Stories of Faith - Episode 81

“If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.” - C.T. Studd

Charles Thomas Studd ("C.T. Studd") was born in England in 1860, the son of wealthy Edward Studd, who had made a fortune in India and had come back to England to spend it. Charles Studd liked sports just like most young men. He had a passion for cricket because it was the most popular sport in England at the time. His older brother Kynaston Studd, was a member of the Cambridge cricket team and well known. C.T., however, wasn't a great athlete but determined to master the sport. He would practice for hours, using a mirror to help him adjust his swing. He kept away from any harmful habits that may diminish his cricket ability. Soon he began to master the sport and became the captain of his high school cricket team. In 1879, when Studd entered Trinity College of Cambridge University, his popularity as a cricket star took off. He became what others have referred to as "the Michael Jordan of cricket," a household name throughout Great Britain. He soon became the captain of the Cambridge cricket team, an idol to students and legend in his time. and he had a particular passion for cricket, the most popular sport in England at the time. Studd was claimed then, and today as the greatest player to have ever played the game. But that is just a footnote compared to what has really marked C.T. Studd's life in history.

C.T. was saved in 1878 at the age of 18 by the confrontation of a pastor, who really questioned him as to his personal relationship with Christ. Both his brothers gave their lives to Christ the same day that he did. However, his passion for Christ diminished as his cricket career grew in college and soon he was hardened to spiritual things. However, in November 1883, his younger brother George got very sick and was dying. As C.T. watched in horror and grief at the suffering of his brother, he reflected, "Now what is all the popularity of the world to George? What is all the fame and flattering? What is it worth to possess the riches of the world, when a man comes to face Eternity?" With a surprising turn, God miraculously healed George and C.T. was so dramatically changed through the event that he consecrated himself to the Lord's work. The things of this world were not worthy of his life, Studd would begin to invest himself in the eternal.

C.T. was part of a small group of Christian men at Cambridge, mostly athletes, who were beginning to devote themselves to prayer and the evangelization of the world. Starting at their campus they began sharing their faith openly and telling all of the salvation found in Jesus Christ. Many were being won because of Studd's influence among other collegians. During this time, an influential missionary Hudson Taylor began to challenge the students of England to join him in reaching the millions of lost in China. His high calling and deep passion for China, captured the hearts of these young men at Cambridge, and there was discussion of joining Hudson's mission agency and pioneering to the unreached parts of China with the gospel.

Despite a promising career in cricket and the life of comfort he had grown up in C.T. determined to follow God's heart for the world and join Him in reaching China. Studd's decision to go to China influenced the other seven men at Cambridge to live for God's glory and devote themselves to China also. From the rowing team at Trinity, Stanley Smith, Montague Beauchamp, and William Cassels joined. Two students, Dixon Hoste and Arthur Polhill-Turner, were officers who also left a promising career in the military to join Studd. And from C.T. Studd's own cricket team came Cecil Polhill-Turner.

Studd faces opposition as well. His father, Edward passed away, causing the family to pressure C.T. not to leave his widowed mother at such a time. C. T. seeking to comfort his mother wrote: "Mother dear, I do pray God to show you that it is such a privilege to give up a child to be used of God to saving poor sinners who have never even heard of the name of Jesus."

Before going to China, Hudson organized a tour of the college campuses in England, allowing the "Cambridge Seven," as they came to be known, to share their testimonies, and challenge students to consecrate their lives to the glory of God. Through these months traveling and speaking, God drew people to faith in Christ and awakened the church to His global cause.

In the last meeting of the tour, C.T. Studd urged students saying, "Are you living for the day or are you living for life eternal? Are you going to care for the opinion of men here, or for the opinion of God? The opinion of men won't avail us much when we get before the judgment throne. But the opinion of God will. Had we not, then, better take His word and implicitly obey it?"

Authenticity marked the power of the message of these seven that were on their way to the unreached. C.T. Studd admitted, "Had I cared for the comments of people, I should never have been a missionary." After calling students to obey the Great Commission, the Cambridge Seven, left for China, arriving in Shanghai on March 18, 1885.

It was while in China that C. T. reached the age (25 years old) in which according to his father's will he was to inherit a large sum of money. Through reading God's Word and much prayer, C. T. felt led to give his entire fortune to Christ! Before knowing the exact amount of his inheritance, C.T. sent £5000 to Mr. Moody, another £5000 to George Müller (£4000 to be used on missionary work and £1000 among the orphans); as well as £15,000 pounds to support other worthy ministries. In a few months, he was able to discover the exact amount of his inheritance and he gave some additional thousands away, leaving about £3400 pounds in his possession.

Three years after arriving in China, C. T. married a young Irish missionary from Ulster named Priscilla Livingstone Stewart. Just before the wedding he presented his bride with the remaining money (£3400) from his inheritance. She, not to be outdone, said, "Charlie, what did the Lord tell the rich young man to do?" "Sell all." "Well then, we will start clear with the Lord at our wedding." And they proceeded to give the rest of the money away for the Lord's work.

They served the Lord together in inland China through many perils and hardships until in 1894 after ten years in China, ill health forced the Studds to return to England, where they turned their property over to the China Inland Mission.

From 1896-1897, C. T. toured American universities on behalf of the newly formed Student Volunteer Movement, challenging students to give their lives to the Great Commission. During the beginnings of the Student Volunteer Movement, in 1896 -1897, his brother J.E.K. Studd spoke at Cornell University, having a deep impact on the future point man for the SVM, John R. Mott. Mott walked in late for the meeting and heard J.K. Studd quote, "Young man, are you seeking great things for yourself? Seek them not! Seek first the Kingdom of God!" Mott gathered the courage to meet with him the next day and later said that the meeting with Studd was the "decisive hour of his life". Mott went on to become one of the greatest missions mobilizers in world history.

In 1900, the Studd family went to South India where C. T. served as a pastor of a church in Ootacamund for six years. From the time of his conversion, C. T. had felt the responsibility upon their family to take the Gospel to India.

China, then India, and later the heart of Africa. After their return home to England in 1906, C. T. was stirred by the need for missionary pioneer work in Central Africa. But again the path was not without obstacles. Penniless, turned down by the doctor, dropped by a Committee of businessmen who had agreed to support him, yet told by God to go, once more C. T. staked all on obedience to God. As a young man he staked his career, in China he staked his fortune, now he staked his life. His answer to the Committee was; "Gentlemen, God has called me to go, and I will go. I will blaze the trail, though my grave may only become a stepping stone that younger men may follow." Leaving his wife and four daughters in England, C. T. sailed, contrary to medical advice, for the heart of Africa in 1910, where he continued to work until his death in 1931.

C. T. bore much fruit for the Saviour while in Africa as he endured weakness and sickness; loosing most of his teeth and suffering several heart attacks; but he endured hardness as a good soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ!

In a letter home, during the last days of his life, C. T. gave a last backward look at the outstanding events of his life, saying, "As I believe I am now nearing my departure from this world, I have but a few things to rejoice in; they are these:

1. That God called me to China and I went in spite of utmost opposition from all my loved ones.
2. That I joyfully acted as Christ told that rich young man to act.
3. That I deliberately at the call of God, when alone on the Bibby liner in 1910, gave up my life for this work, which was to be henceforth not for the Sudan only, but for the whole unevangelized World.

My only joys therefore are that when God has given me a work to do, I have not refused it."

One night in July,1931, C. T. Studd went home to be with his Lord whom he had loved so dearly and served so faithfully! The last word he spoke was "Hallelujah"!

Sources: https://www.thetravelingteam.org/articles/ct-studd; https://www.wholesomewords.org/missions/biostudd.html

Stories of Faith - Episode 80

“God never uses a person greatly until He has wounded him deeply. The privilege He offers you is greater than the price you have to pay. The privilege is greater than the price.”—Helen Roseveare

Dr. Helen Roseveare, a famous English missionary to the Congo, has passed away at the age of 91.

Helen Roseveare was born in 1925 at Haileybury College (Hertfordshire, England), where her father taught mathematics.

Raised in a high Anglican church, Helen’s Sunday school teacher once told their class about India, and Helen resolved to herself that she would one day be a missionary.

Despite the Christian heritage of her family, and faithful attendance at church, Helen sensed a void in her life and distance from God.

She enrolled in Newnham College at Cambridge University to study medicine. There she joined the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU) through the invitation of a student named Dorothy. She became an active participant in the prayer meetings and Bible studies, reading the New Testament for the first time. But she later said that her understanding of Christianity was more head knowledge than heart engagement.

In the winter of 1945, the Lord seemed to meet her in a personal way during a student retreat. She gave her testimony on the final evening, and Bible teacher Graham Scroggie wrote Philippians 3:10 in her new Bible, and told her:

Tonight you’ve entered into the first part of the verse, “That I may know Him.” This is only the beginning, and there’s a long journey ahead. My prayer for you is that you will go on through the verse to know “the power of His resurrection” and also, God willing, one day perhaps, “the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death.”

She felt an increased sense of calling toward missions, and publicly declared during a missionary gathering in North England, “I’ll go anywhere God wants me to, whatever the cost.”

Afterwards, I went up into the mountains and had it out with God. “O.K. God, today I mean it. Go ahead and make me more like Jesus, whatever the cost. But please (knowing myself fairly well), when I feel I can’t stand anymore and cry out, ‘Stop!’ will you ignore my ‘stop’ and remember that today I said ‘Go ahead!’?”

After graduating from Cambridge with her doctorate in medicine, Helen studied for six months at the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade college at Crystal Palace. From there she went to Belgium to study French and Holland to take a course on tropical medicine as she prepared for her appointment as a medical missionary in the Congo.

In mid-March of 1953, at the age of 28, she arrived in the northeastern region of the Congo (later named Zaire).

In the first two years, she founded a training school for nurses, training women to serve as nurse-evangelists, who in turn would run clinics and dispensaries in different regions.

In October 1955, she was asked to transfer seven miles away to run an abandoned maternity and leprosy center in Nebobongo. Working with local Africans, Helen helped to transform the center into a hospital with 100 beds, serving mothers, lepers, and children, along with a training school for paramedics and 48 rural clinics. Outside of these facilities, there was no other medical help for 150 miles in any direction.

Exhausted, Helen returned to England in 1958 for a furlough, during which time she received further medical training.

The Congo became independent from Belgium in 1960, and civil war broke out in 1964. All of the medical facilities they had established were destroyed. Helen was among ten Protestant missionaries put under house arrest by the rebel forces for several weeks, after which time they were moved and imprisoned.

She describes the horror of what happened after she tried to escape:

They found me, dragged me to my feet, struck me over head and shoulders, flung me on the ground, kicked me, dragged me to my feet only to strike me again—the sickening searing pain of a broken tooth, a mouth full of sticky blood, my glasses gone. Beyond sense, numb with horror and unknown fear, driven, dragged, pushed back to my own house—yelled at, insulted, cursed.

Her captors, she wrote, “were brutal and drunken. They cursed and swore, they struck and kicked, they used the butt-end of rifles and rubber truncheons. We were roughly taken, thrown in prisons, humiliated, threatened.”

On October 29, 1964, Helen Roseveare was brutally raped.

She later recounted:

On that dreadful night, beaten and bruised, terrified and tormented, unutterably alone, I had felt at last God had failed me. Surely He could have stepped in earlier, surely things need not have gone that far. I had reached what seemed to be the ultimate depth of despairing nothingness.

In this darkness, however, she sensed the Lord saying to her:

You asked Me, when you were first converted, for the privilege of being a missionary. This is it. Don’t you want it? . . . These are not your sufferings. They’re Mine. All I ask of you is the loan of your body.

She eventually received an “overwhelming sense of privilege, that Almighty God would stoop to ask of me, a mere nobody in a forest clearing in the jungles of Africa, something He needed.”

She later pointed to God’s goodness despite this great evil:

Through the brutal heartbreaking experience of rape, God met with me—with outstretched arms of love. It was an unbelievable experience: He was so utterly there, so totally understanding, his comfort was so complete—and suddenly I knew—I really knew that his love was unutterably sufficient. He did love me! He did understand!

She also wrote:

[God] understood not only my desperate misery but also my awakened desires and mixed up horror of emotional trauma. I knew that Philippians 4:19, “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus,” was true on all levels, not just on a hyper-spiritual shelf where I had tried to relegate it. . . . He was actually offering me the inestimable privilege of sharing in some little way in the fellowship of His sufferings.

This theme of “privilege” became prominent in Helen’s ministry. In her Urbana '76 address, she said:

One word became unbelievably clear, and that word was privilege. He didn’t take away pain or cruelty or humiliation. No! It was all there, but now it was altogether different. It was with him, for him, in him. He was actually offering me the inestimable privileged of sharing in some little way the edge of the fellowship of his suffering.

In the weeks of imprisonment that followed and in the subsequent years of continued service, looking back, one has tried to “count the cost,” but I find it all swallowed up in privilege. The cost suddenly seems very small and transient in the greatness and permanence of the privilege.

After returning to African in 1966, she soon left Nebobongo to establish a new medical center in Nyankunde in northeastern Zaire, producing a 250-bed hospital, maternity ward, training college for doctors, a center for leprosy, and other endeavors.

There, too, she experienced several trials and relational difficulties. She never claimed to see visions or hear the voice of the Lord, but she did sense him rebuking her attitude. On one occasion, her conviction from the Lord went as follows:

You no longer want Jesus only, but Jesus plus . . . plus respect, popularity, public opinion, success and pride. You wanted to go out with all the trumpets blaring, from a farewell-do that you organized for yourself with photographs and tape-recordings to show and play at home, just to reveal what you had achieved. You wanted to feel needed and respected. You wanted the other missionaries to be worried about how they’ll ever carry on after you’ve gone. You’d like letters when you go home to tell how much they realize they owe to you, how much they miss you. All this and more. Jesus plus. . . . No, you can’t have it. Either it must be “Jesus only” or you’ll find you have no Jesus. You’ll substitute Helen Roseveare.

In 1973, Helen returned to the UK for health reasons, settling in Northern Ireland. She traveled, wrote several books, and served as a missionary advocate.

She went to be with her Lord, from whom she counted it a privilege to suffer, on December 7, 2016, at the age of 91.

Source: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/a-woman-of-whom-the-world-was-not-worthy-helen-roseveare-1925-2016/

Stories of Faith - Episode 79

RG LeTourneau is perhaps the most inspiring Christian inventor, businessman and entrepreneur the world has ever seen. A sixth grade dropout, Robert Gilmore “RG” LeTourneau went on to become the leading earth moving machinery manufacturer of his day with plants on 4 continents, more than 300 patents to his name and major contributions to road construction and heavy equipment that forever changed the world. Most importantly, his contribution to the advancement of the Gospel ranks him among the greatest of Christian Businessmen of all time. Famous for living on 10% of his income and giving 90% to the spread of the Gospel, LeTourneau exemplified what a Christian businessman should be.

RG LeTourneau dropped out of school and began working in an iron foundry at the age of 14, in the year 1901. Numerous tradesmen jobs later, he discovered a passion for machinery, initially as an auto mechanic, and later as the manufacturer of the largest earth moving equipment on the planet. At the age of 28, he returned from a period with the Navy serving our country in World War I to a car dealership, of which he was half owner, that was steeped in debt due to a partner who took to drinking. LeTourneau removed himself from the business with $5,000 in debt. The year was 1915. Ouch. Jobless and beyond broke, he jumped at the opportunity to level some land for a wealthy rancher. RG claimed that this experience was the most satisfying job he had ever held.

LeTourneau slowly expanded to larger and larger land leveling contracts. He continually under-bid his competitors to win jobs and would scramble to invent machines to speed up the work and keep him from going broke. Although there were many technological advances in other areas of commerce in the early 1900s, in the world of earth moving at the time, it was still in the stone age. Roads were built by employing large numbers of men with shovels and utilizing mules to drag small plows. RG LeTourneau was among the first road construction contractors to introduce machinery to moving earth.

The year was 1919 and as a Christian, he felt the tug to be doing more for God. He went to his pastor, Reverend Devol, for advice. RG thought that anyone who was wholly committed to Christ had to become a pastor or a missionary to truly fulfill the great commission. After deep prayer with his pastor, RG LeTourneau was shocked to hear Rev. Duvol say the words that guided him for the rest of his life, “God needs businessmen too.” This was a revelation to RG. He immediately began to consider his business to be in partnership with God.

Still, RG LeTourneau was puzzled as to why God would choose him to be His businessman. Especially when, at the age of 40, in the year 1927, a big construction job went bad and put him $100,000 in debt. But as RG remarked later, after seeing what God could do to restore a business and a life, “He uses the weak to confound the mighty.” For history buffs, the end of the 1920s marked a unique event in American history, the start of the Great Depression. Not exactly the best time to be up to your eyeballs in debt and uncertain as to how to feed your wife and kids.

The following story highlights a miracle that God performed while RG faithfully served God, not man. The surety company that had backed RG LeTourneau on the construction job that posted the $100,000 loss was going to see to it that RG paid them back every penny owed. So on LeTourneau’s next job, the surety company demanded RG work on Sundays or else they would foreclose on his business, his house, everything. Since RG’s business partner was God, he gave the problem to God to solve. The owner of the surety company, Mr. Hall, boarded a train to officially shut LeTourneau down, but upon arrival to the job site the next day, something miraculous occurred. The surety man had a change of heart and allowed RG to continue.

Although the job was completed without working on Sundays, RG was still deep in debt. He was able to buy some time with his creditors by committing to improve his financial reporting. The surety company installed an accountant named Mr. Frost to reign in the books. What Mr. Frost found was worse than he had originally expected.

Meanwhile, RG had skipped his yearly missions pledge the year before so he was committed to making good with the Lord. He told Mr. Frost that he had pledged $5,000 to his church for missions. Mr. Frost couldn’t believe it. RG was so far behind, even thinking of donating to the Lord was out of the question. Mr. Frost didn’t realize who RG was partners in business with. Unbelievably, the business managed to stay afloat and the missions commitment was paid in full that year. Then, his business hit a breakthrough.

For years, RG LeTourneau had sold the machinery he had built for himself when he got a little behind financially. Although he still considered himself, first and foremost, a road construction contractor, the selling of his earth moving equipment inventions had been a profitable sideline for him. RG’s attorney hinted at the idea of solving his financial woes by going full force into the manufacturing business rather than rolling the dice on the ups and downs of big construction jobs. RG then turned his complete focus to the manufacturing of his machinery inventions. After that, his financial woes were a thing of the past. The following are the revenue results his manufacturing business produced during a time when the rest of the country was plagued with the Great Depression:

Year 1932 – Net Profit: $52,055.61

Year 1934 – Net Profit: $340,275.49

Year 1938 – Net Profit: $1,412,465.68

In 1935, with the gigantic profits pouring out of the manufacturing business, at the gentle suggestion of his wife Evelyn, they transitioned to a 90/10 split with the Lord. 90% went to the Lord and 10% went to RG and Evelyn. LeTourneau was fond of remarking, “It’s not how much of my money I give to God, but how much of God’s money I keep for myself.” With the money, they established the LeTourneau Foundation to manage the administration of donations. By 1959, after giving $10 Million in donations to religious and educational works, the LeTourneau Foundation was still worth some $40 Million.

In that same year, 1935, RG LeTourneau overcame a lifelong fear of public speaking and gave his first speech at the opening of his newest plant, to which he urged his fellow Christians in the room to do more for the Lord in their businesses. In attendance at the presentation were several area pastors, who immediately requested he speak to their congregation about Christianity and business. This was the beginning of a lifelong commitment to speaking on Christians in business. In later years, with the profits from his business, he was able to purchase airplanes so that he could speak to more and more audiences around the world.

RG LeTourneau was a mighty man of God whose life continues to inspire Christians in Business to this day. To learn even more, read the detailed account of his life, in his own words, in the book, Mover of Mountains and Men.

Sources: https://www.giantsforgod.com/rg-letourneau/

https://thechristianinsociety.wordpress.com/2020/05/10/gods-mountain-mover-r-g-letourneau-1888-1969/

Stories of Faith - Episode 78

Raised in a turbulent home in South London, Claud started selling marijuana at fifteen and heroin when he was twenty-five. Needing a cover for his activities, he became a mentor to young people. Soon he became intrigued by his manager, a believer in Jesus, and wanted to know more. After attending a course exploring the Christian faith, he “dared” Christ to come into his life. “I felt such a welcoming presence,” he said. “People saw a change in me instantly. I was the happiest drug dealer in the world!” Jesus didn’t stop there. When Claud weighed up a bag of cocaine the next day, he thought, This is madness. I’m poisoning people! He realized he must stop selling drugs and get a job. With the help of the Holy Spirit, he turned off his phones and never went back.

--

“BROKE” was the street name Grady answered to and those five letters were proudly emblazoned on his license plates. Though not intended in a spiritual sense, the moniker fit the middle-aged gambler, adulterer, and deceiver. He was broken, bankrupt, and far from God. However, all that changed one evening when he was convicted by God’s Spirit in a hotel room. He told his wife, “I think I’m getting saved!” That evening he confessed sins he thought he’d take with him to the grave and came to Jesus for forgiveness. For the next thirty years, the man who didn’t think he’d live to see forty lived and served God as a changed believer in Jesus. His license plates changed too-from “BROKE” to “REPENT.”

Source: Our Daily Bread 2024 Annual Edition

Stories of Faith - Episode 77

 

George Müller: Great Faith in a Great God

With hard headlines around us, I thought it an appropriate time to be reminded of the great faith of George Müller—who served an even greater God. The faith of this man certainly encourages me to rest fully on the Lord in tough times. I hope his story will inspire you, too!

You won’t find George Müller (1805-1898) in most encyclopedias. He wasn’t one of those guys who “made history.” However, by his strong faith in Christ, George Müller influenced hundreds of thousands. In the 1830s, he improved the harsh living conditions of orphans in England, whom by faith he loved and housed and fed. The miracle of his story is that George Müller never asked anyone to give money to his ministry, never took out a loan or went into debt but he prayed for the funds he needed—and watched God faithfully provide. Müller would say it was his duty, and his honor, to live by such faith and demonstrate God’s gracious ability to answer prayer.

George Müller was born the son of a tax collector in the kingdom of Prussia. By his own admission, George was a thieving child who stole money from his father, as well as from his friends. As a teenager, he fell into drunkenness, gambling, immorality, and lying. George’s deviance caught up with him eventually, and for a time he was put in jail.

Life would change for George, however, when at age 20 he met a group of praying Christians who invited him to join a Bible study. With singing and fellowship, George had never been around people of such faith. Their radiant lives blew him away. George was quickly brought to his knees, praying to know the Christ that he saw in those believers. In a short time, George was filled with the desire to be a full-time missionary. With an unusual interest in the Hebrew language, he believed the Lord was leading him to become a minister to Jews in mainland Europe. As a missionary candidate, he was required to move to London, England, for six months for an in-depth study of Hebrew.

But something happened in London that George did not expect. As he stood on the streets passing out Christian tracts to Jews, he noticed the non-Jews who passed him by, burdened with everyday struggles in their busy lives. In compassion, it made George wonder why he was training to specifically reach the Jews in Europe when there were lost souls all around him. George felt the Lord impressing him to stay right there in England and preach. On New Year’s Day in 1830, he resigned from Hebrew school as a missionary candidate. Though he had no job and very little money, he felt free—free to trust God for whatever ministry might come his way.

Within a few months, George Müller was called to be the pastor of a small church in Devon, England. Within a few more months, he met and married Mary Groves. Though a devoted Christian woman, Mary had no idea of the unusual life she was about to enter as the bride of George Müller! You see, one of George Müller’s convictions, early on, was that he could fully trust God to provide for his needs. If you remember, when he was young, he struggled a great deal with gambling and stealing. In coming to Christ, it meant everything to him to put his faith in Christ for provision, rather than on a roll of the dice or a monetary scam.

The idea of trusting God consumed George Müller so much that he and his wife decided not to draw a salary from the small church that supported him. He asked instead that church members drop money in a box as they felt led. There were times when George and his wife had not a dime for a loaf of bread, but they would inevitably find their needs met, as someone would send money or provision as God laid it on the hearts of others. This couldn’t have been an easy way to live, but for George Müller, it was a joyful way to live. He delighted in seeing the Lord show up at just the right time.

He wrote in his autobiography:

God blessed us abundantly as He taught us to trust in Him alone. When we were

down to our last few shillings, we told Him about our needs and depended on Him

to provide. He never failed us.

In 1832, George Müller and his wife felt called to lead a small congregation in the port city of Bristol, England. As far as “nice places to live,” Bristol didn’t rank very high. It was a dirty village with high crime and desperate poverty. To George, it was the perfect mission field, ripe for harvest. But with its poor sanitation and crowded living quarters, it was also ripe for the spread of disease. A cholera epidemic soon broke out after the Müllers made it their home. Mary Müller was in constant fear of losing her husband, who was always holding hands to pray with someone infected with cholera. But the Lord sustained his faithful servant and though George had bouts of illness, he never got cholera, and he lived to see the epidemic pass.

George Müller’s Trust in God—An Example to Us All

There was, however, an interesting side effect to the cholera epidemic. It left Bristol with countless numbers of orphans.

One day, a little girl in tattered clothes, just 5 or 6 years old, approached George Müller on the street. She was piggybacking her little brother, who was fighting a bad case of the sniffles. The girl asked George for money, saying her mother had died of cholera and her father was missing. George gave her the money she asked for but couldn’t get her off his mind. As the little orphan girl wandered away, he wondered where she would sleep and what would become of her little brother if she too were to become ill. It burdened George that not enough was being done for the poor and parentless children of Bristol.

Though he was still entertaining the idea of leaving England for a foreign mission post, God laid it on his heart to stay right there and offer hope to the destitute. He had to trust in God. Now, there have been many fine souls who have started agencies and ministries to care for the poor and homeless. But few were shaped like George Müller. From the very beginning, he decided never to ask anyone to fund his vision to care for orphans! He believed that if it were of God that he feed, clothe, and educate these children, then the supplies and staff would come. (As you will learn, they did!)

George’s Trust in God is Rewarded!

George started with a daily Breakfast Club where he opened up his own home to hungry children. He offered them warm water to clean their little faces and hot oatmeal to fill their empty stomachs. Then, to nourish their souls, he read Scripture and acted out Bible stories. The Breakfast Club was a great success and the experience of it led George to expand his ministry.

By faith, in 1834 (when he was 28), George Müller created the Scriptural Knowledge Institution for Home and Abroad, because he was disillusioned with the post-millennialism, the liberalism, and the worldly strategies (like going into debt) of existing mission organizations. He formed this organization for four purposes: to teach the Gospel, to provide education to destitute children, to give Bibles to the poor, and to support foreign missionaries. It was an enormous plan that skeptical church members scoffed at but George had trust in God! It was probably the scoffing and lack of faith from some of George’s own church members that inspired him all the more toward prayer. He so wanted the faith of his congregation to grow. He so wanted them to learn to trust God with prayer and provision.

Without asking others for funding, George Müller opened numerous orphanages in Bristol. He and his wife delighted in seeing the Lord answer their prayers for provision. Therefore, George continued with the Scriptural Institution and indeed saw hundreds attend the schools he opened or helped. Did he ever once go into debt? No. God supplied everything that was needed.

Soon after founding the Scriptural Institution, George Müller made the life-changing decision to expand it by adding a fifth purpose. He decided to trust God to build, staff, and supply the needs of an orphanage designed to house girls from 7 to12 years old. He opened his first orphanage in 1836, and it filled up quickly, so George opened another orphanage, and then another, and then another. Did he have the money to do it? No, not on paper, but this fact never stopped George Müller. He faithfully held prayer meetings with his staff, day after day, praying for the Lord to provide as they needed.

George Müller filled his entire autobiography with example after example of God’s sweet answers to prayer. He wrote:

Two pounds seven shillings was needed for the orphans, but we had nothing. I had no idea how to obtain the means for dinner and for our other needs. My heart was perfectly at peace and sure of help. That afternoon I received a letter from India, written in May, with fifty pounds for the orphans.

Another example:

One morning, all the plates and cups and bowls on the table were empty. There was no food in the larder and no money to buy food. The children were standing, waiting for their morning meal, when Müller said, “Children, you know we must be in time for school.” Then lifting up his hands he prayed, “Dear Father, we thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat.”

There was a knock at the door. The baker stood there, and said, “Mr. Müller, I couldn’t sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn’t have bread for breakfast, and the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at 2 a.m. and baked some fresh bread, and have brought it.”

Mr. Müller thanked the baker, and no sooner had he left, when there was a second knock at the door. It was the milkman. He announced that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the orphanage, and he would like to give the children his cans of fresh milk so he could empty his wagon and repair it.

On another occasion, George wrote:

Because so little has come in during the last days, at least three pounds was required to supply the needs of today. Not one penny, however, was in hand when the day began. In the afternoon, all of us met for prayer. . . Now observe how our kind Father helped us! This evening a sister who sells some things for us brought two pounds ten shillings sixpence. Though she did not feel well, she said she had come because it was on her heart, and she could not stay away.

It is evident to me in reading George Müller’s autobiography that God’s provision wasn’t meant to encourage only George Müller. I think it was meant to touch the lives of those who felt God tug on their hearts to give. George thought this, too. He said,

“The chief end for which the institution was established is that the Church would see the hand of God stretched out on our behalf in answer to prayer.”

I could go on and on about the faith of George Müller. After 35 years of caring for over 10,000 orphans in Bristol, George handed the ministry over to his son-in-law in order to fulfill an old calling to the mission field abroad. George Müller spent the next 17 years traveling about the globe, teaching and preaching the Gospel until he was 87. He traveled to 42 countries, preaching on average of once a day, and addressing some three million people. His favorite stories to tell were those of God’s provision for the orphans. Because George had once been a gambler and a thief, his testimony was especially powerful.

Do you think George Müller was ever discouraged by his tough assignment? I think he was at times. But I’ll end this story with his glowing testimony of God’s faithfulness:

Many years have passed since I made my boast in God by publishing reports of this ministry. Satan unquestionably is waiting for me to fall. If I was left to myself, I would fall prey to him at once. Pride, unbelief, or other sins would be my ruin and lead me to bring disgrace upon the name of Jesus. No one should admire me, be astonished at my faith, or think of me as if I were an amazing person. No, I am as weak as ever. . . . Nevertheless, I do not find that this work leads to a trying life but a very happy one. It is impossible to describe the abundance of peace and heavenly joy that often flows into my soul because of the answers I obtain from God after waiting on Him for help and blessing.

Sources:

https://themysteryofhistory.com/george-muller/

https://themysteryofhistory.com/george-mullers-trust-in-god/

https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/george-muellers-strategy-for-showing-god

https://www.missionmindedfamilies.org/blog/muller

https://vancechristie.com/2022/08/15/trusting-god-in-faith-stretching-circumstances-george-muller/

Stories of Faith - Episode 76

 

General Charles Gordon (1833-1885) served Queen Victoria in China and elsewhere, but when living in England he'd give away 90 percent of his income. When he heard about a famine in Lancashire, he scratched off the inscription from a pure gold medal he'd received from a world leader and sent it up north, saying they should melt it down and use the money to buy bread for the poor. That day he wrote in his diary: "The last earthly thing I had in this world that I valued I have given to the Lord Jesus."

Source: Our Daily Bread 2024 Annual Edition

Stories of Faith - Episode 75

Michael Green narrated:

If we prayed in support of evangelism and missionary work instead of giving lip-service to it - we should see great advance. I shall never forget learning this lesson afresh. The occasion was a mission in the University of Cambridge, and I was leading it. Large numbers were packing the Guildhall every night, but few were professing conversion. Many Christians in Cambridge mentioned that they found it very hard to pray. So did I. On the penultimate night of the mission I did not sleep very much, and I think that was fairly general among the Christian community. We had finally begun to give prayer its place. Back in Nottingham at St John's, where I was on the staff, somebody had a vision that night., it was of me standing between the trenches in No Man's Land during the first world war. There were soldiers in our trenches who were supposed to be supplying covering fire. Instead, they were playing cards. That vision drove people in St John's to prayer, and a prayer vigil was kept in a room apart all that day. In the evening in Cambridge, some 800 students stayed to an explanation of the way to Christ after the final talk, and scores of them committed themselves to our Lord. It certainly taught me a lesson about the link between prayer and evangelism.

Culled from "Evangelism - Now and Then" by Michael Green

Stories of Faith - Episode 74

Elias Letwaba was born in 1870 to a man of God and of the Word who lived in Middleburg, Transvaal. He was always in prayer and considered a little odd by others around him. His mother, on the other hand, was a nominal Christian. Things changed dramatically when six months before Letwaba was born his mother was grinding wheat. She suddenly saw a man clothed in white standing before her. The messenger said, "You will shortly have a strong baby boy. He is to be a messenger for Me, to carry my Gospel message to many places. He will suffer much persecution and weariness, but I will be with him and protect him until his death, making him a means of blessing to thousands and an instrument in my hands for establishing many Christian churches." The man disappeared and Letwaba's mother became a strong believer from that point forward.

Letwaba's family was educated and learned Dutch so that they would have access to literary material. They often entertained teachers, missionaries, and visiting teachers in their home. At one point, when a visiting preacher came, Letwaba told his parents of his desire to preach the gospel. At nineteen years old Letwaba would tramp the villages with his twelve-year old brother, Wilfred, and preach wherever anyone would listen. He took the name of Elias. God began to speak to him out of the Word. One day God highlighted Matthew 8:16-17 "And when evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill in order that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, "He Himself took our infirmities, and carried away our diseases." (NASB) Letwaba felt a tingling in his hands and a heart to see the sick healed. That day Letwaba was in Heidelberg when he met a woman whose daughter was fourteen years old and never walked. He prayed for the girl and left, not knowing for five years that she was healed from that moment on.

Letwaba joined the Berlin Lutheran Mission but was unhappy to find out that the church was a social club and sin was overlooked. His heart longed for holiness, and he struggled with personal sin. When he was twenty he switched to the Bapedi Lutherans, and stayed with them for nineteen years. Still he struggled with a sense of powerlessness and the teaching that focused on the traditions of men instead of the Word of God. There was a conviction in his life that there was more and he began crying out to God for His power of salvation to be made manifest. In his struggle he became ill and was close to death. Jesus appeared to him and called him to an open confession of his sin so that he would be healed. He was afraid of losing his reputation but he went to those he sinned against first, and then to his wife and the missionaries with whom he worked to expose it all. Letwaba left the Bepedi Lutherans and sought for people who would believe God.

Letwaba connected himself to the Zion Apostolic Church. He saw that the people had a living faith and he chose to be baptized by them. Still his heart was hungry for more. Letwaba went to one of the elders and explained, "I have fasted and cried many bitter tears. I have lain awake at nights, longing for holiness, and for the power of God, but the missionaries with who I work and the native preachers with who I have associated only regard me as a crank, and laugh at me for my pains. Oh tell me where can I find what I need?" The elder told him that John G. Lake and Tom Hezmellhalch were preaching at the old Zulu Mission and that they should go and hear them. It is described that the meetings in Doorfontein in April 1908 were like a spiritual cyclone had hit the city, hundreds were healed and thousands were being saved. So great was the power of God on Lake that he would shake hands with someone entering the hall and they would fall to the ground under the power of the Spirit.

John G. Lake invited Letwaba up onto the stage where he was preaching. This angered many of the white participants. Lake, however, refused to be cowed and kissed Letwaba and welcomed him into the meeting. People were threatening to throw Letwaba out when Lake said "if you throw him out then I will go out too." Letwaba's heart was melded to Lake's from that point. Letwaba followed Lake to his house where Lake shared his heart with him. Since Lake and Hezmellhalch were getting ready for Bloemfontein they invited Letwaba to go with him. On February 9, 1909 Letwaba was gloriously filled with the Holy Spirit. Letwaba traveled with the pair and was involved in the programs.

Letwaba returned home and shared the good news of the baptism of the Holy Spirit with his father. His father immediately responded and was filled and began speaking in tongues. He also began an itinerant ministry of his own. He was beaten, stoned, kicked, and verbally and physically abused but he kept on going because there was a fire in his bones. Letwaba invited Lake to come to his home area of Potgietersrus. Lake and Hezmellhalch would visit for a few days at a time and all the men would minister together, seeing the sick healed. Letwaba felt a pressing desire for the party to go north to Zoutpansberg. They did so but several of the members caught malaria and two of the party died. Letwaba was broken-hearted as the men returned to the south but God called him to go back to the north Transvaal.

Letwaba began his ministry by walking hundreds of miles to visit remote village. Everywhere he went he prayed for the sick and preached the gospel. One village he visited was in drought and all the animals were dying. The Holy Spirit came upon him and he declared, "I decree to you people, by the Word of God, that by this time tomorrow you shall have the rain you need. Your fields and your cattle shall be saved, and you will know that God still lives to answer the prayers of those who believe in Him." Letwaba spent the night in prayer and by the morning rain poured down upon the village. The village became open to Christ. Letwaba was an intercessor. He often spent hours in prayer seeking God. In one case he was praying in a building that was being painted by unbelievers. They were mocking him, but the power of God hit the building and the entire building shook. They refused to work again until he was done his time of prayer.

The Apostolic Faith Mission, recognizing Letwaba's leadership, gave him the superintendence of the Zoutpansberg, Waterberg, and Middleberg native churches. Letwaba felt a growing need to have a school to train leaders. Oftentimes those who had heard the good news had little scriptural foundation and fell into error easily. He decided to open the "Patmos Bible School" at Potgietersrus. It was built on faith in 1924 and completed without debt. It went on to include dormitories for the students and a school for children. The coursework was extensive and covered three years. Letwaba fed the students from his own home farm and small salary from the Apostolic Faith Mission. Letwaba was self-educated and spoke seven languages including English, German, Dutch, Tonga, Zulu, Suto, and Xosa. He trained his students extensively in the Bible but also included practical skills in speaking and deportment as well as the English and Dutch languages.

Letwaba had the care of thirty-seven churches. On Sundays he would lead services at five or six locations and would start at 5:30 in the morning and continue until 9:00 at night. He also taught six hours a day at the Bible school. He continued the school until 1935 when he was 65 years old. His congregations were tribally mixed, and often his sermons had to be given through two or three interpreters. He had a heart for holiness His was a fervent preacher and saw healings and miracles in his ministry. It is reported that he saw as many as 10,000 healings in his life. He is often considered to be the man who received the mantle of Lake's healing ministry in South Africa. Letwaba died in 1959 at the age of 89.

A description of Elias Letwaba is found in Gordon Lindsay's book on John G. Lake called "John G. Lake - Apostle to Africa". Chapter 5 is titled Elias Letwaba, the Man Who Carried on the Work and Chapter 6 is titled The Mantle Falls on Letwaba. There is also extensive coverage of Letwaba in the book titled "When God Makes a Pastor" by W. F. P Burton published in 1934.

Source: https://healingandrevival.com/BioELetwaba.htm

Stories of Faith - Episode 74

By the time Alex Montez turned 3, he was a traveling musician in southern Mexico.

“We were playing as a family: guitars, violins, mandolin,” Alex remembers. “I played the maracas. That’s the only thing I got to play, but it was fun!”

Alex and his six siblings, criss-crossed the Mexican countryside with their missionary parents.

“I was doing the things that every preacher’s kid does, you know, doing the singing,” he says. “Still, something was missing because for some reason I was believing in the faith of my parents, but not in my own faith.”

Eventually, music became his god.

“I was in love with music,” Alex says. “There was a deep search in my soul. When I heard music something clicked inside of me. Something just exploded!”

At 13, Alex secretly joined a band that played in nightclubs. One night after a big show, the grown men he played with took him out to celebrate.

“That night when they took me for my surprise, they actually took me to a prostitution house,” Alex recalls. “That night changed me forever. It became an addiction. Everything became lies and hiding, and I began to live a double life.”

Three years later, his father died of a heart attack. The sudden loss shattered 16-year-old Alex.

“I remember saying these words, ‘Right when I need him the most, You’re taking him away. Why are You doing this to me?’ I began to actually talk to God like that. And it set a huge sadness, emptiness, and anger. I was very, very angry.”

Alex poured his emotions into his music. At 18, he moved to the U.S. to begin a new life. He married, started a family and opened his own recording studio. It wasn’t long before he was producing records for some of Latin music’s biggest names, like Selena. Then came his big break: a major record deal.

On tour, Alex partied night after night.

My career grew more and more, and my affairs were multiple and my wife had no idea,” he says.

His singing career hit a major high when he wrote Muy Especial, a song he performed with his 4-year-old daughter Jennifer. But behind the scenes, Alex was coming apart.

“The sexual addiction, the alcohol combined with the drugs—I couldn’t handle it anymore. I tried in front of people to appear that I had it together, but I didn’t.

His adulterous affairs destroyed his marriage, and his wife filed for divorce. His music suffered too. He lost his studio, his home and his career.

“As fast as it went up, faster it came down crumbling, very fast,” Alex remembers. ”I began to get very depressed and I began crying. I was crying all the time.”

Alex roamed the streets for days, until a family friend took him in. One day while home alone, he found a gun.

“That thing had like a spotlight on it,” Alex says. “And I heard that voice telling me, ‘That’s your answer. Just take the shot and it’ll be all over.’”

Alex made one last phone call to his brother, Chris.

“All he said was,’ I’m sorry, goodbye.’” Chris recalls. “As that was happening I told my sister ‘Come with me let’s pray.’ We began praying and asking the Lord to be present where Alex was and to show us where Alex was. And I had just a glimpse in my mind of where to go find Alex.”

Chris and a friend drove across town to find his brother, just as Alex shot himself in the stomach.

“The next thing I know, things are getting cold and dark,” Alex says. “I closed my eyes and I was out.”

Moments later, Chris and his friend found Alex lying on the ground.

“We went to his body and turned him over and rebuked death,” Chris says. “God was not only present, He was active.”

Alex survived his injuries, and woke up in the hospital.

“I had tried and tried and tried to be a better person, and I couldn’t,” Alex shares. “And I was desperate. I knew that I needed God because He was the only One that was more powerful than the one that had a hold of me. He had the power to break all of that stuff off me.”

Then, a stranger visited his room to pray with him.

“I totally believe that God gave me a lucid moment, a moment of awareness at that very moment for this person to ask me, ‘Do you want to receive salvation?’” Alex says. “I nodded my head and I squeezed his finger or his hand, and then and then he prayed over me. I received Jesus, fully knowing what I was doing, I received Him as my Lord and Savior. And so God began an incredible transformation in my life and I had a visitation from Jesus, and I know that.”

Alex says Jesus healed his body, and freed him from all of his addictions.

“I’m reading the Gospels, and I’m reading what Jesus did for other people, and I would stop and weep and cry,” Alex reveals. “I said, ‘I need that. I need that.’ The stuff that was tormenting me, the voices, the desires, all of that was boom! Like something had come over and completely wiped it out. Only Jesus can do something like that. Only Him!”

Today Alex is remarried and raising a family with his wife Lizza Lamb.

“God has done amazing things with restoring my relationships with my kids that are even grown

now,” Alex says. “I’ve been able to ask forgiveness.”

“The transformation for Alex was very, very real,” Lizza shares. “He’s a great dad to his kids, and protects them, and shows them the love of God the way a dad should.”

Together the couple pastors a Spanish-speaking church in Angleton, Texas, called La Vida Regional.“Jesus is everything for me today. Everything! His blood is real to forgive our sins. Forever I am thankful and grateful for what He’s done. No matter where you’re at and no matter what you’ve done, it doesn’t matter to Him. If you just come to Him, His arms are wide open, like they were for me. So that’s Jesus. He can do that for you too.”

Source: https://www2.cbn.com/article/not-selected/alex-montez-losing-everything-gain-it-all

Stories of Faith - Episode 73

Addison Adamu grew up in a strict Muslim family in Ghana.

“We were taught and trained that once born a Muslim, you are always a Muslim,” remembers Addison. “I used to follow my father to the mosque five times a day.”

Addison never seriously questioned the rituals of his family’s faith until a friend at school showed him a Bible.

“I didn’t want to read the Bible because if I’m caught, it will be another story,” says Addison. “It’s like the highest degree of crime to convert from Islam to Christianity. He told me that God is love. It’s not about what you do, but it’s about having faith in him through Jesus Christ.”

That’s when his friend invited him to a Christian healing service.

“I was very curious to go,” says Addison. “Those who came with their crutches, they started abandoning their crutches, and they were screaming and shouting, ‘I am healed! I am healed!’ That shook my idea about Jesus Christ that he’s just one of the prophets. The healing power of Jesus Christ is real! And that day, I accepted him as my Lord and my personal Savior.”

Addison stopped going to the mosque with his family and began sneaking off to church. One day, his father confronted him.

“When I look at his face, the rage, the anger, he was a monster saying, ‘Come here, boy. Tell me where are you going,’” says Addison. “And I said, ‘church.’ ‘What? You’re going to church?’ He pull out a sword, and he run after me. He started yelling, cursing me, ‘I deny you as a son, you are a traitor, you have denied our faith, and you are not my son anymore.’”

Addison hid in his friend’s home. After three weeks of hiding, he heard his father had become paralyzed and was dying of an illness doctors couldn’t diagnose.

“When I heard that, I told my friend, ‘Let’s go and pray for my father,’” remembers Addison. “And he said, ‘No, Addison, you cannot do it. This is very dangerous. They are looking for you—they want to kill you!’ He said, ‘You don’t understand,’ and I say, ‘You don’t understand!’ When Jesus heals my father, they will know that Jesus is real.”

Addison went to see his father.

“He was looking at me,” remembers Addison. “He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t do anything, but he could hear. And I said, ‘Dad, I’m here to pray for you.’ I said, ‘Lord Jesus, I know you are a healer. Heal my father right now, so that the Muslims here and the whole world will know that you are a healer.’ Before my prayer ended, I saw my father moving his body. He got up from his bed and he sat. He started talking, ‘Addison, your Jesus prayer has healed me. Your Jesus is real. I can talk, I can move my body. All the pain is gone.’ He said, ‘Come back home, you are my son and no more persecution,’ in front of everybody.”

Many family members saw what happened and also gave their lives to Christ.

“That healing miracle led to the conversion of my mother from Islam to Christianity,” says Addison. “My younger sister gave her life to Christ. My younger brother gave his life to Christ. Even my half sisters and brothers who were very devout and they were all mad at me, insulting me, happen to look for me to kill me, they all gave their lives to Christ as a result and they started going to church with me.”

Addison left Ghana and came to the United States to attend seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. He now travels around the country speaking and praying for others.

“Since I gave my life to Christ, my life has never been the same,” says Addison. I’ve been changed into a new person and his love has brought me joy, peace, happiness. We don’t have to do anything to earn his love. We just have to embrace him into our lives.”

Source: https://www2.cbn.com/article/not-selected/addison-adamus-faith-adventure

Stories of Faith - Episode 72

Execution of Three Men by Firing Squad

Colin Chapman, in The Case For Christianity, quotes Ugandan Bishop Festo Kivengere’s account of the 1973 execution by firing squad of three men from his diocese:

February 10 began as a sad day for us in Kabale. People were commanded to come to the stadium and witness the execution. Death permeated the atmosphere. A silent crowd of about three thousand was there to watch.

I had permission from the authorities to speak to the men before they died, and two of my fellow ministers were with me.

They brought the men in a truck and unloaded them. They were handcuffed and their feet were chained. The firing squad stood at attention. As we walked into the center of the stadium, I was wondering what to say. How do you give the gospel to doomed men who are probably seething with rage?

We approached them from behind, and as they turned to look at us, what a sight! Their faces were all alight with an unmistakable glow and radiance. Before we could say anything, one of them burst out:

“Bishop, thank you for coming! I wanted to tell you. The day I was arrested, in my prison cell, I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my heart. He came in and forgave me all my sins! Heaven is now open, and there is nothing between me and my God! Please tell my wife and children that I am going to be with Jesus. Ask them to accept him into their lives as I did.”

The other two men told similar stories, excitedly raising their hands, which rattled their handcuffs.

I felt that what I needed to do was to talk to the soldiers, not to the condemned. So I translated what the men had said into a language the soldiers understood. The military men were standing there with guns cocked and bewilderment on their faces. They were so dumbfounded that they forgot to put the hoods over the men’s faces!

The three faced the firing squad standing close together. They looked toward the people and began to wave, handcuffs and all. The people waved back. Then shots were fired, and the three were with Jesus.

We stood in front of them, our own hearts throbbing with joy, mingled with tears. It was a day never to be forgotten. Though dead, the men spoke loudly to all of Kigezi District and beyond, so that there was an upsurge of life in Christ, which challenges death and defeats it.

The next Sunday, I was preaching to a huge crowd in the home town of one of the executed men. Again, the feel of death was over the congregation. But when I gave them the testimony of their man, and how he died, there erupted a great song of praise to Jesus! Many turned to the Lord there.

Source: https://bible.org/illustration/execution-three-men-firing-squad

Stories of Faith - Episode 71

Birmingham is a post-Civil War city founded in 1871 in response to the discovery of one of the world’s richest mineral deposits of iron, coal, and limestone. The abundance of these raw materials led to a thriving steel industry, and Birmingham became the “Pittsburgh of the South.” In the early twentieth century, the leaders of Birmingham commissioned a statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and the forge, to represent the city at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Today, Vulcan stands 56-feet tall high atop Red Mountain overlooking the city, a symbol of Birmingham’s history. Colossus-like, Vulcan is the largest cast-iron statue in the world, welcoming thousands of visitors every day from near and far.

But Birmingham is also known for another statue, one less prominent and auspicious. It is not the image of a Roman deity standing tall and proud, looking upward at the sky with a spear in his hand. No, this statue depicts an older man, shoulders slumping, hat in hand, kneeling in prayer. The man is James Alexander Bryan (1863-1941), who was known affectionately as “Brother Bryan.” For more than fifty years he served as pastor of Birmingham’s Third Presbyterian Church. Catherine Marshall once referred to him as “the patron saint of Birmingham.” If anyone ever deserved that title, it was surely he.

Though well-trained at Princeton Theological Seminary, Brother Bryan was not known for heady sermons or church politics. Rather, he was dearly loved as the tender shepherd of the entire city. He ministered to everyone who crossed his path, rich and poor, black and white, the mighty and the meek. He reached out to students, nurses, and factory workers. He was the unofficial chaplain to the fire and police departments. His heart went out especially to the poor, the destitute, the jobless, the hungry, the lonely, the lost. In the spirit of Francis of Assisi, Brother Bryan served those on the margins of society. Born in South Carolina during the American Civil War, he grew up in the era of segregation and Jim Crow laws. He knew injustice when he saw it and he determined to treat everyone he met with dignity and respect. As a minister in the city that later would be called “Bombingham,” Brother Bryan became an apostle of racial reconciliation. He believed that every person was an image-bearer of God and thus infinitely dear and precious in the sight of the heavenly Father.

What was the secret of Brother Bryan’s ministry? By all accounts, it was the spirit and practice of prayer. Hunter B. Blakely, whose book, Religion in Shoes, tells the story of Bryan’s life, reports that “Let us pray” were the words most frequently upon the lips of this beloved pastor. “No man has ever believed more implicitly in prayer than he, and never were prayers more unconventional. Prayer seems to him as natural as for a man to breathe the air. Why not, he would reason, for is God not the most real thing in the universe?”

Brother Bryan was a promiscuous pray-er who prayed with thousands in hospitals, prisons, and halfway houses. He prayed with countless others at weddings and funerals, over the telephone, on the sidewalk, in the mills and factories of the city, and in his pastor’s study, which was known as Birmingham’s “confessional.” It was said that “the fragrance of his prayer life permeated the whole city.” His prayers were often short and to the point, but they were more than pious platitudes. He knew that prayer was a vital component of what St. Paul called “the full armor of God” (Eph. 6:11). Every prayer involved spiritual combat, and one of his most characteristic prayers was this one: “O Lord, help us to fight the devil!”

One of the most interesting prayer stories from Brother Bryan’s life came from one Thursday night when he was walking home alone after dark. Suddenly, a man jumped out of an alley, pushed a gun into his face, and said, “Hands up.” Brother Bryan complied as the man rifled through his pockets, taking his watch and the little cash he had on him. When the robbery was done and before the thief could depart, he heard the minister say, “Brother, let us pray.” As Brother Bryan prayed, the thief lowered his gun and placed the watch and stolen money back into the hands of his victim.

Brother Bryan died in 1941, but his legacy still lives on in many ways: in the church he served, which is still a dynamic center of Christian witness in the heart of the city; in Brother Bryan Mission, which reaches out in Jesus’s name to homeless and displaced persons in Birmingham; and in the silent witness to the power of prayer seen in the statue of Brother Bryan, well placed for all to see at a busy intersection “where cross the crowded ways of life.” Today, in the valley far below the feet of the great Vulcan kneels the humble pastor. His life’s work is inscribed at the statue’s base in bronze and stone: 

Fervent in prayer,

Consecrated in life,

Sympathetic in counsel,

Friend of the friendless,

the sorrowing, the poor and rich:

He went about doing good.

What does the god of fire have to do with the man of prayer? The true God is called a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24, Heb. 12:29). In the Bible, fire and prayer often belong together, as when the prophet Elijah prayed and fire fell from heaven on Mount Carmel, and when the distraught disciples prayed in the Upper Room and Pentecostal fire set the place ablaze. God’s work is done in the context of such prayer. Surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses—including Brother Bryan—God’s people are given to know that, in the words of James, “the effectual fervent, fiery prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 4:16, KJV).

Source: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/01/god-of-fire-man-of-prayer

Stories of Faith - Episode 70

The Man With 2,347 Names on His Prayer List

I’ve come across the account of a man named Ding Li-Mei, whose story will inspire your prayer life. Ding and his family were reached for Christ in the 1800s by the foreign missions efforts of American Presbyterians. As a child, Ding was responsive to the Gospel and was mentored by a woman named Julia Mateer, who wielded great influence over many Chinese students of that time.

When he was in his twenties, the Boxer Rebellion broke out, which was a time of great suffering, especially for Christian believers. Ding was arrested for his faith and carried off to the magistrate, where he was given 500 stripes with a cane that left his back a mass of raw bleeding flesh. Suffering unspeakable pain, he was carried back to his filthy cell to die. But an army of prayer warriors interceded for him, and he was rescued.

Recovering from his wounds, Ding enrolled in a Chinese university where, in February 1910, during four days of meetings he conducted, 116 students offered themselves to the Lord for fulltime vocational service. As Ding saw God using his efforts, he realized the Lord was calling him to devote his life to working with students. In the summer of 1910, he was instrumental in forming the Chinese Student Volunteer Movement for the Ministry, and he became its first traveling secretary. His impact on Chinese university students was so great that Dr. John Mott said, “In recent years he has influenced the largest number of students to devote their lives to the Christian ministry ever secured by one mam during the history of the Church in Asia.” He came to be called the “Moody of China” and was said in his lifetime to be “the greatest evangelistic force that missions in China have ever produced.”

In February 1918, Ding wrote an article for The Missionary Review of the World, entitled “The Prayer-Life of Chinese Christians,” which described the prayer habits of Chinese Christians.

“The Gospel has now been preached in China for over a century, in her twenty-two provinces… Christian believers and inquirers number more than half a million. God has opened very wide the door for preaching the Word and for winning men to Him. Western and Chinese Christians alike will unite in acknowledging that the chief explanation of this is to be found in the great volume of prayer for China’s redemption…. The prayer-life of Chinese Christians has commanded my closest attention from my youth up.”

Ding Li-Mei went on to describe some of the prayer-practices of the Chinese church, including how cottage prayer meetings occurred across the nation the first week of every year; prayer retreats held by various Christian organizations; and the personal prayer habits of many godly men and women. He gave the example of an elderly woman named Mrs. Liang who lived in Shantung, and who was uneducated and very poor. When she came to Christ, she was the only Christian in her family or village, but she prayed with exceeding zeal. “Now more than eighty in her family and over twenty others in her village are Christians,” he said.

He told of a Methodist woman in Peking, Miss Pan Yuan Ying, who was much given to prayer. Every morning she prayed for at least 135 people by name. “She has a weekly cycle of prayer which she follows day by day….”

Then Ding wrote:

“That brings me to my own personal testimony. From boyhood I have taken delight in conversing with my friends on prayer and Bible study. Even when in school I joined two or three of my most intimate schoolmates in secret meetings for prayer and the study of Holy Scripture…. I spent three years in theological studies, giving myself wholly for a search for Truth. During these years the number of fellow-pray-ers grew, until by 1899, my prayer list included 105 names. This list has continued to grow until now, in 1917, it numbers 2,347...”

“As I think back over twenty years of experience in intercessory prayer, the longer I practice it, the more its importance grows on me. I do not know all the benefits which others may have received through these prayers, nor does it matter that I do not. I cannot refrain from enumerating ten out of the uncounted blessings which I myself have experienced in the practice of this habit:

1. I am so much with the Lord that He seems my closest Friend.
2. My spiritual life is refreshed like the sprouting grain with rain.
3. Justice, peace and joy constantly fill my soul as the light fills the heavens and I get uncommon strength.
4. When I study the Bible, I seem to see heaven opened, and realize that I am having communion with the heart of Christ Himself.
5. When I talk about the Gospel in private or in public, I have an unshakable confidence that the hand of the Lord is supporting me.
6. My love has steadily expanded until I now am conscious of no man in the universe whom I cannot love.
7. When I fall into sin, whether secret or open, whether great or small, I experience an immediate rebuke of conscience, which drives me at once to confession and repentance.
8. In all my work for the Lord, although the results are not alike evident or immediate, I do not know of any effort that has been in vain.
9. Intercessory prayer has greatly enlarged my circles of friends among God’s co-workers, and through the Lord’s kind care these friendships will never cease…
10. And best of all, I am not the only one who is trying to persevere in intercession. Others in my own and in other Christian organizations, both men and women, in church school and ministry, have likewise banded together in similar covenants of prayer these same twenty years.”

A Presbyterian tract about Ding’s life said, “What is the secret of his influence and power? It is neither scholarship nor rhetoric, but prayer. Hours every day does he spend in prayer. He has a book he ever carries with him, in which he has the names and addresses of over 2000 persons, with whom he has covenanted to pray each for the other by name every day. While sitting on the platform during a service, walking on the street, riding in a rickshaw, boat or car, he uses these otherwise unoccupied minutes to pray for these 2000 people…. While in my home, I had occasion to pass his bedroom; it was long past midnight, and I found the light of his lamp still streaming through the transom. When, the next morning, I playfully chided him for keeping such late hours, he replied, ‘When we separated last night, I still had 500 friends for whom I had not prayed yesterday, and I could not go to sleep without first carrying them, by name, to the throne of God in prayer.’”

In reading about this man, I don’t feel compelled to have 2000 people on my prayer list. But I am powerfully motivated toward greater faithfulness toward those who are on my prayer list and to maintain ever-closer constancy in my walk with God. I’m eager to meet Ding Li-Mei in heaven, though I suspect I’ll have to wait in line a while.

Source: https://www.robertjmorgan.com/uncategorized/the-man-with-2347-names-on-his-prayer-list/