A common myth in the missions world is that your family can do well or your ministry can do well, but they can’t both do well at the same time. This is simply not true, and missionary Wayne Cooke is going to be teaching the students of the OGTC how to have and maintain a Christian home, even amidst all of the pressures of the foreign mission field.
On this day in 1829, John Livingston Nevius was born on a small farm in Western New York. The small son of a little-known father with few opportunities in life, he probably never imagined that one day, he would be traveling the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
At the age of 24, John and his wife, Helen, set sail for China under the American Presbyterian Mission. For six harsh months, they were confined to the space of the ship and their small cabin. When they finally arrived on their promised shore of China, the young couple was absolutely thrilled. They both immediately set about learning the language and culture. John took a special interest in the culture, learning as much as he could so he could connect with those he would be working under.
It wasn’t long before John was traveling all over his area, preaching and establishing missions. But the more time he spent doing the ministry among the Chinese people, the more he realized that he shouldn’t be doing it! They didn’t need some stranger leading their church. They needed their own men to step forward and do it.
He began to study the writings of men like Henry Venn and Rufus Anderson, 19th-century home-office leaders. These men both argued that native churches should be self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating (The three-selfs). John took these principles and developed what became known as the Nevius Plan. Nevius called for discarding old-style missions and the adoption of his new plan to foster an independent, self-supporting local church. He criticized the missionaries’ practice of paying national workers out of mission funds, believing the healthy local church should be able to support its own local workers. His goal was to build independent, local churches. The basic ideas of the plan were:
Christians should continue to live in their neighborhoods and pursue their occupations, being self-supporting and witnessing to their co-workers and neighbors.
Missions should only develop programs and institutions that the national church desired and could support.
The national churches should call out and support their own pastors.
Churches should be built in the native style with money and materials given by the church members.
Intensive biblical and doctrinal instruction should be provided for church leaders every year.
John was rejected by most of the other missionaries he was working with in China and they continued to do things in their old way. But when younger missionaries arrived in Korea to begin working, they begged John to spend a few weeks helping them get started. In 1890, he spent two weeks in Korea, teaching the new missionaries how to built truly “three -self” churches. As a result, these missionaries sought to create independent, indigenous churches from the beginning, stressing especially the importance of self-support. The churches in Korea grew strong and today, these churches are sending their own Korean missionaries around the world.
On this day in 1711, Matthew Stach was born in Mankendorf, Moravia.
Matthew’s father, Christain Stach, was a strong man who had a deep love for the Lord. Matthew tells of one instance where, as a young boy, he was unable to get some cake the other kids were eating. Angry and bitter, the boy stalked over to the corner and began to weep loudly, hoping to gain sympathy from his parents. Instead, his father sat down next to him and said, “Ah my son could I but once see thee weep as earnestly on account of thy sins.”
Many of their neighbors considered Christian a heretic, because he believed contray to the teaching of the Catholic Church. His son, however, just considered his father to be weird. That religious stuff wasn’t for Matthew. As soon as he could, he moved away from home and was living in sin and lasciviousness. The Lord was still protecting and leading this young man and, through circumstances, kept him close to his family.
After his father was arrested by the Catholic priest and escaped, the family became fugatives. They soon fled to Herrnhut, the Moravian refuge. It was there that Matthew tired to gain his salvation. He did everything he could. He worked for it, denied himself for it. But it never came. He wrote:
Wherever I was, I was wretched and miserable and that I could not procure peace of by any other means, I disclosed my situation to a confidential friend for advice. His answer was “If thou art hungry, eat. If thirsty, drink. All things are prepared for thee. I thought his advice very unsatisfactory, expecting that he dictate to me a greater exertion of denial upon which at that time I rested my hopes. Thus my distress remained and I spent a whole night in tears and prayers to the Lord for his help and direction humbling myself before him as a poor undone sinner. In the morning meeting the next day, I can say with truth that our Savior granted me such confidence towards him as my strength and shield and such a firm reliance on his merits and death that all my doubts and fears vanished and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost took place within my heart.
After his salvation, he joined the church at Herrnhut and began to grow rapidly. One day, while he was out with some friends, an incident occurred that helped to direct this young man’s life:
Once, as we were passing by the house of the late count Zinzendorf, he was just stepping out with Dr Schac fer, a Lutheran divine then on a visit to Hernnhut. On seeing us, he addressed the Doctor “Here sir you see future missionaries among the heathen“. I was much struck at hearing these words and a desire which I had felt for some time to preach the Gospel to the heathen began to increase within me.
In just a few years, Matthew would be leading the Moravian missionaries to the Island of Greenland, where a great would be be done for many years!
On this day in 1823, Beverly Blanckard, the sister of George Boardman, wrote a letter to her brother, describing to him some of the trials and difficulties that his family back in America had been facing and the way that God had brought them through it.
George, excited to hear the way that God was working not only in Burma but also in America and to see the way the faith of his family was strengthened through the ordeal, wrote back:
It would be well for us to remember that God is daily doing us good,—that his common blessings demand from us new and obedient expressions of obligation. It has often astonished me, that the profusion of his mercies, showered upon our dear family, should produce so little feeling in my stupid heart. What family has been so signally blessed as ours? Surely he hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. “I rejoice to learn that your recent sickness led you to take a nearer view of the eternal world, to consider whether your days were not well nigh numbered and finished, and to examine into the state of your heart,that you might know whether you are indeed united to Christ. What is there like feeling ourselves wedded to him in bonds of affection, that earth and hell cannot sever? The man who lives daily by faith in the Son of God, who like Enoch walks with God, stands firm and secure, though all around him be convulsed; though the mountains be removed, the earth tremble, and the sea roar. God is a hiding-place from the windy storm and tempest. How secure is the Christian in the folded arms of his covenant God. What, though the elements were melted into one solid mass of ruins, God, who is our refuge and strength, is still the same. This vital union to Christ will support us under every loss and bereavement we are called to sustain. If our souls are stayed on him, we can endure our trials without feelmg their poignancy. And though all the earthly objects of our affection were removed from our view, we should still feel that our great portion was left,—we could say with Jeremiah, ‘The Lord is my portion, saith my soul;’ and with Job, ‘Yet surely I Know that myRedeemer liveth.’ This thought has often comforted me. Whatever we may lose, if we love and value Christ as we ought, we shall feel that our all is left
The first of January 1861 was a New Year’s Day ever to be remembered. Mr. And Mrs. Johnston, Abraham and I, had spent nearly the whole time in a kind of solemn, yet happy festival. Anew in a holy covenant before God, we unitedly consecrated our lives and our all to the Lord Jesus, giving ourselves away to His blessed service for the conversion of the Heathen of the New Hebrides. After evening family worship, Mr. And Mrs. Johntson left my room to go to their own house, only some ten feet distant; but he returned to inform me that there were two men at the window, armed with huge clubs and having black painted faces. Going out to them and asking them what they wanted, they replied, “Medicine for a sick boy.”
With difficulty, I persuaded them to come in and get it. At once, it flashed upon me, from their agitation and their disguise of paint, that they has come to murder us. Mr. Johntson had also accompanied us into the house. Keeping my eye constantly fixed on them; I prepared the medicine and offered it. They refused to receive it, and each man grasped his killing stone. I faced them firmly and said, “You see that Mr. Johnston is now leaving, and you must too leave this room for tonight. To-morrow, you can bring the boy or come for the medicine.”
Seizing their clubs, as if for action, they showed unwillingness to withdraw, but I walked deliberately forward and made as if to push them out, when both turned and began to leave.
Mr. Johnston had gone in front of them and was safely out. But he bent down to lift up a little kitten that had escaped at the open door; and at that moment one of the Savages, jerking in behind, aimed a blow with his huge club, in avoiding which Mr. Johnston fell with a scream to the ground. Both men sprang towards him, but our two faithful dogs ferociously leapt in their faces and saved his life. Rushing out, but not fully aware of what had occurred, I saw Mr. Johnston trying to raise himself, and heard him cry, “Take care! These men have tried to kill me and they will try to kill you!”
Facing them sternly I demanded, “What do you want? He does not speak your language. What do you want? Speak with me.”
Both men, thereon, raised their great clubs and made to strike me; but as quickly as lightening these two dogs sprang at their faces and baffled their blows. One dog was badly bruised, and the ground received the other blow, that would have launched me into eternity. The best dog was a little cross bred retriever, with terrier’s blood in him, splendid for warning us of approaching dangers which had already been the means of saving my life many times. Seeing how matters stood, I now hounded both dogs furiously upon them, and the two savages fled. I shouted after them,
“Remember, Jehovah God sees you and will punish you for trying to murder His servants!”
In their flight a large body of men, who had come eight or ten miles to assist in the murder and plunder, came slipping here and there from the bush and joined them, fleeing too. Verily, “the wicked flee when no man persueth.” David’s experience and assurance came home to us, that evening, as very real; – “God is our refuge and our strength, therefore we will not fear.” But, after the danger was all past, I had always a strange feeling of fear, more perhaps from the thought that I had been on the verge of eternity and so near the great White Throne that from any slavish fear. During the crisis, I felt generally calm, and firm of soul, standing erect and with my whole weight on the promise, “Lo, I am with you always.” Precious promise! How often I adore Jesus for it, and rejoice in it! Blessed be His name.
My last name is Cornwell, but I am most certainly not British, at least not very recently. But for some reason my heart screams out with a British accent when it says “Respect me lest I die.” I believe it may have seen Braveheart or believes the accent will make me more prone to listen to it. I do not know what your heart screams or if it has an accent when it does but if you are a man I assume on a pretty regular basis your heart scream out with a desire for more respect.
Water, Food, Air, & Respect
They say you can go three days without water, three weeks without food, and 3 minutes without food. I know many people have but as a general rule of thumb you don’t want to test those limits. I don’t believe a man can go a day without respect. Just like with our need for water he might pass that time restraint but he will spend every waking hour thirsting for it.
A quick glance at marriage books will show you that many who believes that it is respect that too often fuels a man. Dr. Emerson Eggerichs took 500 pages to tell us that “that unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her” in his book Love and Respect. The premise of his book came from the well-known verse in Ephesians that “let everyone of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”
Insatiable Need for Respect
When I find articles online about respect, I find many articles telling kids to respect their parents. In the second place, I find several articles telling wives to respect their husbands. What I did not find (I might if I looked harder) were articles telling me to stop needing so much respect to function. There is a measure of respect that we deserve as leaders of our home but if all we would be honest there is a time were, we have an insatiable desire for more respect. The odd thing about it is the more receive, the more we crave. We must find a way to plugged the hole, or our lives will implode.
Mixes with Everything
Jonathan Edwards said, “Pride is the worst viper in the heart… . It lies lowest of all in the foundation of the whole building of sin. Of all lusts, it is the most secret, deceitful, and unsearchable in its ways of working. It is ready to mix with everything. Nothing is so hateful to God, contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, or of so dangerous consequence. There’s not one sin that does so much to let the devil into the hearts of the saints and expose them to his delusions.”
The phrase “it is ready to mix with everything” hit me right between the eyes. It is amazing to me all the things I have made as a litmus test to someone showing me the respect I believe I deserve. I would hate to work with me and most certainly would hate to be married to me with the “me monster” goes untamed. Daily and in a million ways my pride is “ready to mix” with anything to cause me to be offended by someones actions toward me.
History of Men
I think it is a fair to assume that much of the history of America is the history of men trying to gain respect from one another. It really is a strong motivator that leads us to pushing ourselves to new levels. It can be seen in the big events of us landing on the moon and it can be seen in small ways as the guy besides you at the red light revs his engine. Sometimes this motivation leads to good results. As a teenager I wanted the pats on the back from doing what people told me was right. Now with less people to pat me on the back the motivation to do right must come from within and it must be much deeper than just a desire to gain respect from others.
One of the clearest pictures of desire for respect/fame is in the story of the Tower of Babel. Can you imagine each time they built another story they would stand back and beat their chest? Their wives might say, “don’t you think that is good enough.” People are passing by might say “wow” but the “wow” would not be loud enough. They would want to keep building until they had “made a name for themselves”. The desire for respect drives us to make all types of decisions.
How will you react?
Here is the question I submit to all of you who are still reading. Feeling disrespected will cause a reaction. Are you confident enough about who you are not to react in the wrong manner? This feeling shows its power when we break things in front of our wives to show her our power. It shows its evil when we scream at our kids and take pleasure in their obedience because it makes us feel in charge. It shows it’s ability to make us illogical when it causes us not to desire to go to bed with our wives because as much as we want sex we want respect more. It shows its pettiness when we evaluate the tone and structure of every sentence to try to figure out what people “really meant”. Well, how is that for transparency. If you took a moment, I believe you would find it to be the same in your life.
After church on one occasion, I left before I planned because every word I heard felt like sandpaper against my pride. Saying so many words, typing so many words and working with people there are many opportunities for someone not to love what you said. Come on we all know it is not enough for us to just to agree or like what we said. We “need” them to adore our every word.
Example of Three Men
There is good news. We do not have to be a prisoner to reacting wrongfully when there is an occasion for us to feel disrespected. After David kills Goliath we see the reactions of three different men. Each one of them had the opportunity to feel threatened and grasp for respect.
Jonathan to David
1 And it came to pass when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his soul. 2 And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father’s house. 3 Then Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as his soul. 4 And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle. I Samuel 18:1-4
Look at it from Jonathan’s perspective. Jonathan had witnessed a young man about his age become the national hero. Jonathan was next in line for the throne. He watched David’s wisdom as he spoke with his father, Saul. Instead of reaching for his sword Jonathan took his robe and gave it to David. Jonathan said I can give to David without panicking because my earthly position didn’t define me. This is such a hard thing to do. We do not like to have our position threatened. Because of this we are rarely in a position where we are willing to help someone.
Saul’s reaction.
6 And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of musick. 7 And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. 8 And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him, and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom? 9 And Saul eyed David from that day and forward. 10 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul’s hand. 11 And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice. 12 And Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with him, and was departed from Saul. 13 Therefore Saul removed him from him, and made him his captain over a thousand, and he went out and came in before the people. I Samuel 18:6-13
Look at it from David’s perspective. He was once the next big thing; now people are chanting for David. He watched as David accomplished something he was not even willing to attempt, in killing Goliath. We all know the name of that evil spirit that visited Saul. His heart screamed out “Respect me lest I die” in Hebrew. His pride told him David’s success was his loss. Saul agreed with this conclusion and acted upon this feeling of being disrespected.
David was winning battles for his kingdom. David was not his enemy. The greatest throne to the throne didn’t come from the enemy or David but Saul. Saul could not handle someone’s success and would lead to him imploding.
David to Saul
And David behaved himself wisely in all his ways; and the LORD was with him. 1 Samuel 18: 14
Here we see David’s victory in two battles. Pride says you should defend yourself. David said I will be made king because it comes from God, not by my strength. I will let God defend me. I will not be lifted up in pride.
What is your story? There will be times there will be a plot twist in your life. Will it change your character? There will be times when you will not be viewed the way you wish to be viewed. Will you desire to correct them define your life? There will be times of success in life. Will you see it as a gift from God and trust Him as you move into that position?
David was able to “behave wisely” because he knew who he was and who he would become would be decided by God and not the opinion of Saul. Jonathan was able to step aside and recognize how God was using David because he was secure in his standing before God even if he would not become king.
This will help you “behave wisely” next time.
Knowing who we are in Christ is vital if we do not want to feed our insatiable desire for respect. If you find yourself, as I often do, dealing with large doses of insecurity then you need to meditate on the Scriptures.
Memorize one of these verses or a verse that will help you deal with the reactions you have when you feel disrespected.
I am the rightful, God-chosen leader of this home no matter who questions my decisions. Don’t forfeit this.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Ephesians 5:23
I am accepted by Christ regardless of whoever may reject me. Live as one who is accepted not one who is rejected.
Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Romans 15:7
I will not fight for my rights but look to minister to others. I will not live a life serving for vainglory.
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Philippians 2:3
I will find my peace and purpose in nothing outside of God. I will not look to find what I am looking for in my next argument.
My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. 6 He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved. Psalm 62:5