sang the glorious hymn written by Isaac Watts over a century prior in 1707, “Alas! And did my Savior Bleed.”

Alas! and did my Savior bleed, and did my Sovereign die?

Would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?

Was it for crimes that I had done He groaned upon the tree?

Amazing pity! grace unknown! and love beyond degree!

Thus might I hide my blushing face while his dear Cross appears;

Dissolved my heart in thankfulness, and melt mine eyes to tears.

But drops of grief can ne’er repay the debt of love I owe;

Here, Lord, I give myself away- ‘tis all that I can do.

It was during the words, “Here, Lord, I give myself away – ‘tis all that I can do,” that she gave herself fully to the Lord and the light of the Gospel opened the blind eyes of her soul. She said of that night, “I surrendered myself to the Savior, and my very soul flooded with celestial light. I sprang to my feet, shouting, ‘Hallelujah.’”

Throughout the rest of her life, God used her to pen more than 8,000 poems of which many were put to hymns. Among her most loved are “Blessed Assurance”, “Sweet Hour of Prayer”, “Pass me not O Gentle Savior”, “Jesus, keep me near the cross”, and “Praise Him, praise Him.”

A well meaning minister once said to her, “I think it is a great pity that the Master did not give you sight when he showered so many other gifts upon you.” She responded, “Do you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I was born blind? Because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior.”

What faith she had in Christ and the goodness of God! Fanny always joked that she would live to be over 100 years old, she nearly made it! She died at age 95. There is no doubt as she closed her eyes in death that she awoke to that beautiful face she longed to see.

“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood

This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.”

“It seemed in-tend-ed by the bless-ed prov-i-dence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dis-pen-sa-tion. If per-fect earth-ly sight were of-fered me to-mor-row I would not ac-cept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been dis-tract-ed by the beau-ti-ful and in-ter-est-ing things about me.”

- Fanny Crosby
1820 - 1915

Abraham Lincoln

2008-07-04T18:55:00.000-07:00

Micah 6:8 says, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” When I think of this verse, it’s the 16th President of this nation, Abraham Lincoln that comes to mind. Each July 4th, I spend the evening thinking on our nation’s past and the sovereign hand of God in creating such a Union that has never collapsed.

Even in his first inaugural address, Lincoln knew the problems facing this nation were severe. He said to the crowd, “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend it'."

Indeed that was his calling from God, to navigate this Union through its darkest hour. Lincoln made it crystal clear what his objective was in a letter to Horace Greeley on August 22, 1862, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause."

Now, just so you don’t question Mr. Lincoln’s stance on the issue of slavery, he once said, “I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy." In an address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, Maryland on April 18, 1864, President Lincoln said, "We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny." Tyranny is exactly what Mr. Lincoln fought. In a letter to Henry L. Pierce written April 6, 1859, Lincoln said, “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it."

Lincoln led this nation through the Civil War and trusted all things to the sovereignty of God. Upon writing, “Meditations on the Divine Will”, he said, "The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party - and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose."

On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared slaves forever free in this nation. In that same year, November 19, he dedicated the military cemetery at Gettysburg. His words have lived throughout history, “"...that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

He won re-election in 1864 strengthening the Republican party while uniting Northern Democrats and encouraging Southerners to be reunified. His second inaugural speech, March 4, 1865, is inscribed on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial, "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, President Lincoln became the first US President to be assassinated. He was shot while attending a play at the Ford’s Theater in Washington. This nation then and especially now, owes a debt of gratitude to the man who believed, hoped and endured so that this Union would survive.

"I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal."- Abraham Lincoln1809-1865

George Mueller - Answered Prayer

2008-05-05T18:54:00.000-07:00

If I were to ask you, "Why does God answer prayer?" What would you say? Several years ago my answer would have been, "Because God loves me, He answers my prayers." While that may be true, I think there is a deeper purpose and a greater delight to God answering prayer.

Notice how Jesus taught us in John 14:13-14, "Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." Some people would think the best part of that verse is "Whatever you ask...I will do it." I mean, that's like a spiritual blank check, right?

However, that's not at all the point of this verse! The point is to pray to the Glory of God! Ponder this thought for a moment - can you really say that the things you pray for are to the sole glory of God through His Son? Is there an attitude about your prayers that says, "You must increase, I must decrease?"

The aim of our prayers should be the glory of God! When I am finding myself more in love with God's glory than my own desires, it is then that I fulfill 1 Corinthians 10:31, "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." It is then that God fulfills John 16:24, "Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full." That's the blessing of answered prayer...God gets the glory, we share in the joy!

In this edition, I would like to introduce you to a hero of our faith, George Mueller. He was born September 27, 1805 adn died March 10, 1898. With that life span, no one would have believed that God would use him to house, feed, clothe, educate and train over 10,000 of England's orphans.

He began his orphanage with a two-fold purpose. First, to provide housing and education for the untold numbers of orphans in England and secondly, to show that God meets the needs of those who trust in Him. He announced to the church he was pastoring that he and his wife, Mary, would be opening an orphanage, they would not support himbecause they knew he lacked the funds...what they underestimated was that George was not lacking in prayer!

Here is a small glimpse of how he rested in the faithfulness of the Lord. One day, a little girl, who was not an orphan but her family was close to the Mueller's, was visiting the orphanage, named Abigail Townsend. On that particular morning, you could feel the anxiety because there was no food left in the orphanage. The large dining room tables were prepared for breakfast, yet the bowls sat empty. There wasn't any food to be found, and neither was there any money to buy food.

When it came time to eat, Mr. Mueller took Abigail by the hand and said, "Come, see what our Father in Heaven will do for us today." As the children gathered for breakfast, they stood behind their empty plates waiting for Mr. Mueller to say the prayer. "Dear Father," he prayed, "we thank you for what you are going to give us to eat today." Just then...his prayer was interrupted by a knock at the door. It was the local baker.

"Mr. Mueller," he said, "I couldn't sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn't have bread for breakfast, the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at 2:00 am and baked some fresh bread for you."

Overjoyed, George thanked the baker and glorified God! He told the children, "We not only have bread, but God has given us the rare treat of fresh bread!"
Almost immediately, there came a second knock at the door. This time, it was the local milkman! He explained that his cart had broken down right in front of the orphanage. He said, "I must empty my wagon before I can repair it. Could the children use my cans of fresh milk?"

Jesus told us in Matthew 6:26, "Look at the birds of the air...your heavenly Father feeds them." Think about that for a moment. If the richest man tried to feed every bird upon earth, it would bankrupt him in a day! Yet our Heavenly Father does it day in and day out! Then Jesus adds, "...Are you not of more value than they?"

"Therefore, do nto be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'...your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Matthew 6:31-33

Polycarp - Faithful Unto Death

2008-04-15T18:44:00.000-07:00

At the urging of his congregation, the 86 year old Bishop of Smyrna, Polycarp, went into hiding. A wave of severe persecution came upon the Christians. However, they were ready because of the letter Christ had written to this congregation through the hands of John in Revelation 2:8-11.

When we think of the history of Christianity, we think of Jesus, Paul and the Apostles, but have you ever thought beyond the Apostles? What would the transition have been like as the eyewitnesses to Christ were taken off the scene and the only communication devices were parched paper, ink and those who knew the apostles personally?

Think for a moment of how vulnerable the early Church must have been. Their leaders had all been killed, (only the Apostle John died of natural causes, although authorities tried to kill him twice). The Church faced an ongoing threat from the Roman Empire. Rome viewed Christians as atheists for their refusal to worship multiple gods. The Church had to, “contend for the faith” (Jude 1:3-4) as they faced attacks from the Nicolaitans, Judaizers and others whom Jude said, “have crept in unnoticed…who pervert the grace of our God…” It must have been a shaky time for the infant New Testament Church.

Polycarp was the pastor of the Church in Smyrna, about 40 miles north of Ephesus. He was personally disciple by the Apostle of Love, John for 20 years. He was first a deacon, which was not an easy task. His job was to care for the saints, particularly the families of believers who had been martyred. He was to raise funds for them and we know through what Christ said that they were poor, “I know your works, tribulation and poverty (but you are rich)…” Revelation 2:9

He soon became the Bishop and Smyrna was not an easy city to pastor in. Although it was an important area, known as the “crown of Asia,” it had enormous challenges. It was the most beautiful city of Asia Minor, celebrated for its schools in science and medicine. Their excellent harbor was a direct trade route from India and Persia to Rome. Smyrna was fiercely loyal to Rome and this led to intense emperor worship making Christians a constant target for persecution. Today, it is the modern city of Izmir, Turkey and is the traditional birth place of Homer.

The following is the account of the martyrdom of Polycarp.
“Swear by the fortune of Caesar! Repent! Declare: ‘Death to the atheists!’” Polycarp then turned to the crowd, with a wave of his hand, he shouted, “Death to the atheists!”
This angered the magistrate, “Swear, and I will set you free at once! You have but to insult Christ.”
Polycarp responded, “I have served Him for 86 years and He has never done me any wrong. Why then should I blaspheme against my King and my Savior?”
“Swear by Caesar’s fortune” demanded the magistrate. “You flatter yourself if you hope to persuade me. In all truth I solemnly declare to you: I am a Christian.”
“I have lions here, to use as I think fit,” the magistrate seethed.“Give your orders. As for us Christians, when we change it is not from good to bad; it is splendid to pass through evil into God’s justice.”
“If you do not repent, I shall have you burned at the stake, since you are so contemptuous of the lions.”
“You threaten me with a fire that burns for an hour and then dies down. But do you know the eternal fire of the justice that is to come? Do you know the punishment that is to devour the ungodly? Come, don’t delay! Do what you want with me.”

The condemnation was declared, Polycarp was to die by being burned at the stake. As they led Polycarp to his death, he assured the soldiers that it wasn’t necessary to fasten him to the stake because he would not run. As the flames lapped around him, he prayed with a loud voice,

”Lord God Almighty, Father of Thy beloved and blessed Son, Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the grace of knowing Thee, God of angels and powers, and the whole creation, and of the whole race of the righteous who live in Thy presence; I bless Thee for deigning me worthy of this day and this hour that I may be among Thy martyrs and drink of the cup of my Lord Jesus Christ…I praise Thee for all Thy mercies; I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, through the eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son, with whom to Thyself and the Holy Spirit, be glory both now and forever. Amen.”

Our heritage of Christianity is a valuable thing because of men and women, who as Hebrews 11:38 says, “of whom the world was not worthy,” Polycarp is among these mentioned who was faithful unto death. He stands a pillar of Church and an example to all believers.

Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.”
Revelation 2:10-11