9. Who Will Go?
9. Who Will Go?
It is simple to trace out the stages in the development of the missionary call in pioneers like Adoniram Judson and William Carey. Firstly, there is the burden of a lost eternity. What a dreadful reality is the awful lostness and perdition of those in darkness. They must be reached with the Gospel!
Secondly, there is the primary place of prayer. Basic to all that he attempted was the life of prayer. You can advance by way of your life of intercession, pleading with the Lord to show you the way forward. Joined to prayer is practical effort. You can emulate Judson in the way he developed disciplined habits of concentration in reading and study. He trained his mind to endure hardship. He also exercised common sense to maintain and preserve his physical stamina.
Thirdly, there is vital place of information. Carey and Judson read everything about the unevangelized world that they could lay their hands on. In this way, their knowledge increased and their source of burden and calling crystallized.
Today, knowledge can be implemented by visiting missionary countries and frontiers, and seeing situations first hand. Operation World describes Chad as having more unreached people groups for its size than any other country. It is possible to explore that country and see for oneself. The author knows a missionary that has labored many years in Chad. What was the Soviet Union is now a vast area of many nations including many unreached people groups. A British-based mission produces an information bulletin called People International [PO Box 151, Tonbridge, Kent, TN11 9XL] which describes these peoples and how they can be reached.
Operation World
Published by Zondervan in the USA, Operation World is a 662 page book which describes about 200 nations from an evangelical perspective. <www.operationworld.org
Each country is described as to location, area, population, peoples, cities, economy, politics, and religion. This is followed by descriptions and highlights designed to encourage prayer. Operation World is outstanding in its usefulness.
Firstly, this book brings home to Christians the magnitude of the unfinished work of worldwide evangelization. Huge areas of the world are yet untouched.
Secondly, the reader learns of revivals and growth. More growth took place in the twentieth century than ever before. This encourages us in the knowledge that the work can and must be done.
Thirdly, this volume expands our knowledge. Both nations and provinces that we did not know existed, come to life through the pages of this tremendous resource.
Mission Frontiers [1605 Elizabeth Street, Pasadena, CA USA 91104] specializes in information in the unreached people of the world. Mission Frontiers calculate that there are still 11,000 people groups to be reached. It is also estimated that for each unreached people group there are 600 evangelical churches. Surely if groups of churches adopted an unreached people group and set about the task in an urgent, practical way, the enterprise would be completed within a generation. As we see with Judson and Burma, the work is too extensive for an individual effort. Teams of missionaries are needed. Language is a foremost factor. A total commitment to master the language is necessary. The work of translating the scriptures into foreign languages, illustrated by the example of Adoniram Judson, is supremely exacting. It is seldom that all the gifts and skills of missionary endeavor reside in one man. Cooperative team work is imperative.
Unevangelized people groups are closely knit, usually fiercely resistant and bound by Satan. The lives of the Judsons and their colleagues illustrate the tenacity and gritty effort required to break through these barriers.
To return to the call, we see that Judson and his missionary companions had to work hard to arouse a sense of responsibility and stewardship in their home churches and in their denomination. The Congregationalists responded to the challenge. When Judson and Luther Rice became Baptists, Rice expended his energies to the utmost to stir the Baptists to overseas missionary commitment. Is your home church committed to missionary effort? Does you home church support any missionaries involved in frontier, pioneering work? Is your home church dedicated and fervent in the support of foreign missionaries? We do support all kinds of existing works as well as ancillary works like Missionary Aviation Fellowship, Tear Fund, medical missions, and teaching missions. But I am speaking now of brand new enterprise, which will realistically advance into the unevangelized parts of the world. Why not work to persuade your church to adopt an unevangelized people group? For more information, write to Mission Frontiers.
Finally, there are practical, determined steps to be made. A field of labor must be decided. Unwavering efforts must be made to get to that field and actually settle there. Once settled, the permanent missionary must persevere with tenacity through several years when little or no fruit is likely. Instances have been recorded of no visible results even in a lifetime of sustained effort. James Haldane labored for 40 years in Morocco and did not see a single convert. We search in vain to find the fault in him. He was an outstanding pioneer with all round gifts and skills. He was not the only one to discover the seemingly impenetrable wall of resistance among Muslim peoples.
Every missionary on the field needs supporters at home. We all have a part to play in the fulfillment of the Great Commission. When William Carey went to India, the image of a gold mine came to mind. “We saw that there was a gold mine in India, but it seemed almost as deep as the center of the earth.” Who would venture down and explore it? “I will venture down and explore it,” said Carey, but he stipulated that his three close friends, Andrew Fuller, John Sutcliff, and John Ryland, “must hold the ropes.”.[79]
To sum up the message of Judson’s life for us all today, I will appeal for renewed intercession for reformation and revival, concerts of prayer, renewed Biblical evangelism, and a new awareness of the reality of eternity and the impending judgment. These are the conditions likely to produce a new race of totally committed missionaries after the order of Adoniram Judson—missionaries that are devoted for life!
The Baptist Church at Oung-pen-la, where Judson was imprisoned
Chronology of Events in Judson’s Life
Adoniram born - 1788
Felix Carey pioneers in Rangoon - 1807
Adoniram converted - 1808
Called to be a missionary - 1810
Adoniram and Ann leave for India - 1812
Arrive in Rangoon - 1813
First convert baptized - 1819
British invade Burma - 1824
19 months imprisonment begins - 1824
Death of Ann Judson - 1826
Death of baby Maria - 1827
Adoniram marries Sarah Boardman - 1834
Return to America - 1845
Sarah dies at St. Helena - 1845
Adoniram returns to Burma - 1846
Adoniram dies at sea - 1850
“Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” —Psalm 2:8
The Importance of Missionary Biographies
Adoniram Judson was inspired by reading about the pioneer German missionary, Christian Schwartz (1726-1798), who labored in India for almost fifty years. In the Pietist tradition of Spener and Francke, Schwartz had a deep concern for both the spiritual and material welfare of the people he served. He was a linguist who worked in the Tamil language.
Judson read about John Eliot (1604-1690), a Gospel minister who learned the language of the Algonquin Indians, and began to apportion a significant part of his energy and time to the evangelization of the Algonquin tribe. His work among the Indians was prospered to the extent that he was able to train 24 Indian evangelists and also train pastors of Indian churches.
Also there to inspire Judson was the biography of David Brainerd (1718-1747), who devoted himself entirely to reach the unreached North American Indians. He labored intensely among the Indians for just three years, and was the instrument of a powerful spiritual revival. He died at the early age of 29 in the home of Jonathan Edwards (1704-1758), the famous pastor and theologian who used Brainerd's diaries to write his biography. Historians regard this account of Brainerd's life and labors as having a greater influence to inspire missionary effort than any other book.
For reading today, I recommend From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, by Ruth Tucker, published by Zondervan; A Vision for Missions by Tom Wells, a small paperback published by the Banner of Truth Trust; also published by the Banner of Truth Trust Five Pioneer Missionaries (David Brainerd, William C. Burns, John Eliot, Henry Martyn, and John G. Paton). Recommended too is Christian Missionaries by Owen Milton (Evangelical Movement of Wales). The latter contains 33 short biographies of pioneer missionaries.