December 24: Acts 20:24 (NIV)
24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.
“A life aflame for God.” This was David Brainerd’s desire. That his life be lived as a flaming example of a life devoted completely to his Lord. No other hero of the faith writes with such complete transparency as does David Brainerd. It would be his journals that would be used by God to fuel the missionary fires of the greatest missionary movement to hit Christendom.
He did not know that he was writing for anyone other than himself but it has been the writings of David Brainerd that inspired the Wesley’s and the Carey’s and the Judson’s and many others to take the risk of selling all and following their master to the dark regions of the unreached peoples of the world.
David Brainerd lived more in the short twenty nine years than most live in three to four times that many years. It seemed as if every minute was spent in either proclaiming the gospel or praying for its advance among pagans who had no access to it.
As a young man in his twenties he sought to take the gospel to the Indians of New York near the fork of the Delaware river. These Indians were known for their cruelty to outsiders. Once in his travels to share the gospel with a tribe he had not been to before he spent several hours making his way through dense forested woods. Often he would stop and pray for God to lead him, having no knowledge of how to connect with these he was going too minister to.
Without his knowledge several Indians had followed him for hours through the forest and watched from a distance. Once as he began to pray the Indians watched as a rattlesnake made its way close to Brainerd’s body that was prostrate on the ground interceding for the Indians. These Indians watched as they were sure this snake would certainly strike him, but at the last moment the sake just slithered off into the woods.
The next day these same Indians gave testimony to their tribe of this occurrence and the tribe listened with great curiosity to one who risked such travel to come to them. They had met white men before but hey had only encouraged them to drink fire water and sell their lands at a pittance. They had never known a white man who would demonstrate such love and selfless compassion.
David Brainerd would spend the rest of his short life traveling to many remote areas to share the gospel with the Indians who had been abused by white men for years and left without any hope of the gospel. David Brainerd went against the tide of his day and gave his life to reach the unreached Indian populations of New York.
Somew3her in his mid twenties he contracted tuberculosis and would spend the rest of his life in a constant state of pain due to the complications of such a disease. When the disease was beginning to take its toll a church for white folks offered him a nice comfortable salary and a place where he could rest and enjoy some comforts but Brainerd not to be sidetracked refused and continued his work among the Indians, knowing the time of his departure was drawing close.
Jonathan Edwards would say at his funeral that no man had so influenced his life for good as the life of David Brainerd who was half his age. .
In answer to the question, "What can be done to revive the work of God where it has decayed?" John Wesley said, "Let every preacher read carefully the life of David Brained”
Among those who followed his advice were William Carey, the father of modern missions; Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia; Robert McCheyne, the first modern missionary to the Jewish people.
Would to God that every one who reads this story be so moved to give their lives to the great missionary enterprise of taking the gospel to all corners of the world.
Send us Out O God,
Pastor Phil
No comments:
Post a Comment