Proverbs: I Surrender All

Robert and Boticon Ugeye, a father and a son, who because of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and their belief that Jesus Christ was the only way of salvation and that there was no other way of salvation and that Scripture alone was the ultimate authority for us and no other person on earth had a higher authority, this father and son were condemned to death at the stake. And as they went to the stake, the father was elderly and in ill health, and his son was very concerned about his father's ability to stand true to the faith and face the stake. And Fox records that as they went to the stake, and I've given you a quote in your outline there, Encouraging the Father. Be of good courage, Father. The worst will soon be past.

Faint not, Father, nor be afraid. Yet vary a little while, and we shall enter the heavenly mansions. And a father and a son go to their deaths because they're standing firm for their faith. Another story of Giovanni Mishialin,

who is told by authorities that if he will recant and deny Christ, they will not kill his children. And when he refuses to recant his faith and to renounce Christ, they kill his first child. And they ask, will you recant? He says, I will not. kill his second child. And they ask, will you recant? And he says, I will not. And a soldier picks up his fourth child, grabs the child by the legs, prepared to bash the child's head against the wall, and they say, will you recant? He says, I will not. And they kill his child. John Rogers, I don't know if I'm related, I'm going to try to find out

who was executed under the reign of Queen Mary, known as Bloody Mary. And it's recounted that as he was led away to his execution, he passed by his wife and 11 children, one of whom was nursing.

And can you imagine being led to your death with your wife and 11 children? one of whom was still nursing, and refusing to recant your faith in Jesus Christ. And he was burned at the stake. Roland Taylor, who also was a husband and father, and I'm going to read you a brief portion out of the book. He's being led away in the dark of the early morning,

and his wife and children are there, but they can't see him. and they hear the noise, but it's dark. They can't see him, and his wife calls out, Roland, said his wife, where art thou? For it was so dark a morning that the one could not see the other. Dear wife, I am here, said the doctor, and stopped.

The sheriff's men would have forced him on, but the sheriff said, stay a little while, I pray you, and let him speak to his wife. She then came to him when he took his daughter Mary in his arms while he and his wife and Elizabeth kneeled down and prayed, at which sight the sheriff wept much, as did several others of the company. The prayer finished. Taylor rose up and kissed his wife, and pressing her hand said, Farewell, my dear wife. Be of good comfort, for I am quiet in my conscience.

God shall raise up a father for my children. And then he kissed his daughter, Mary, and he said, Meet thee his servant. And kissing Elizabeth, he said, God bless thee. I pray you all stand strong and steadfast unto Christ in his word and beware of idolatry. Then said his wife unto him, God be with thee, my dear Roland.

I will with God's grace meet thee at Hadley, which was on his route to his execution. They wanted to see him one more time.

but you know martyrdoms were not are not something of the ancient past more people have been martyred for christ in the last 50 years than in the first 300 years after

christ estimates are that during the height of communism in the 20th century 330 000 christians approximately per year were executed because of their faith that number is now less per year because of the decline in communism. But the modern-day martyrs are a reality. People like Xu Xin Sui and Ho Sui Su, who in 1977 were two young ladies imprisoned in China because of their fate. Their pastor was also imprisoned with them. And the Chinese guards went to the pastor of these two young Chinese girls and said, we will spare your life if you will execute these two girls.

And they take the two young ladies out with the pastor. They hand the pastor a pistol. And the two young ladies recognize what is about to happen. And their statements to their pastor are recounted. They basically thank their pastor for all he had meant to them as a pastor.

They prayed for him. and said, we forgive you. And then the pastor shoots and kills both these young Chinese girls. And then what did the Chinese guards do? They executed the pastor.

One of the most moving accounts in the New Fox's Book of Martyrs is in 1992 in Nigeria, Pastor Selchin, Islamic fundamentalist, have just killed about 300 people in the village. to Pastor Selchin. His wife and sister are watching and praying at that moment as this is happening. The Islamic fundamentalist take his right arm, stretch it out, and cut off the pastor's right wrist. And as his right hand is falling to the ground, he lifts up his left hand and he says, He is Lord.

He is Lord. He is risen from the grave and he is Lord. Every knee shall bow. and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

After the luncheon, Dr. Frank Sullivan, Louise's dad, came up to me and said, I want to tell you a story. Louise's grandparents, who were missionaries to China, Presbyterian missionaries, Louise's grandfather was a physician, medical missionary in China. He was called Hatja, which means grandfather in Chinese and Habu was his wife. That means grandmother.

They were married by a Presbyterian pastor in China. And during the Boxer Rebellion, that pastor who married them was executed by the boxers. Do you know how they executed him? He was a Christian. They crucified him.

I went to Gordon-Conwell yesterday, and man, it was a great time. It was a seminar, a day of celebration, a day when students are getting ready for the new year. And Gordon-Conwell is something of an unusual seminary, I think, because you have students who come from Baptist churches and Methodist churches and Presbyterian churches and Lutheran churches and Episcopal churches. You've got black students, you've got white students, you've got oriental students, but they all come with a common commitment to Jesus Christ and to his word and the authority of his word. And praise God, we've got people in many denominations who are being trained in the authority of God's word who are going back into those denominations, some of which have strayed significantly from the authority of God's word, but by God's grace will return to his word when you start to have men and women teaching and preaching God's word effectively.

But it struck me as we were there worshiping, singing together, you know, you want to experience true worship, we have a lot of discussion about traditional and about contemporary and so forth. Give me a group of people who are committed to Jesus Christ with all of their hearts and with all of their souls, and you will worship them. I love being in a place where I can sing as loud as I want it. Nobody knows. Because everybody else around me is singing as loud as they can sing.

It's a rare moment. Some have their hands in the air. Some have their heads bowed. All forms and expressions of worship, but it is worship. Because there's a common bond.

and at that meeting Dmitry Baryshnikov spoke he is a student at Gordon Conwell and here's his quick story at age 22 he's living in the Ukraine at age 22 he has never even seen a Bible in his life and he's walking down a street in the Ukraine and he hears a street preacher who has a translator with him he's an English street preacher and he's got a translator translating it into the Russian language. And it's a street preacher who didn't sound like he wanted to kill you, but who really cared about you. And he stopped and he began to listen. And on that street corner, a man who had never seen the Bible in his life got, as some of us might say, radically saved, which meant it was the real thing. It penetrated all the way through his heart and his mind.

He came to the U.S. and met a girl from North Carolina, he said he had heard North Carolina girls were the best girls, so he married her. And when he got ready to go for training, Gordon Conwell had a seminary right there for him. He has a small goal. He wants to take the Ukraine for Christ.

And he's going back. There was another student, Diana Kohler. I heard about her before I met her. we were having some small group sharing time and one of our professors, Bill Murray, said to me I had a student, a prospective student call yesterday saying she'd like to start seminary this fall what does she need to do? He said come to our seminar tomorrow we're going to have an orientation and some worship and she told him well I may have a little trouble getting there and he thought she meant oh she may have some trouble because of a conflict in schedule or whatever

and when she showed up at the seminar, Heath, I wish you'd been there to talk with her. She came in on crutches and her difficulty in getting there was that she had a severe handicap.

It so happened that the dedication of the academic center, she came and sat down right behind me and I got to talk to her. She said she's been out of school 20 years. She's terrified about having to go back in an academic setting. But she said, God has called me, and I'm here. And I said, then go for it.

Go for it. You can do it with God's help. God is most glorified not by those who are strong and powerful, but by the weak who trust with all their hearts and minds in an all-powerful God. He doesn't need strong people. No, he is strong.

His power is perfected in weakness. So don't ever say I'm not good enough or strong enough or big enough or smart enough. He doesn't need smart, strong people. He needs people who trust him with all that they have and all that they are. He needs babies, children who trust in a loving father.

Pray for her. I sat next to Jean Graham Ford at the dedication. She was there to talk because it was her parents. She's Billy Graham's sister, the daughter of Frank and Marle Graham. She was there to say a word on behalf of the family at the dedication of the facility.

When she spoke, she said this. My dad, Frank Graham, when Billy Graham was 16 years old, went to a time of prayer near what is now Woodlawn Avenue in Charlotte, North Carolina. hills, and pasture. Today it's very grown up if you know anything about Charlotte. And those men came together to begin to pray for their church, that God would do something radical in the church. And as they prayed, they said, well, maybe he'll do something radical not just in our church but in Charlotte. Somehow he will affect Charlotte. And as they prayed, they said our vision expanded and we began to pray that he would do something in the state of North Carolina.

And then they began to pray, let's just do the world. Maybe the Lord is going to do something to the world. And they began to pray. And all day long, these men prayed for God to do something significant in the world.

Jean Ford said that her father went home after that all-day prayer meeting and talked to Billy. He wasn't a Christian at that point. Billy asked his dad what he'd been doing all day, and Frank Graham said, and praying that God will do something mighty in this world, that he'll raise up people that will take the gospel. And Billy Graham told him, that is the silliest waste of time. You have just wasted a whole day praying for something like that.

And then God saves a guy from North Carolina named Billy Graham.

John Piper was talking to the Wycliffe Bible translators how many of you have heard of Wycliffe? these are the tough men and women in our faith these are the men and women who will go into a culture live in very difficult circumstances for one goal to be able to translate the scriptures into the language of the culture They have a goal called 2025, and the 2025 goal is that by the year 2025, they will have the scriptures in every known language in the world. They've got a long ways to go, but they're trusting that God will help them do that. Piper came to talk to this radical group, and he had three sermons. His first sermon was, why do we do what we do?

He says, we do it for the glory of God. Ultimately, the reason we share the gospel, we translate Bibles, help the poor, is that we want the name of Christ to be lifted up and we want God to be glorified. His second sermon was on the sovereignty of God, saying that there's so many obstacles to doing what needs to be done that the only way it's going to happen is if we trust in God who is an almighty and sovereign Lord. and he was really urging the translators to just trust God to remove barriers. And then the third sermon, and the one we're going to try to get duplicated for each of you to listen to, was he was encouraging them to go take risks for Christ.

He basically was pressing them not to live the normal life, to just find a nice comfortable home in the suburbs and just rock along working toward retirement, trying to build up a big account for retirement and then going to play golf all their lives or whatever, dying on some golf course with a heart attack. He said, if you're going to die, go die somewhere where it means something. He will go and talk to college groups, and he will have this message about risk-taking, and the reality is that college students are responding to that kind of radical call. college students who don't want any more of the lukewarm, half-hearted stuff that they have seen so often in their parents. They want to see the real thing. And thank God there are many parents who are good models, but too many have not been good models. And Piper begins to talk about risk takers in scripture. And he says, you know, you remember those three Jewish guys named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who when King Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful man on earth, said, bow down to this golden image or else you will go to the furnace. There were only three who didn't bow down, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And if you read your text of scripture, when the king said, I'm going to throw you into the fiery furnace, their response to me was a remarkable response.

They said to the king, O king, our God is able to deliver us from the fire, but even if he does not, We will not serve your gods or worship them. Do you hear that? They weren't certain whether or not God would preserve them in the fire. They didn't know for sure. But they knew that what their call was was to be obedient and let the end result be in the Lord's hands.

So they refused to bow down. That's real risk-taking when you don't know whether you're going to live or die, but yet you're faithful to the Lord. How about a woman named Esther, who when the evil king Haman has a plan to exterminate the Jews in the kingdom, and the only way, the only hope Esther's father tells her is if she will go directly to the king and attempt to persuade the king to reverse Haman's order. But Esther tells her father there's a law that says unannounced, particularly a woman, will be executed. And Mordecai said, well, you're going to die anyway.

Why not take a chance? And Esther says, gather the people together, ask the people to fast and pray for three days, and then I will go to the king. And if I perish, I perish. She didn't know whether the king would kill her or not, but she was going to do what she needed to do in obedience to her Lord. If I perish, I perish.

How about the story of Paul who after he finished his third missionary journey and was preparing to go on to Jerusalem a crowd of folks stop him and one of the folks who stops him is a prophet named Agabus and Agabus says, Agabus takes out a belt and wraps it around his own hands and he says, you're about to be bound in Jerusalem. You're going to be imprisoned. And the people begin to say, Paul, don't go to Jerusalem. Don't go to Jerusalem. It's dangerous.

You're going to be in prison. And Paul says, look, I'm going to Jerusalem. I'm prepared to die in Jerusalem to spread the gospel. And if I die, I die. But I'm going.

And the people finally give up persuading him, and they say, God's will be done. and Paul goes on to Jerusalem where he is imprisoned. The early church, Piper in his sermon quotes from a book by Stephen Neal. I'm going down I-85 trying to take notes. That's kind of a dangerous thing here.

I believe the name of the book was The History of Christian Mission. Stephen Neal in his study of the history of Christian Mission says that in the early church in the centuries before Constantine became king and it was safe to be a Christian, in those first three centuries of church history, people knew that when they joined the church of Jesus Christ, there was a significant likelihood that they would die physically. There was that risk. Yet, the church was just exploding.

Now, how about that for seeker-friendly? we? Yes, join our church and we promise you there's a good chance you will die. I'm all for having churches that are persuasive and winsome and that try to communicate in relevant ways to people, but I wonder if sometimes we haven't missed the boat by holding up for people the radical call of Jesus Christ. He did not call us to a life of ease and comfort.

He bids us, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, to come and die.

And I submit to you, until that type of message is heard and preached by the church, we will not be what the Lord wants us to be.

so here are my life's lessons and with this we close life lesson number one remember the stories i think our children and i know that some of these stories would be very difficult for very young children and we have to be sensitive to that but i think for both adults and children knowing the stories are important the stories recorded in scripture the stories we can see are there for a purpose. They are there to show us how we are to live for Christ and to inspire us. The second life lesson is this. Our highest loyalty is to Jesus Christ. No other loyalty is greater than our loyalty to him. You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 23. Mark 12 30. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might and with all your strength.

Not even our own lives or the lives of anyone we love are of greater importance than our love for Jesus Christ and our loyalty to Him.

We are not to foolishly seek martyrdom or foolishly seek danger, but nor are we to shrink from danger or martyrdom in the service of Christ. The third lesson is this. to Christ is costly. The Apostle Paul said, whatever things were to my profit, I now consider loss. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have given up all things in order that I may gain Christ.

Fourth lesson. And the question I ask is, think that the commitment of these saints we have studied today was too great. I'm sure some of you were saying when I was telling those stories, these guys were nutso, you know? Dying for their faith, even risking the lives of their family members for their faith. I would submit to you that their commitment was not too great.

The problem in our understanding them is that our own commitment is far, far too small.

Fifth life lesson.

Is this what I have next on y'all's? I believe about the next life. No?

Okay. I got them reversed. Persecution is a blessing for which there is heavenly reward. Lord, blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men revile you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you.

Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Christians don't need to whine about persecution. Even in this country, I hear Christians whining all the time. Oh, we can't do this.

Oh, they're doing this to Christians. Rejoice and be glad. Somebody persecutes you, thank them. If it's because of righteousness for Christ. All right, is the next one, why do we sometimes think of it?

No, our belief. Our willingness to take risk and sacrifice for Christ in this life is directly proportional to the sincerity of our belief about the next life. Do you hear what I just said? I think the reason people could stand so firm in the faith as we have heard about these stories today is because they had a blazing certainty in their hearts that there was more to life than the here and now. And that death simply sent them to paradise.

Romans 8.18

For the sufferings of this life, Paul says, are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us. 2 Timothy 4, 7-8. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.

Now there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have loved his appearing. And in Philippians 1, 21, one of my favorite verses, to live is Christ, to die is gain. If we are not persuaded of that reality, when the Lord says to some of us, go to the Sudan to preach the gospel, we'll shrink back. Because we won't be certain that death is just a passing to a better life. Let me say a word here.

Somebody might say, well, aren't you Christians just like the Islamic fundamentalists? That's exactly what those 911 guys believed. If they died, it was just a paradise. That's true. There is a sense in which we have a similar belief.

But there is a radical difference in how we play out that belief. While the Islamic fundamentalists injured and maimed and killed human beings in the hope they would gain paradise,

Christians in order to gain paradise are willing to die but to save and help and rescue people when we come to this army of Christ we are called to be part of the rescue team that says if necessary I'll go into the raging sea or I'll climb the highest mountain I will face any enemy and if it costs me my life in order that I may save some for Christ so be it do not let somebody get away with comparing us to the Islamic fundamentalists who are so off base in their beliefs. You point out the difference in what we believe. My last question is, what risk have I taken for Christ in my life? What risk will I take?

there are some here who have taken very little risk for Christ. It's just been. And that's sort of the message we sometimes send to people. But the question is not so much the past, but the future. What will I do for Christ?

What am I willing to risk?

Let's pray.

Lord, I wish I could... Words almost seem inadequate at times to try to communicate some of the truths we have discussed today. I wish I could just somehow hotwire everybody and just burn these truths into their hearts and minds.

But since I can't do that, I will pray that you do that. That by the power of your spirit, you will help people to see the radical, unyielding call to march to the beat of a different drummer, to risk for Christ, to not just sit back and look for ease and comfort in this life, but to be obedient, no matter what the cost for Jesus Christ. Forgive me when I have let the Christian message be radical enough. And I pray for each individual in this class that through the power of your spirit, and maybe through words they read or things they hear, that they will be gripped by the reality that Jesus Christ is worth everything.

I pray that for myself. May we not be lackadaisical. It was in Christ's name we pray. Amen.