Church history is replete with stories of men and women who, in the words of Revelation, “did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”18
John Paton (1824–1907) is relatively unknown among Christians today. He served for ten years as the pastor of a growing Scottish church, but God began to burden his heart for the New Hebrides, a group of Pacific islands filled with cannibalistic peoples and no knowledge of the gospel.
He set his heart on one island in particular. Twenty years earlier two missionaries had gone to that island. They were killed and cannibalized. So it was no surprise that many dissuaded Paton from even the thought of following in these missionaries’ footsteps. Paton wrote, “Amongst many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, ‘The Cannibals! you will be eaten by Cannibals!’”
John Paton replied to this man, “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honouring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.”
The old man left the room, exclaiming, “After that I have nothing more to say!”19
At the age of thirty-three, John Paton traveled to the New Hebrides with his wife. The journey was not easy. His wife and newborn child died within months after arriving, and he found himself alone, digging their graves with his bare hands. He faced threat after threat upon his life. But in the years to come, countless cannibals across the New Hebrides came to know the peace of Christ, and the church across Australia, Scotland, and the Western world was challenged to rise up and make the gospel known among the peoples who are toughest to reach.
Jim Elliot (1927–56) has a similar story, though his life ended much differently. Elliot was convinced that God was leading him to the Huaorani Indians, a tribe known for killing any outsiders who tried to approach them. They had never heard the gospel, and Elliot found himself joined with a few other men who believed it was their responsibility to take the gospel to them. Elliot was a gifted preacher, and many in the church tried to dissuade him from going. It was too risky, they said.
Elliot wrote in his journal, “Surely those who know the great passionate heart of Jehovah must deny their own loves to share in the expression of His.” He continued,
Consider the call from the Throne above, “Go ye,” and from round about, “Come over and help us,” and even the call from the damned souls below, “Send Lazarus to my brothers, that they come not to this place.” Impelled, then, by these voices, I dare not stay home while Quichuas perish. So what if the well-fed church in the homeland needs stirring? They have the Scriptures, Moses, and the Prophets, and a whole lot more. Their condemnation is written on their bank books and in the dust on their Bible covers. American believers have sold their lives to the service of Mammon, and God has His rightful way of dealing with those who succumb to the spirit of Laodicea.20
On January 8, 1956, Elliot and his four comrades met with members of the Huaorani at a designated beachhead. They were greeted with spears, and each of the men died that day at the hands of tribesmen. Should Elliot have listened to those who told him not to take the risk? You be the judge. In the days to come, Elliot’s wife, Elisabeth, would be a part of leading to Christ the very men who speared her husband, and since that day the peace of Christ has come to reign in this tribe.
Consider one other example. Few Christians know of C. T. Studd (1860–1931), a wealthy Englishman who sold everything he had to take the gospel to the nations. Studd’s family and various Christian workers were brought in to dissuade him from going overseas. But he went anyway, first to China and then to India. At the age of fifty, he decided retirement was not an option for the Christian, so he went to Sudan, where he spent the remaining years of his life. His grave would become the steppingstone for the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade, which spread gospel seeds all across Africa, Asia, and South America.
Listen to the reward Studd was living for, as expressed in some of the last words he wrote before he died:
Too long have we been waiting for one another to begin! The time for waiting is past!… Should such men as we fear? Before the whole world, aye, before the sleepy, lukewarm, faithless, namby-pamby Christian world, we will dare to trust our God,… and we will do it with His joy unspeakable singing aloud in our hearts. We will a thousand times sooner die trusting only in our God than live trusting in man. And when we come to this position the battle is already won, and the end of the glorious campaign in sight. We will have the real Holiness of God, not the sickly stuff of talk and dainty words and pretty thoughts; we will have a Masculine Holiness, one of daring faith and works for Jesus Christ.21