PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: “That Scar-Even that is no sacrifice!” By Ron Woodrum
Doctor David Livingstone was one of the greatest missionaries to give his life for spreading the gospel. After war broke out in China, he had to change his plans for missionary work. His father-in-law, Robert Moffat challenged him to come and challenge the Dark Continent for Christ. He accepted the challenge and spent the years of 1852-1873 exploring and evangelizing Africa. Early on, while trying to show the natives how to defend their livestock from the lions, he shot and wounded a lion, who attacked him while reloading, and for all practical purposes destroyed his left arm. He spent 22 years of tireless exploration and evangelization. He pushed himself to the limit for his Savior and the people of Africa. His life verse was Matthew 28:20 “Lo I am with you always even unto the end of the world”. His life motto and prayer was-“God send me anywhere-only go with me. Lay any burden on me-only sustain me. Sever any tie on my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Thee!” He is known for discovering Victoria Falls. A statue of him there is inscribed with his motto: “CHRISTIANITY, COMMERCE, AND CIVILIZATION”. He was criticized by the London Missionary Society for additional activities than evangelizing; but he felt the other two activities supported his priority of spreading Christianity. He was attacked over 30 times; He often had his supplies and medicine stolen; He battled pneumonia, ulcers, dysentery, and malaria, which eventually killed him in 1873. He suffered greatly to share the gospel where it had never been before. Stories were written about him how that he made so many sacrifices and suffered so much for the Gospel’s sake. When he came back to England to speak, before going back to Africa for the final time, he spoke these words: “For my own part I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Is that a sacrifice that brings its own blest reward? Is it a sacrifice in doing what is good? Is it a sacrifice to have the peace of God that you are safe in His will? Is it a sacrifice to have a bright hope of a glorious hereafter? Away with the word sacrifice! IT IS A PRIVILEGE! Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then, with a foregoing of common convenience and charities of life, may make us pause, or waiver, or our soul to sink a bit; but only for a moment. All of these are nothing when compared to the glory that shall be revealed in and for us! I NEVER MADE A SACRIFICE!” (He gave that message as he stood at the pulpit thin and gaunt; bearing the marks of illness and attack all over his body; his left arm hanging limp and useless at his side). The people of Africa loved him so much that they demanded his heart be buried with them in Africa. It is there with a monument in Zambia. They also loved him so much that they carried his body hundreds of miles, against their customs and superstitions to enable his body to be transported back to his native England and to be buried in Westminster Abby.
How I hang my head in shame when I think about myself. When I think about Christianity in America that will make little or no effort to evangelize our friends and neighbors without endangering ourselves in any way. We don’t even have to inconvenience ourselves at all. He did so much with so little. We do so little with so much. It makes me think of Amy Carmichael convicting poem NO SCAR?
She asks us: Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land.
I hear thy bright ascendant star.
Hast thou no scar?
Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers spent
Leaned against a tree to die, and rent
By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned
Hast thou no wound?
No wound? No scar?
Yet as Master, shall servant be,
And pierced are the feet that follow me
But thine are whole; can he have followed me far
Who has no wound-who has no scar?
The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ was purchased through great suffering. It was proclaimed in New Testament times through great suffering. What makes us think that we can follow our Lord and proclaim His Gospel without it being a Gospel of Suffering? Our Lord promised to be with us with His presence and power as we suffer in proclaiming His Gospel. Wounds and Scars accompany His Gospel. But all that said, with Livingstone, our testimony should be-“We never made a sacrifice!” When we look at what Jesus did to save the world, we cannot help but be satisfied with His finished work on the cross. When He looks at our work in spreading that Good News Gospel is He satisfied with us? B.B. McKinney wrote a convicting hymn that asks that question.
Satisfied With Jesus
I am satisfied with Jesus
He has done so much for me
He has suffered to redeem me
He has died to set me free
He is with me in my trials
Best of friends of all is He
I can always count on Jesus
Can He always count on me?
I can hear the voice of Jesus
Calling out so pleadingly
Go and win the lost and straying
Is He satisfied with me?
And when my work on earth is ended
And I cross the Mystic sea
Oh that I could hear Him saying
I am satisfied with thee.
I am satisfied with Jesus
I am satisfied with Jesus
But the question comes to me
When I think of Calvary
Is my Master satisfied with me?
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