craigmanderson

LOVE INVESTS  #1 AM

THE MISSION FIELD CALLS

This month our theme is LOVE INVESTS. The scriptures teach us the value of considering the future generations: Prov 13:22 A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous. (NIV) Love thinks not only about the present needs but lays up in store for the future so that those following may have their needs met. Love makes provision for the future so that those you love, who come after you, will be blessed with all that God can provide for them. Love shows wisdom in not only leaving a financial blessing but providing it in a way that is most beneficial to the receivers; such as an inheritance kept until you are 18.

As Christians we are concerned not only about the material provision for future generations but about the spiritual provision also. Love sees far into the future and looks longingly for the next generation to know Jesus Christ and sees the families, cities and nations turning to God. Love invests financially for kingdom purpose into the future. That is why in this church we gather together, then we dream a dream of what the future may hold and sow a seed of finance to make the future better for others. We call this Kingdom Advance.

This year our Kingdom Advance dinner will take place on October 24^th  at 7pm. You have received an invitation to that dinner today. Our focus of giving this year will be more in terms of missions giving; that means giving to evangelistic work in places outside our own local area. Our goal this coming year will be to support Destiny Rescue, Pastor Fakhry Hanna in Egypt, The INC South Pacific islands and our Church planting in Victoria.

Today I want to share with you the amazing stories of how people invested their lives in the mission field so that others future could be different.

Our first missionary is William Carey a missionary to India. Born in 1761, William Carey became a missionary to India arriving in 1793. It was extremely hard to get to India in that time because the church in England could not believe that Indian people could be saved. Carey had to work hard to convince the leadership of the church in England that Christians were called to preach the gospel in every nation and that meant going there. [a]

During the first year in Calcutta, the missionaries sought means to support themselves and a place to establish their mission. They also began to learn the Bengali language to communicate with others. At Midnapore during the first six years Carey managed an indigo plant, he completed the first revision of his Bengali New Testament and began formulating the principles upon which his missionary community would be formed, including communal living, financial self-reliance, and the training of indigenous ministers. His son Peter died of dysentery, which, along with other causes of stress, resulted in Dorothy suffering a nervous breakdown from which she never recovered. Due to her debilitating mental breakdown, she had long since ceased to be an able member of the mission, and her condition was an additional burden to it. John Marshman wrote how Carey worked away on his studies and translations, “…while an insane wife, frequently wrought up to a state of most distressing excitement, was in the next room…”. She died in 1807.

After learning the language Carey began preaching gospel messages to the Indian people five nights a week. It was years until the first convert was made. Carey faced setback after setback with his workplace being swept away in flood waters more than once. An Indian Christian who helped Carey translate the bible into Sanskrit after 7 years serving with Carey backslid. On 11 March 1812, a fire in the print shop caused £10,000 in damages and lost work. Amongst the losses were many irreplaceable manuscripts, including much of Carey’s translation of Sanskrit literature and a polyglot dictionary of Sanskrit and related languages, which would have been a seminal philological work had it been completed. However, the press itself and the punches were saved, and the mission was able to continue printing in six months. In Carey’s lifetime, the mission printed and distributed the Bible in whole or part in 44 languages and dialects.

After the loss of his wife and young son and backsliding of his only Indian Christian helper, one might expect that Carey could have packed up and gone home to recuperate. However a letter he penned to supporters at home during those darkest hours stated: “Though my disappointments may yet be 1000 times greater; yet I have this hope – the goodness and the faithfulness of God.” What drives a man to so surrender his life for others in the face of monumental difficulties – LOVE INVESTS. The outcome of Carey’s life was nothing short of amazing. He is known as the father of modern missions. Carey’s chief work of life was to make translation of the Scriptures and it was his joy before the close of life to see “more than 213,000 volumes of the Divine Word, in forty different languages, issue from the Serampore press.” But this was but a part of his life work.

Our next missionary was an Australian named Stanley Dale

Stanley Dale was a Australian that first visited New Guinea [b] while in the army during WWII. It was then that he first saw the high mountain ranges of the interior and set his mind that someday he would return to bring the message of God’s love to the people who lived in those remote areas. After the war he completed his Bible education, got married and began his training for his goal of reaching the unknown tribes in the highlands. He was refused by a number of missionary societies but finally was accepted to go to New Guinea. From 1947 to 1960 he worked with tribes in the lowlands. Finally in 1961 he & Bruno Leeuw made their trek into the Heluk Valley and made contact with the Yali tribe.

Stan Dale believed that even the most violent Yali cannibal had a soul worth saving because it was made in the image of God.

As the gospel was blossoming in the upper end of the valley, those in the lower end of the valley were still in darkness. Two of the young Yali Christians, Kekwara & Bengwok, went down the valley and were attacked while preaching. Neither returned. At the news of their deaths, Stan Dale went to the villages himself, and there suffered 5 arrow wounds. He was helped back to camp, then flown a mission hospital. It would be a week before they knew that Stan would survive the injuries. Two months later,

Stan Dale returned to his work among the Yali.

He was determined that the work of God must continue.

He strengthened the church in the upper Heluk valley and the new believers spread the gospel east into the next valley where it was warmly received. This angered the shamans in the lower valley and to the west and they made threats against Stan Dale should he enter their area again. After two years the burden for the salvation people in the lower valley prompted Stan Dale to try once again to reach them. On Wednesday, September 18, 1968, Stan Dale, Phil Masters and four tribal helpers began their trek into the Seng Valley. They were greeted by armed warriors when they reached the first village. The immediate crises was avoided and the next day they decided to return, but already the neighboring villages had been told and their warriors had agreed that these bearers of a strange religion would have to be killed.

The warriors were following them. Stan was at the rear. He stopped and faced them. Stan called to his Yali friend, Yemu, “Leave me,” and he raised his staff, not in anger, but as a barrier to the advancing tide of warriors. A priest of Kembu (the demonic religion) named Bereway slipped around behind Stan and at point blank range shot an arrow in under his upraised right arm. Another priest, Bunu, shot a bamboo bladed shaft into Stan’s back, just below his right shoulder.

Yemu was crying now and shouting at them to stop. As the arrows entered Stan’s flesh, he pulled them out, one by one, broke them and cast them away. Dozens of arrows were coming at him from all directions. He kept pulling them out, breaking them and dropping them at his feet until he could not keep ahead of them. Nalimo, the village chief, reached the scene after some 30 arrows had found their mark in Stan’s body.

“How can he stand there so long?” Nalimo gasped. “Why doesn’t he fall? Any one of us would have fallen long ago!” A different kind of shaft
pierced Nalimo’s own flesh – fear! “Perhaps he is immortal!” Nalimo’s normally impassive face melted with sudden emotion. Because of that emotion, Nalimo said latter, he did not shoot an arrow into Stan’s body. Stan faced his enemies, steady and unwavering except for the jolt of each new strike. Yemu ran to where Phil stood alone. Together they watched in anguish at Stan’s agony. As some 50 or more warriors detached from the main force and came toward them, Phil pushed Yemu behind him and gestured speechlessly, run! Phil seemed hardly to notice the warriors encircling him. His eyes were fixed upon Stan.

Fifty arrows – sixty! Red ribbons of blood trailed from the many wounds, but still Stan stood his ground. Nalimo saw that he was not alone in his fear. The attack had begun with hilarity, but now the warriors shot their arrows with desperation bordering on panic because Stan refused to fall. “Perhaps Kusaho was right!” Perhaps they were committing a monstrous crime against the supernatural world instead of defending it, as they intended. “Fall!: they screamed at Stan. “Die!” It was almost a plea – please die!

Yemu did not hear Phil say anything to the warriors as they aimed their arrows at him. Phil made no attempt to flee or struggle. He had faced danger many times but never certain death. But Stan had shown him how to face it, if he needed an example. That example could hardly have been followed with greater courage. One again, it was Bereway who shot the first arrow. And it took almost as many arrows to down Phil as it had Stan. Yemu and the 3 other helpers stayed only until they knew that Phil could not survive, then they turned and ran for their lives. One thought burned in Yemu’s mind, “if they kill us too, there’ll be no one left to tell their widows what happened, or where they fell.” Yemu did make it back safely to tell what happened.

Only a year later these same people were reached with the gospel of Christ  by missionaries that replaced Stan Dale and Phil Masters.

What enabled men like Stan Dale, Phil Masters and the two Yali Christians,

Kekwara & Bengwok, to risk and lose their lives in trying to take the gospel to a violent and hostile people? How were and are so many others able to spend their lives in similar tasks, forsaking the comforts of their homes to go live in foreign places with foreign people in a foreign culture?

LOVE INVESTS – Making a difference to the future of people who one day will come to know Christ.

One of the last communications received by the home office from Stanley Dale carried this significant comment—“I have a burden for these places where the way is hard. Please continue to pray for the people of the Holuk that they may break free from their fetishes and declare themselves wholly on the Lord’s side. Please continue to remember us in prayer, for we still carry some heavy burdens that are not burdens of work.”[c]

Stanley Dale had long ago determined to spread the gospel to unreached peoples, even at the expense of his own life. Because of their deep love for Jesus, Stan and Phil had a passionate desire to make Him known to all people—especially those Yali living in spiritual darkness in the Seng Valley.[d]

In the next few weeks I will be sharing how the Lord has used me to reach people in China, the Ukraine and the Pacific over the last 30 years. We have missionaries right here in this church. I want to introduce one of them to you today It’s Betsey Rasia who has a passion for her high school.

I hope that we as a local church continue to develop a deep passion for lost people the world over and that we are prepared to sacrifice our pleasures and comforts so that others may live. I hope you can come to the dinner on the 24^th October and join Chris and me in pledging finances to INVEST in the lives of others.

Last year we saw about $70,000 pledged into Kingdom Advance. So far about $38,000 has been received. More finance may come through this month until the dinner when we begin a new year of fund raising. This shortfall has led me to make a much smaller goal for the coming year. I am setting a target of $40,000 which will represent about 10% of our total church income and distribute it equally among four missions projects. Destiny Rescue, Egypt, Solomon Islands and Church planting in Victoria.

If you have not completed your pledge by the time of the dinner please consider the pledge forgiven and begin anew with faith and with a more realistic pledge for the coming year. The finance we give to Kingdom Advance is not our tithe which God says comes into the storehouse to make sure there is provision in this house. Kingdom Advance giving is an offering over and above your tithe for the work of missions. Will you join with me giving so that others may live? Will you believe and trust God to provide abundantly for you over and above your normal income to allow you to give?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1.  Perhaps not everyone is called ti new Guinea or India, but where are you called to?

2. The sacrifices made by these heroic missionaries inspire us, what does it make you feel?

3. Are there sacrifices you can make so that others may live?

4. Is the life of Stanley Dales given only to reach the tribes of New Guinea or was it given in order that other Christians may be inspired to give their all for Christ?

5. What is your part in the great commission to reach lost people?

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