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The Six Biographies
FTGC-37b
210702AM
Transcript
I told you that I would take a moment to share this with you. What you’re looking at right now on the screen are the six lives that the Lord used early on in my life. While I was in college, I read these six biographies. Let me read them the titles to you, that you see there.
The first one was George Müller of Bristol. He read the Bible through 100 times and then realized that he was just reading it. So, he read it through a second 100 times on his knees. He’s the one that truly challenged me to the repetitive reading of the Bible, looking for topics. If you want to be challenged read this biography, George Müller of Bristol. He’s the orphan man. His faith, His prayer life is unbelievable.
John Paton. John G. Paton challenged me with faith. This man went to an island with cannibals in the South Pacific. Vanuatu is the name of the island. They wouldn’t even go ashore to drop them off. They put him in a boat with his wife, pushed the boat off from the ship and said, you’ll never survive. He lived on that island and started a church leading those people to Christ. The stories of how God protected him truly challenged my faith. That really prompted me for the years I spent behind the Iron Curtain smuggling Bibles, and believing that God could protect me.
Evangelism here. This is Hudson Taylor. Just to see Hudson Taylor’s burden for sharing the Gospel is why I’ve always packed a tract in my wallet and share constantly.
Shadow of the Almighty, this is Jim Elliott. He lived for eternity. He has that famous saying, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” The life of Jim Elliot is amazing.
In fact, all of these, Bonnie and I have traveled either to their hometown, or to their grave, or to their ministry place. We’ve been to the orphan houses. Actually, the only thing you can do with John Peyton is to fly over and we flew over his island. We’ve gone to the place in China where Hudson Taylor was. Also, in Britain where he surrendered and in China where he went. We’ve gone to the launching spot for Jim Elliott. We went to William Carey’s hometown and church, where he surrendered to the call.
What you learned from him is his tenacity. He had everything going against him. He was uneducated, so he educated himself. He had a struggle with his family, but he never quit. He ended up memorizing and learning so many languages and translating the Bible.
My all-time favorite is right here, C.T. Studd. He showed me the sanctifying power of the Gospel. He’s the one, and if you look up I’ll just tell you, this is the man who started his ministry in India, and he didn’t think that was enough challenge. After several years in India, he goes to China. After several years in China, he wanted a bigger challenge. They said the worst place in the world is the heart of Africa, it’s the white man’s grave. Everyone that goes there dies. There are cannibals, headhunters, witchcraft, horrible stuff. He said, that’s where I want to go. C.T. Studd went there in 1910 and died there in 1931. He was there 21 years. In his journal he said he took his chief equipment. What he took was a box of medicine so he could survive all the malaria, and yellow fever, and all this stuff they had there; and two Bibles wrapped in waterproof oil cloths. He said, if we’re going to reach the darkest spot on Earth, we need the Bible.
Do you remember, we’re looking at the power of one life surrendered to Christ. Do you know what happened in 21 years? Here’s the conclusion in 1931 as C.T. Studd laid dying on his little bed, word got out in the jungle that the man who had brought the Gospel to them was going to Heaven. They didn’t call it dying, they call it going down. They sent runners throughout all the villages. Of his 21 years of converts, 5,000 of them gathered around his hut. His children recount in their biography of his life that C.T. Studd went into the presence of the Lord to the sound of 5,000 former head hunting cannibals, heart of Africa, darkness, witchcraft, murdering people, singing hymns that he had taught them.
Look back at the slide. C.T. Studd: Cricketer & Pioneer. The sanctifying power of the Gospel. There is no one too far gone that Christ can’t transform. Bonnie and I went to his home. His father was one of the wealthiest men of his generation in England. He lived in a castle. We sat outside that huge home and we read the scripture that the Lord used to call this man.
Those six, George Müller C.T. Studd, William Carey, Jim Elliot, Hudson Taylor, and John G. Paton, are the books that shaped me in those early days of my life. I commend them to you. If you look down in the description of this video and YouTube you can see links to each one of them, of my favorites. If you could come here to my library, you would see them all marked up and written on. These, humanly speaking, are the six voices from the past that most shaped my college age, seeking the Lord, as I launched out into ministry.
Check Out All The Sermons In The Series
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