Sold Out to the Lord — William MacDonald

Faithful Sufferers in Hebrews 11

And what more shall I say, for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.

Women received their dead raised to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trials of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were slain with a sword, they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy.

They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, that is, the fulfillment of the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect.

We were tracing commitment down through the Old Testament scriptures, and we saw some great men and women of good consecration to the Lord. And we could go through the New Testament like that. Although, strangely enough, I could find more examples of commitment in the Old Testament than I could in the New.

But, of course, in the New you can go back to John the Baptist, you can go to the eleven apostles, at least, you can go to some of those great women who ministered to the Lord. Jesus washed his feet with their tears and wiped them with the hairs of their heads.

You could think of Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian church. You can think of the apostle Paul. And be subdued, as you think of these men. I'd like to just move over from the New Testament to the early church period this morning, to think about some of the committed men and women.

Polycarp and the Grace for Martyrdom

You can't forget the early martyrs of the Christian church, like Polycarp. When the proconsul threatened to burn him alive, Polycarp said, the fire you threatened burns but an hour, and is quenched after a little.

For you do not know the fire of coming judgment and everlasting punishment that's laid up for the impious. But why do you delay? Come, do what you will. You say, boy, I don't have grace for that, neither do I, frankly.

But if I needed it, I'd get it. I think that's a good thing for us to remember when we read about some of these martyrs. We don't have that kind of grace. Dying grace for dying days. Really, as thy days, so shall thy strength be.

When the soldiers began to nail him to the stake, he said, leave me as I am, for he who grants me to endure the fire will enable me also to remain on the pyre unmoved, without security that you desire.

I think there's something great about that. You know, I would suggest that Christian mothers and fathers should teach the stories of the martyrs to their children. I want to tell you that it breathes some iron into the backbones of our young people in church and what men and women have gone through in order to preserve the truth for us today.

The Catacombs and the Confession “Jesus Is Lord”

There were the heroes of the catacombs, of course, in Rome. You know, at that time, everybody was required every year to take a pinch of incense and place it upon the altar and say, Caesar is Lord. It didn't have to be a matter of your heart at all.

You just had to say those were Caesar. Of course, was death. But they were always given a chance to recant. And the recantation was, Jesus is first. They couldn't say that. They would say, Jesus is Lord.

They were faithful to the Savior. And many of them, it cost them. I want to tell you the pages of history are just filled with the stories of the Waldensians and the Moravians and the Huguenots and the Scottish Covenanters and how proud we are of them today.

Wycliffe and the Authority of Scripture

John Wycliffe, known as the morning star of the Reformation period, he insisted on the right of the people to have the Word of God in their understandable language. And to that end of the English Bible, he taught that the Bible is the only authority in matters of faith and morals.

And he said that the doctrine of transubstantiation was an abomination. Because that wasn't the most popular thing he could say. He said it was a blasphemy. He said it was a blasphemous deceit. And of course, this brought him into conflict with the Roman Catholic Church, with which so many of our evangelical leaders are playing pals today.

Forty-four years after his, oh, he was burned at the stake. That was his thanks for taking this stand. And forty-four years after his death, his body was exhumed, burned to ashes and the ashes thrown into the river.

And I think if Wycliffe could have seen that from heaven, maybe he did. I think he'd have laughed. John Hus. John Hus was greatly influenced by Wycliffe's teaching. And he propagated them in Bohemia. He was insistent on the fact that the people have the Word of God.

And he fearlessly spoke out against the vices of the clergy. He was hounded for years, and then he was excommunicated by the Pope. For preaching the gospel, he was finally burned at the stake by a church that's drunk with the blood of the saint.

By a church that's under the curse of God. Today, for preaching another gospel. I think it's really, really amazing to think of that. His ashes too were thrown into the river. William Tyndale. He gave us the first printed version of the Bible.

Tyndale and Access to the Bible

And when his friends and others started to read the Word of God, the clergy became alarmed at this threat to their authority. Cardinal Wolsley defended the church against the pernicious heresy of the Bible.

The pernicious heresy of the Bible. And when a supposedly learned clergyman tried to convert Tyndale, Tyndale said, if God spares my life before many years I'll take care that a plow boy shall know more of the scriptures than you do right now.

Good for you, William Tyndale. He spent the last 17 years of his life in captivity, and then he was strangled and burned. Dear friends, men paid a price for the liberties that we enjoy with the Word of God today, didn't they?

Zinzendorf, Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer

Count Zinzendorf, he was a leader of the Bohemian brethren, and one day he stood before a picture of Christ crucified, and underneath it said all this I did for thee. That broke Count Zinzendorf's heart.

What have you done for me? That search, that searching question caused him to commit his life to the Lord Jesus Christ. His wealth, his life, his talents, everything he had to the cause. A great Protestant bishop, he said, if I see the blood of Christ with the eye of my soul, that is true faith.

And of course, that was heresy to the established church. And when both he and Ridley were being burned at the stake, Latimer said to Ridley, be of good cheer, Mr. Ridley, by the grace of God, we shall this day light such a candle in England as shall never be put out.

And they did. I think one of my famous, one of my favorite martyrs was Thomas Cranmer. He was put under tremendous pressure to recant his faith. One day he took a pen in his hand and he signed a request.

And as time went on, he realized what a terrible thing he had done. But he went to the authorities. He said, my hand signed it. They said, you'll be put to death. You'll be burned at the stake. Get on with it.

And the day he was to be burned at the stake, he was taken out there with his hands tied. They said, do you have any last request? He said, yes, yes, I'm tied. And he walked over to the burning pyre and he held his right hand that had signed the recantation into the fire.

The Scottish Covenanters and Faithfulness unto Death

And he said, perish this. He wanted it to be this unworthy. The Scottish Covenanters were people who in early days resisted the power of the established church, signed covenants of their loyalty and allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And there were two women at that time. One was named Margaret McLaughlin and the other was named Margaret Wilson. And they were both condemned to be drowned by the tide. One was 60 years old and the other was a younger woman.

One was 63, the other was 18. And their parents, their relatives, their loved ones all got down on their knees and begged them and they wouldn't do it. And so the elder Margaret was taken and she was tied to a post as the tide was out, pretty far out on the sand.

And then the younger Margaret was tied to another post further toward the shore. And the idea is when this younger woman saw the older woman die, she would change, she would break. So the tide came in and it came up onto the elder, the 63-year-old Margaret McLaughlin, came up to her knees, up to her thighs, up to her breast, came up to her mouth.

And as the water was engulfing her mouth, she was heard to say, for I am persuaded that neither life nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things, nor death, nor anything, did that cause that younger Margaret to change her mind.

No, she said, if God can give grace to an older woman, to die for him, he can give grace to me as well. And she was not weakened. Home to be with the king. I remember when I was a boy, my mother used to feed us the tales of the Scottish Covenanters and there was a calendar on the pantry door in our house.

John Brown and the Cost of Witness

There was a picture of the scene that I'll tell you right now. There was a man there named John Brown, faithful to the Lord Jesus. He couldn't spend much time at home. He spent most of his time, as we read in Hebrews 11, out in the caves and dens trying to escape from those who were going to kill him.

But every once in a while he had to come home for food and for clothing. And one day when he was there in his house, his wife there with a baby in her arms, and Lord Claverhouse came. Lord Claverhouse came and they stood there in the kitchen and the calendar had this picture of Claverhouse and his men standing there.

And they looked and they saw the face of an angel. And Claverhouse himself took the gun. And right before Mrs. Brown, he shot John Brown in cold blood. And he turned to her and he said, what do you think of your husband now?

And in broad Scotch he said, he said it would be justice to lay you beside him. He thought it would be a just thing to kill her and let her lie down beside him. She shot back, if you were permitted, I doubt not that your cruelty would go that length.

Luther, Calvin, and Knox in the Reformation

But how will you make answer for this morning's work? Someday you're going to even account. Luther saved through reading Paul's letter to the Romans. He was outraged by the sale of indulgences to build St. Peter's Church in Rome.

And when he, when he was placed on trial, he refused to bow to the authority of the Pope. I love those words. Conscience is captive to the word of God. He later championed the three solas of the Reformation, sola fide, faith alone, sola gratia, grace alone, sola scriptura, the Bible.

He translated the Bible into Germany, into German, and stood valiantly for the faith. John Calvin, another reformer. Someone said that he was intense in the service of the Lord to whom he had given his heart fully.

Although he was not clear as to the relative authority of the church and the civil government, he taught that salvation was by faith apart from works, but unto works. And it made him one of the most outstanding figures of the Reformation period.

And of course there was John Knox in Scotland. He was a fearless defender of the faith. He was strongly influenced by Calvin, and he was a tireless foe of idolatry and of the heresies and unbiblical teaching.

One biography, one biographer said of him, Knox, a man of unyielding strength of character and a spiritual giant. He molded the thought of an entire nation probably as no man has ever done. And Mary, Queen of Scots said that she loved John Knox.

Anthony Norris Groves and Christian Devotedness

And that brings us up to people who lived in more recent times and their commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I know that you, some of you know some of these personally in the last century or so. Are the ranks of the committed getting thinner?

I don't think they are. God in every age has had those who will take a positive stand. Anthony Norris Groves. Anthony Norris Groves, the first man to go out from what we would think of as being New Testament assemblies to the mission field.

He went out to Asia. He was a wealthy dentist. He lived in luxury and ease in Britain. And he left it all to preach the gospel in Baghdad, then India, putting practice principles of Christian devotedness.

In fact, he wrote a little book called Christian Devotedness, which as far as I know, was one of the earliest publications of the so-called brethren. He said that laying up treasures on earth. And it is too, because it's the same Bible that forbids.

He taught that life's great goal is the exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we should surrender all we have to this worthy aim. He said the Christian's motto should be labor hard, consume little, give much, and all.

John Nelson Darby and Missionary Sacrifice

John Nelson Darby. Brought up in a castle in England. People walked by and picked up their noses and said, it's so nice to know the Darbys. I mean, they were people of affluence and people of wealth. And he went to Trinity in Dublin, gained honors there and started out in a little legal career.

And he left it all. And he tramped for months on the mountains, the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland, preaching the gospel and saw hundreds of Roman Catholics come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Then he moved over to the continent.

He traveled for 26 years on the continent of Europe. He lived for days at a time on milk and acorns. One day sat in a cheap Italian boarding house and sang, Jesus, I must be my cross have taken. His writings fill more than 34 volumes.

One of his hymns has been sung here at the conference. And is it so? I shall be like thy son. He wrote many wonderful hymns. And probably no man since the apostle Paul. Travels took him to most of the English speaking world.

He's been here. He was here in the United States. He translated the Bible. He translated the Bible into French, German and English. You know, it's a lifetime work to translate the Bible into one language.

He translated it into French, German and English and had something to do with the Italian version as well. God used him to revive dispensational theology and also the great truths of the New Testament church, the rapture of the church.

He greatly influenced Dwight L. Moody and C .I. Scofield and Dallas Seminary in the early days was greatly influenced by his teachings as well. And that means that the Bible school movement in the United States felt the imp having nothing and being nothing, seeing nothing, being careful for nothing.

George Müller and Dying to Personal Ambition

But George Mueller was a man who was committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's best known for his orphanage in Bristol, England. He started this orphanage. Why did he start? To take care of little children.

Well, that was a byproduct of it. The purpose he had in starting that orphanage was to show the people. And as you know, he lived by faith. Never made his needs known. If you went there and said, brother, I have 5 ,000 pounds.

I'd like to put them to work for the Lord. He would never make his needs known. We have an evangelical Christianity. One day, Arthur Pearson asked him, Mr. Mueller, what is the secret of the way that God has used you, the wonderful things that God has done for you?

And Mueller sat there in between. It was almost one day. He said, as a young man, I had a great many ambitions, but there came a day when I died to all of those things. I said, henceforth, there came a day in my life, I gave up all my ambitions.

I've written an awful lot of biographies of men and women who've made history for God. I've never read one where that person didn't have that experience. Where they didn't have the experience of coming to the Lord and just making it.

David Livingstone and Wholehearted Dedication

I like the story of that young woman that was giving her testimony at a call. I signed the blank. That says very eloquently, to sign the blank piece of paper. Fill in the details. David Livingston. It's David Livingston's commitment to the Lord Jesus that accounts for his greatness.

Just a poor Scottish boy brought up in a mill there in Scotland. And the world exalts him, of course, as an explorer and a foe of the slave trade. And he was all that. But I want to tell you, it was his life for the Savior that's famous.

If you visit in Scotland today, you'll see a stained glass window. And it has this saying, on anything, I'm not going to accumulate material things just for my own selfish pleasure. If I can use it for the Lord, I will.

When he was 59, he wrote, my Jesus, my King, my life, my all. I again dedicate my whole self to thee. The word furlough was not in his vocabulary. He once wrote to a missionary society that he was ready to go anywhere on the condition that it was forward.

One day, his African brothers found him on his knees by his bed. Thought he was taken to Westminster. When you go into Westminster, you have this plaque. The inscription reads, for 30 years, his life was poetry of hymns of Francis Ridley Habergow.

Frances Ridley Havergal and Complete Consecration

And a biographer of hers said she had none of the ordinary titles to fame. What singled her out was the note of absoluteness in her spiritual experience. In her consecration, there was no limit and no reserve.

She had learned the secret of abandonment, and she yielded herself utterly to God. By virtue of this, her writings reached and moved a multitude of souls with strange, and you sing her hymns all the time.

When she was 21, she saw a painting of Christ, Ecce Homo, Behold the Man, in the art gallery at Dusseldorf. She was so moved that she wrote her first hymn, I gave my life for thee. My precious blood I shed that thou mightst ransom me and quicken from.

I gave, I gave my life for thee. What hast thou given for me? My father's house on high, my glory circled thro' her wanderings, sad and lonely. I left, I suffered much for thee, more than thy tongue can tell of bitterest agony, to rescue thee from hell.

I born, I born at all for thee. And I am brought to thee down from my home above, salvation full and free, my pardon and my love. I bring, I bring rich gifts to thee. What hast thou brought to me? Seventeen years later, she summarized her autobiography in six verses.

Each verse describes some experience in her life. She wrote, take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. Take my moments and my days, let them flow in ceaseless. Take my hands and let them move in the impulse of thy love.

Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful. Take my voice and let me sing always, only for my king. Take my lips and let them be filled with messages for thee. This is complete commitment, isn't it?

Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold. Take my intellect and use every power as thou shalt choose. Take my will and make it thine, it shall be no longer mine. Take my heart, it is thine own, it shall be thy royal throne.

Hudson Taylor and Faith Missions

Take my love at thy feet, take myself. Hudson Taylor. Hudson Taylor is a man who opened inland China to the gospel, the gospel of redeeming grace. Hudson Taylor is the founder of the China Inland Mission, now called the Overseas Missionary Fellowship.

He identified himself with the Chinese people to whatever extent he could in dress, clothes, culture, and all the rest. His work was carried on in faith. He always said, God's work carried on in God's way will never lack God's resources.

The truth is the same. God's work carried on in God's way will never lack God's resources. And interestingly enough, I think it's interesting that George Mueller, who himself lived by faith and ran that orphanage in Bristol, England, was one of the heavy contributors.

Spurgeon and the Ministry of Preaching

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, they call him the prince. He was filling large auditoriums before he was 20. Though he was a Calvinist, he spoke out against hyper-Calvinism and against Arminianism as well. His printed, it's amazing, his printed sermons still have a wide circulation.

His books are widely circulated. I don't know if any of you have read Morning and Evening Readings, a daily devotional. Marvelous, marvelous books. His set, Treasury of David on the Psalms, probably one of the best set of books that's ever been written.

C. T. Studd and Forsaking All

And like so many of the Lord's servants, he was plagued with illness and laid down his Bible for the last time in 1970. C .T. Studd. C .T. Studd was a cricket champ and a member of the Cambridge Seven, well-known in England.

His father was saved through Moody, and then C .T. Charlie was saved somewhat later. And there's a book about his life called C .T. Studd by Norman Grubb. C .T. Studd was a fanatic for Jesus. Jesus was a fanatic for him.

To him, the gospel was real. And the Lord Jesus, his life motto was, if Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be true. If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice. As a young man, he fell in love with a girl, and he was afraid that she might love him more.

He didn't want that to happen. So he wrote a poem, and he said, I want you to read it. He inherited a fork. He decided to forsake that. Jesus said, forsake all and follow me. So he decided to forsake that fortune, as far as he was concerned, and follow the Lord Jesus.

And his, that fortune was part of the beginning of Moody Bible Institute. But, you know, he thought, well, it's okay for me to do that, but what about my wife, you know? And so he saved, he set some, and he told her what he was doing.

He said, forsake all. She said, let's. But they forsook it all. And he went out to China, India, and Africa. He was one of God's irregulars. I don't think, I don't think he'd be comfortable. But that's the kind of people.

He founded the world evangelization crusade. And rather than return home and retire, he chose to remain in Africa and die. It slew me. I couldn't answer it. I couldn't wiggle around it. It's true. Changed all my life.

Amy Carmichael and Ministry to Vulnerable Children

Amy Carmichael. Some of you have read Amy Carmichael's poems. They're wonderful. Amy Carmichael was of Irish stock, and she was a woman's woman, I'll tell you. She was one of the best brothers we'd have.

And she, she devoted her life to working with boys and girls, mostly girls in India, who otherwise probably would have become temple prostitutes. That's the vision that, that she had. She had tremendous strength of character and leadership ability.

The measure of her devotion to Christ is seen in these words, the vows of God. I may not stay to play with shadows, or pluck earthly flowers, till I my work have done. And rendered up in the, the vows of God.

I may not stay to play with shadows, or pluck earthly flowers, till I my work have done. Another place she wrote from prayer that asked that I should be sheltered from winds that beat on thee. From fearing when I should aspire.

From faltering when I should climb higher. From silken self, all captain. From subtle love of softening things. From easy choices, weakenings. Not thus are spirits fortified. Not this way went the crucified.

From all that dims the light. Give me the love that leads the way. The faith that nothing can dismay. The hope no disappointments tire. The passion that will burn as a sink to be a clod. Make me thy fuel.

William Borden and Christ’s Lordship

William Gordon was a son of millionaire parents. He attended Yale University. There was a revival, unbelievable, there was a revival in Yale in 1909, and William Gordon was part of that revival. God called him to serve him overseas.

There was an Englishman that came to this country once and, and traveled among Christian circles, and he said, somebody said to him when he was leaving to go back to England, what most impressed you in your visit to America?

And he said, seeing that young son in the mission down on the Bowery. That's what he did, he used to get conditions down in the mission on the Bowery. This impressed the Englishman more than anything he had seen.

It was William Gordon who said, in every man's heart there's a throne and a cross. If Christ is on the throne, self is on the cross. If self even a little bit is on the throne, Jesus is on the cross in that man's heart.

If Jesus is on the throne, you will go where he wants you to go. Jesus on the throne glorifies any work or place. He got to Egypt. More people have gone to the mission field as a result of the book that was written.

Eric Liddell and Convictions in Competition

Howard Taylor, warden of Yale. Eric Liddell. Some of you know Eric Liddell. He had convictions. He did a lot of things he wouldn't do on Sunday. Some of you have seen the movie, Chariots of Fire. The Olympics in 1924, he refused to run in the hundred meter event for which he was qualified.

That was his race, but he refused to run because it was going to be on a Sunday. Some called him a traitor to Scott, the British Catholic. He was unmoved. All of Britain, the Prince of Wales. So eventually he agreed to run in a 400 meter race, which wasn't his race at all.

Before the race, the man who gave Eric his rub down, as Eric was standing there at the starting line, it said that his hands were flailing around like a windmill. He gave everything. He won the race. As a missionary, he was interned there by the Japanese in an internment camp.

Betty Stam and Surrendered Ambitions

He died of a brain tumor. Cruelty, they weren't approvable facilities to take care of him. And you know, when he died, a Scottish newspaper made her proud. Betty Scott Stamm, still a student at Bible School, and one night she wrote down in her Bible, Lord, I give up my own purposes and plans, all my own desires, hopes and ambitions, whether they be fleshly or soulish, and accept thy will for my life.

I give myself, my life, my all, utterly to thee, to be thine forever. I hand over to thy keeping all of my friendships, my love, all the people whom I love are to take second place in my heart. Fill me and seal me with thy Holy Spirit.

Jim Elliot and Intolerance for Anything Before Christ

Work out thy whole will in my life at any cost.". And they sealed their testimony with their blood stamps. Jim Elliot. Everybody who knew Jim Elliot knew that he was like the burning bush. He was that he was intolerant of anything that stood between the soul and commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And this he agreed with James Denny, who wrote, if God has really done something in Christ on which the salvation of the world depends, and if he has made it known, then it's a Christian duty to be intolerant of everything which ignores, denies, or explains it away.

And you feel something of this intolerance in Jim. Ignitable God to live. Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be a flame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this, my soul?

Short-lived. His philosophy was he is no fool who gives what he gives. Commitment. You know, it's one thing to read about commitment in the Bible. It's a soul out to the Lord. I wonder how many of us are willing to take that blank piece of paper and just sign it.

A Final Call to Complete Commitment

Listen, God, we just thank you as we think back over these men and women that have made history for you. What a debt we owe to them. Some that have died in order to preserve the truth of God for us today.

How indebted. Speak to our souls, Lord. We want to make our lives count for you. We don't want to just spend our lives in underwater basket weaving. But we want to be effective. We want every blow. And so we just pray to be serious about this matter.

We've never done it before.