Great Christian Biographies with John Piper: Adoniram Judson, part 2

Missionary Sacrifice and the Unreached Peoples of the World

Point number three the position we are now in at the beginning of the 21st century is one that cries out for tremendous missionary effort and tremendous missionary sacrifice. Patrick Johnstone. In operation world.

I saw stack of them back there. If there any left should probably run right now to get it. But they're very inexpensive. You can get them anytime on the web, and they are among the most important. Books.

It is among the most important books in my library. I have a little prayer nook in my study, and there are a few books on the shelf right here. Beside that and that's one of them not merely because I want to pray but because I am wired to forget the world.

And Patrick Johnstone has done all of us such a tremendous favor to keep our hearts alive for the unreached peoples of the world. Well he said that in the 1990s for the first time in history we were able to get a reasonably complete listing of the peoples in the world.

Ethnolinguistically he estimates 12 ,000 of them and he says 3 ,500 have on average 1 .2 percent Christians. That's 20 million Christians out of about 1 .7 billion people using the broadest definition of Christian and including expatriates.

Most of these 3 ,500 Most unreached peoples stretch through the 1040 window from West Africa and North Africa right on across to Japan. And Most of them don't want you to come. In fact they are openly most of them hostile to your coming.

They don't know what they need. They are blind. Is that gonna make a difference to you? Didn't make a difference to God when he saved you that you were blind when Ednarm Judson went to Burma in July of 1813.

Adoniram Judson in Burma

It was a hostile utterly unreached place. William Carey had said to Judson across the Bay of Bengal don't go there. It's useless. All the missionaries that went there either died or quit. There were no missionaries there when Judson got there.

Fierce war with Siam anarchic despotism enemy raids continually constant rebellion no religious toleration. And Judson Hearing that there was a boat in the harbor heading for Rangoon looked at his 23 year old bride of 17 months and Said will you go with me?

And Anne did 38 years he ministered there till he died when he was 61. Went home once after 33 years not by choice, but to accompany his sick wife. He was a seed that fell into the ground and died over and over.

And the fruit God gave Is celebrated today even in scholarly? Works like Barrett's World Christian Encyclopedia. Which says the largest Christian force in Burma is the Burma Baptist Convention? Which owes its origin to the pioneering activity of the American Baptist missionary at Naram?

Judson he was a Baptist when he went there in 1813. Because although he'd come out as a Congregation this on the hundred and fourteen day voyage his mind was changed and William Ward the partner of William carried baptized him and Anne on September 6 1812 there near Calcutta.

And Today Patrick Johnstone Estimates that in Myanmar the new name for Burma in Myanmar the Baptist Convention has about 3 ,700 congregations with 617 thousand members and 1 .9 million Affiliates. The fruit of this dead seed.

Of course there were others and they died to the church today in Myanmar is the fruit of many lost lives. Now my question is this. If Christ delays another 200 years which is just a Fraction of a day in his reckoning that seems long to use it.

Oh, he wouldn't do that. Surely wouldn't he wouldn't do that. Well from him is it what. I can't wait five more minutes if that happens if that happens. My question is which of you will have been the dying instrument.

Such that among the 3 ,500 unreached peoples some will have 1 .9 million adherents to the Church of Jesus Christ. Because you laid your lives down there. That's a good legacy. Number four the pain of Adoniram Judson illustrates the Truth that we've been talking about so far.

Sovereignty of God in Suffering

So here I move to biography. Adoniram Judson Hated his life in this world. Adoniram Judson was a seed that fell into the ground and died. Adoniram Judson filled up in his own sufferings what was lacking in the afflictions of Christ.

Where they had never been? Heard of and therefore Adoniram Judson's life. Bore much fruit and today he is alive to enjoy it. And he will be forever and I think could he speak right now. He would say it was worth it.

Judson was a Calvinist. Everybody seemed to be a Calvinist in New England in those days. He didn't wear it on his sleeve. The evidence for it you can read in Nettles by his grace and for his Glory, his father was a congregationalist minister.

His teacher was Bellamy who was a student of Jonathan Edwards. Judson inherited a deep belief in the sovereignty of God and The great importance of stressing that here for me is not primarily Soteriological though it had that function of course for the way he understood people getting saved in Burma.

But it mainly in my point here is that it stabilized him in the midst of incredible and never-ending calamities in his life. Let me read you a beautiful Sentence that I hope you all will be able to say.

If I had not felt certain that every additional trial Was ordered by infinite love and mercy. I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings. There's another reason why I want to build fences around the sovereignty of God.

I Listen to the people in my church. I listen especially to the suffering people in my church. And I don't know what I would tell them if I could not tell them. This has been ordered by infinite love and mercy.

Not. He just didn't know this was gonna happen. That's something I want to put outside the fence for the sake of my flock. Because they're gonna suffer. They're going to suffer. This was an unshakable confidence in his wives.

He had three wives. And it isn't because he was a polygamist. It's because and died and Sarah died and Emily died three years after he died and was. They were all absolutely remarkable. There's a book called the three mrs Judson's and if you find it on the on the web go ahead and get it because there's a lot more on them than there Is on him and I'll tell you why later on.

Judson's Marriage, Loss, and the Sovereignty of God

And He married February 5 1812. He left on a boat with her. Mark this on February 19. That's what 14 days later. They're on a boat. She never came home. I Take that back. She did make one trip. She was 23.

They had three children. All the children died. The first baby Nameless they drop in the water between India and Rangoon. The second Roger Williams Judson 17 months old dies the third Maria Elizabeth Butterworth Judson outlives her mother by two months and or six months and dies.

Now and who lost two children then died and then her other child died wrote this. After her second child died our hearts were bound up with this child. We felt he was our earthly all our only source of innocent recreation in this heathen land but God saw.

It was necessary to remind us of our error and to strip us of our only little all. Oh May it not be in vain that he has done it. May we so improve it that he will stay his hand and say it is enough. I Preach to produce mothers like that.

There are not many around most American mothers and fathers get angry at God and Many pastors tell them that's good for them. In other words his wives and Him he himself was established by the rock-solid confidence in the sovereignty and goodness of God in all of his calamities.

There were roots for this confidence one his father To his Bible. Oh, was he a man of the Bible 38 years? He devoted to translating old and New Testament. He left a complete translation behind. He translated that is he created a Burmese English dictionary that all the missionaries after him were able to use in language.

Learning he once was approached by a Buddhist teacher who said no way could this gospel be true because no king Would ever let his son be? Treated with so much indignity as you say God allowed his son to be treated to which Judson responded.

You are not a disciple of Christ a true disciple inquires Not whether a fact is agreeable to his own reason, but whether it is in the book. His pride has not yielded to the divine testimony teacher. Your pride is still unbroken break down your pride and yield to the Word of God.

He was a man of the book the book Established him in his confidence in the sovereignty of God and then there was a third source Remarkable namely the story of his conversion. It is an absolutely Astonishing story.

Judson's Conversion and Call to Missions

Let me tell it to you. He was brilliant as a little boy. Three years old his mother teaches him to read in one week since he has a surprise for his father when he comes home from the trip. He reads a chapter of the Bible that three after studying for a week.

When he was 16 he went as a sophomore to Brown University and Graduated head of his class three years later 1807 same year as the haystack prayer meeting. Little did his parents know that while he was at Brown.

He was losing his faith he came in contact with a Fellow student that blew him away with his intelligence named Jacob Eames Who was a deist and by the time? Adnaram Judson was done with his education.

He was no longer a believer if he ever was a Believer, he kept it from his parents all the way through even delivered his valedictory address in such vague terms. They couldn't quite tell what he was saying and then on his birthday August 9 1808 20th birthday.

He broke the news to his parents and broke their hearts and said he was going to New York to learn how to write plays For the theater and would his daddy give him a horse as part of his inheritance and his father Through tears gave it to him and let him go.

It wasn't the dream he hoped for bound himself to a pack of strolling players. Later he wrote they were a reckless vagabond vagabond life. I found lodgings where I could Bilking the landlord wherever I could find opportunity.

Finally the disgust that he felt for the people around him Proved to be the first of some very remarkable Providences. He decided to leave them and visit his uncle in the wilderness his uncle Ephraim in Sheffield Massachusetts.

Instead of finding his uncle at home. He found quote a pious young man that stunned him because of how strongly he held his Christian convictions and yet not without the stridency of so many of those he had known earlier.

He left there wondering hmm, maybe there's another way to be a Christian instead of a deist and the next night He didn't have far enough to go to get home. He stayed at a little village where he'd never been before and Asked for a room the man apologized and said I only have one room and it's next door to a Man, that's very sick, and he may bother you through the night.

But if you'd like to have it so he took the room and through the night He heard the voices and the groans and the gasps of this man who seemed to be dying and made his mind Think about his own death and about whether he was ready for death.

The morning came and as he was getting ready to go He asked how the man was and the innkeeper said oh he died Last night and Judson was struck with the absoluteness of death and his Unpreparedness for it and as he was walking out the door. He said do you know who he was?

And he said oh yes young man from Brown. His name was Jacob Eames and Judson Was frozen he just trembled he could not move he couldn't leave for three hours. He just stayed there in the end. Terrified saying If Jacob Eames the deist is right, this is meanings.

This is means this has no significance. And he could not bring himself to believe. This was a coincidence. But the God was on his trail and he was. His conversion did not come quickly. It took months.

When it was December 2nd when he had enrolled at Andover groping He settled it it was almost simultaneous with his conversion that he felt the call to take the gospel To the east as he said. June 28 1819 he and Four others presented themselves to the congregation lists as foreign missionaries.

They had never sent a foreign missionary away from American soil and he said we're gonna start it and if you don't we'll go to the London Missionary Society and get them to Do it and so they voted to do it the same day.

He was ordained to that he met Anne and fell in love now to show you the fiber of Which this tree was made? Both the man and the woman listened to this letter of courting sent to her father. I Have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring.

To see her no more in this world. Whether you can consent to her departure and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life. Whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean to the fatal influence of southern climate of India to every kind of want and distress to degradation insult persecution and perhaps a violent death.

Can you consent to all this for the sake of him who left his heavenly home and died for her? And for you for the sake of perishing immortal souls for the sake of Zion and the glory of God. Can you consent to all this in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory with the crown of righteousness?

Brightened with the acclamations of praise. Which shall read down to her Savior from the heathens saved through her means from eternal woe and despair. The mindset Among us in America today is so fragile.

We'll go try this out this mission thing. Let's just try this out a little bit. Six months or 18 months or a couple years. Let's try this out. Her father said to her In modern English, it's your call.

Which was amazing and she wrote to a friend I Feel willing and expect if nothing in Providence prevents to spend my days in this world in heathen lands. Yes, Lydia. I have about come to the determination to give up all my comforts and enjoyments here.

Sacrifice my affection to relatives and friends and to go where God in his providence Shall see fit to place me a year and a half later February 5 1812. They sailed for India. I might have my dates wrong there.

You can check it in the manuscript. They sailed for India they went to a Rangoon even though it was dangerous and there began a lifelong battle in the hundred and eighty hundred and eight degree heat with cholera and malaria and dysentery and no medicines to speak of except some ones that you Wouldn't even want to think about Salivation with mercury things like that.

She bore him Three children, you know his next wife bore him eight children. His third wife bore him two children of the thirteen children that he had seven. Survived. The first news they got from home was two out two years and four months later.

This is one of the deaths I Can imagine a missionary today getting bent out of shape if an email isn't there the first week? Two years before they heard anything from anybody. They died to that. He didn't go home for 33 years.

Missionary time in those days was very different than our time. We sort of assume now that all time is the same everywhere in the world because of Jetson email then Missionary time was like this if you get sick enough.

You don't take a 10-day Antibiotic regimen. You get on a boat and disappear for six months. From your wife or your husband in the hopes that salt water might help. That's what you could do. That's how time.

Well, we'll have a little six-month interval here before we pick up again and go on a Boat ride that's supposed to make two weeks up to the northern part winds up taking six months. Because of the storm that blew him south if you were married.

And you loved your wife. And you felt like you needed sex often enough. And his departure when she was sick for two years. Would be a death. If you chased she went back for two years. She was so sick.

She went to New England. One of the joys that sustain you in those days is knowing that God's up to something good that particular. Example is that she got well. She came back and guess what she had done while she was in New England getting well.

She wrote a book. Called an account of the American Baptist mission to the Berman Empire and it exploded on the American Baptist scene. Raising up hundreds of congregations ready to go ready to give ready to pray which would have never happened.

Had not she been on the brink of death and had her husband not died to his needs for two years.