Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Well, when you came in, you should have got a guide that looks like this. If you didn't get one, you can probably go out and get one on the table outside.
[00:00:08] And you can see up here on the screen that this morning we're going to be talking about the modern missions movement. The modern missions movement. This movement, as you can see here, it begins around 1792. And that'll be if you're familiar with William Carey. It's going to start with him.
[00:00:27] And some people date the end of it around 1910 with the world Missionary Conference at Edinburgh. And we probably won't get all the way to 1910 this morning just for the sake of time.
[00:00:38] But my goal for us this morning is that we would learn about the modern missions movement through the lens of two of its most influential figures, William Carey and Adoniram Judson.
[00:00:53] And I think anytime that we talk about missions, we need to remember something that I think is really important.
[00:01:01] And that's what the goal of missions even is.
[00:01:05] What's the point of missions? And there's no one living right now that's helped me understand this more than a guy named John Piper. And he wrote a book on missions. It's called, it's called Let the Nations Be Glad. You guys have probably read it before. And this is the very opening line of the book.
[00:01:24] And this is what he says about missions.
[00:01:28] He says missions is not the ultimate goal of the church.
[00:01:33] Worship is.
[00:01:35] Missions exist because worship doesn't.
[00:01:39] All of history is moving towards one great goal.
[00:01:44] And what's the goal that all of history is moving towards?
[00:01:47] It's the white hot worship of God and his Son among all the peoples of the earth.
[00:01:54] Missions is not that goal, it's the means. And for that reason, missions is the second greatest human activity in the world.
[00:02:06] And so as we talk about missions, it's just important to remember missions isn't the main point.
[00:02:12] Worship is.
[00:02:14] And the reason why anything we're talking about this morning matters is because there are people in the world right now that Jesus purchased who are not worshiping him.
[00:02:24] So that's why missions is important. And that's why Piper says it's the second greatest human activity in the world. Because it's the means by which God is gathering. Worshipers from every tribe, language, people, nation. And just as a reminder at ubc, we're defining missions like this. This is the definition that we've adopted as a church.
[00:02:46] We say that missions, it's the work of local churches sending gospel proclaimers across significant barriers.
[00:02:56] And what Are those barriers? They're geographic barriers, cultural barriers, linguistic barriers in order to make disciples and establish local churches. And that's all through the power of the Holy Spirit. And we're in missions. We're prioritizing opportunities where Christ has not been named.
[00:03:18] I realized I forgot to record this. Oops.
[00:03:23] Oh, well.
[00:03:26] So we're prioritizing opportunities where Christ has not been named.
[00:03:31] So this morning, we're going to be thinking about men and women who did this.
[00:03:35] This work.
[00:03:36] So we're not talking about all evangelistic work from 1792 to 1910.
[00:03:42] We're talking about missions. So men and women who did this.
[00:03:47] And I think to understand and really appreciate this movement for what it was, I think we have to understand the context in which this. This movement took place.
[00:03:58] We need to step inside the world in which these men and women lived. Because, believe it or not, there was a day when the IMB did not exist.
[00:04:09] There was a day when GSI didn't exist.
[00:04:12] There was a day when Let the Nations Be Glad hadn't been written yet. So all these resources, all these books, all these agencies that we appreciate today, there was a time really not that long ago where these things did not exist. They didn't exist. And I think the reason why you should care about the modern missions movement this morning is because many of these resources, these agencies that we partner with as a church, they trace their roots back to this movement that started in 1792 with William Carey. So we stand on the shoulders of giants in terms of missions.
[00:04:51] And so the goal of this class is for us to grow in appreciation for those who came before us and to grow in gratitude for where the Lord has us now as a church whose mission statement. Remember, our mission statement is that we preach Christ from all the scriptures to make disciples from all the nations. And I would say that mission statement has been influenced greatly by scripture, obviously, but also the modern missions movement.
[00:05:19] So just to set context, before 1792, because we're saying this movement kind of starts in 1792, it's not that missions didn't exist.
[00:05:29] Missions was happening. But before the modern missions movement, missions was largely domestic, focused on reaching. You can think about guys like, if you've ever heard of David Brainerd or John Elliot. Missions was largely focused on reaching in America, with Native Americans in England focused on reaching the countrymen in England who were separated from the Gospel because of things like geography and even language.
[00:05:57] And missions was also, before 1792, it was really disorganized.
[00:06:02] So there were no agencies. There were no missions boards. There was no pool of money that people were giving to in order to raise up and to send out missionaries. And so it was. Missions was happening, but it was largely domestic and it was really unorganized.
[00:06:21] And then around this time, also, you have a rise of a theological movement that it would later become known as Hyper Calvinism.
[00:06:30] Hyper Calvinism.
[00:06:32] And it's an important piece of context to understand, especially William Carey and the world that he lived in. And just to illustrate this theological position, there's actually a story from William Carey's life.
[00:06:44] And you guys probably know this story, but William Carey, he's a young pastor, and he's in a meeting. This is in the 1780s. He's at this meeting with some other Baptist pastors in England, and he's asked by this older pastor named John Ryland.
[00:07:02] He says to Carrie, carrie, I want you to give a hot take.
[00:07:07] That's basically what he said. I want you to bring up a topic for conversation.
[00:07:11] And so Carey, he says something that at that time was really controversial.
[00:07:16] He says to this group of pastors in England in the 1780s, hey, guys, I think that the Great Commission, so Jesus command to make disciples of all the nations.
[00:07:27] I think that command is still binding on us right now.
[00:07:31] I think the command of Christ to go and make disciples of all the nations is binding on all Christians at all times until the end of the world.
[00:07:40] And that statement from Carrie, it caused quite a stir in the group.
[00:07:44] And you guys might know this part of the story, but an older pastor named John Ryland, he stands up, and as the story goes, this is what he says. This is what he says to Carrie.
[00:07:57] He says, young man, sit down.
[00:08:02] When God pleases to convert the heathen. So the heathen is just the way that they would talk about the nations who are lost.
[00:08:10] When God pleases to convert the heathen, he's going to do it without your aid or mine.
[00:08:16] And so that sounds insane to us now, especially as a church whose mission it is to preach Christ from all the scriptures and make disciples from all the nations. But this is the world in which William Carey lived.
[00:08:27] And this is the world and the context out of which the modern missions movement emerged. And so, kind of with that little bit of context, let's look at who's commonly referred to as the father of modern missions. And that's Dr. William Carey, the father of modern missions. And this will be point two on your handout, if you got one.
[00:08:52] So Carey was born in 1761 in Northamptonshire, England.
[00:08:57] He grew up super poor. You guys might know the fact about him that he eventually becomes a cobbler. So he's repairing shoes.
[00:09:05] He was raised Anglican, so he's raised in the Church of England, he's raised Anglican, but he eventually is converted, so he's born again. And then he becomes a Baptist.
[00:09:16] And he becomes a Baptist pastor of these really small rural congregations, one of them being in Moulton.
[00:09:24] And really early on in his ministry, he's going to get connected with some guys you might be familiar with.
[00:09:30] Andrew Fuller, John Ryland, Jr. John Sutcliffe, if you're familiar with Baptist history at all. Andrew Fuller is one of Cary's best friends.
[00:09:39] He's going to be really influential for Baptist theology.
[00:09:43] And it's really through these friendships with Fuller and Ryland and Sutcliffe that Carey in his study of the Scriptures. But Carey is going to come to believe that Jesus Command in Matthew 28 is binding on all Christians at all times.
[00:10:00] So he's going to come to understand early on in his ministry that he in the Church of Christ has has a responsibility to make disciples of all the nations.
[00:10:13] And if you remember that story I just told earlier, that was actually not very popular at the time, but nevertheless, for eight years, so eight years, William Carey and his friends Fuller and Ryland and Sutcliffe, they're going to gather on the first Monday of every month and they're going to pray for the nations.
[00:10:32] They're going to have this prayer meeting and they're going to pray that God would raise up missionaries and he would save the nations who are perishing.
[00:10:41] And in 1792, Cary's going to write. And I actually forgot the book. It's up in the office. But he's going to write this book and, you know, I still think he could have chosen a better title for this book. It's a really long title, but it ends up becoming his most. His most influential work.
[00:10:58] The book is called An Inquiry into the Obligation of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen.
[00:11:06] It's a really long title and we can just call it means call the book means for the sake of this class.
[00:11:13] But at the heart of this book, Carrie is going to argue that Matthew 28, the great commission, is binding on all Christians. And that sounds really simple to us and something we take for granted. But at that time, it actually caused quite a stir.
[00:11:28] And at the heart of this book, this is what Carey's going to argue. And this is. It's kind of a long quote, but I think it's really important to understand this movement.
[00:11:39] So this is a quote from the very beginning of that book.
[00:11:44] In this quote, this is an objection that would be raised against Carey, and this is how he answers it.
[00:11:50] He says, it's been objected that there are multitudes in our own nation and within our immediate spheres of action who are as ignorant as the South Sea savages, and therefore we have enough work at home without going into other countries.
[00:12:10] And so you guys actually have probably heard this objection before. Like, there's lost people all around us in Fayetteville.
[00:12:16] There's lost people all around us in the United States. So why would we go to Indonesia or Pakistan when we can just reach our neighbors for Christ?
[00:12:27] So we don't need to do missions because there's lost people all around us.
[00:12:30] But this is what, this is how Carey's going to respond to that.
[00:12:34] He's going to say, yes, that's true.
[00:12:37] But our own countrymen, they have the means of grace.
[00:12:44] They can attend the word preached if they choose it.
[00:12:47] They have the means of knowing the truth.
[00:12:51] And faithful ministers are placed in almost every part of the land whose spheres of action might be much extended if their congregations were but more hearty and active in the cause.
[00:13:03] And he's going to say, but with them. So this them is the South Sea savages, the unreached. He says, with them, the case is widely different.
[00:13:13] They have no Bible, no written language, no ministers, no good civil government, nor any of those advantages which we have.
[00:13:25] So he's saying, yes, there are lost people around us and there are churches around us, though, who are able to reach those people who can send ministers to go bring the gospel to people in the United States, in England, who have never heard about Christ. But there are people in the world, Carrie's going to say that Jesus purchased from all nations who have no way of knowing about him unless someone leaves their home and goes and brings the gospel to them. Because what Carey understood, and if you read his book, you'll understand this, is that God's mission in the world is not to make as many disciples as possible, because if it was his mission, then that would change our strategy, right? We should just go to the places that have the most amount of people.
[00:14:13] But what Carey understood and what we understand if we read the Scriptures, is that God's mission in the world is he wants followers from every tribe, every language, every people, and every nation. And so when William Carey looks at the world, he says, okay, Jesus commands us to make disciples from all the nations.
[00:14:33] So where are the nations and which ones don't have disciples.
[00:14:37] We need to go there and bring the gospel to them because Jesus is worthy of their worship. So we need to go.
[00:14:47] And later that year, after the publication of this book, Cary and his friends Andrew Fuller and John Ryland and John Sutcliffe and a group of about a dozen other men, they're going to meet in the back room of this widow's house in London.
[00:15:02] And they're going to found during that meeting what would later become known as the Baptist Missionary Society, which would become the London Baptist Missionary Society.
[00:15:16] And this is how one of the men who was there, his name is John Ryland, this is how he's going to remember that meeting years later. And you guys, if you know anything about William Carey, you probably know this story.
[00:15:29] This is what he's going to say.
[00:15:31] He says, our undertaking to India, so they're talking about India in this meeting, really appeared to me on its commencement to be somewhat like a few men who were deliberating about the importance of penetrating into a deep mine which had never before been explored.
[00:15:50] We had no one to guide us. And while we were thus deliberating, William Carey, as it were, said, well, I will go down if you will hold the rope.
[00:16:03] But before he went down, he, as it seemed to me, took an oath from each of us at the mouth of the pit to this effect that while we lived, we should never let go of the rope.
[00:16:18] And so Carey volunteers to be the one to go down to the mine, as it were, to the ends of the earth, only if the other men in the Missionary Society at the time would hold the rope as he goes down.
[00:16:34] And so with Carey resolved to be the first missionary from the Baptist Missionary Society, the question then really became, where would he go? Exactly. So they had thought about India, but the possibilities really were endless. And it's at this time in God's providence where a surgeon from England who had been living in India is going to go on home assignment in England. He's going to connect with the Baptist Missionary Society, and through that relationship, Kerry is going to volunteer to go back to India with him to be the first missionaries formally sent from England to India.
[00:17:15] And so with India really in his crosshairs, Carey's going to start to make preparations to move across the world to bring the gospel to India.
[00:17:25] And it's at this point in Carey's story where we have to remember that while William Carey was a great man, he was just a man.
[00:17:35] And what I'm about to tell you is I would say a stain on his Life. And it's a reminder that he was flawed just like we were.
[00:17:44] So Kerry's getting ready to leave for India.
[00:17:48] He is married at the time to his wife named Dorothy. And as Kerry's getting his family ready to go on the ship to India, called the Oxford, his wife Dorothy is going to refuse to go.
[00:18:04] She was pregnant at the time. They had a young child.
[00:18:07] And you can imagine. So you can just see it from her perspective. Moving to India, to what was known at the time as the South Sea savages, did not sound like a good idea to her.
[00:18:19] It scared her. She was terrified.
[00:18:22] And so Kerry makes a decision that we do not want to emulate.
[00:18:26] He decides to go to India anyways without Dorothy. And so he gets his oldest son, Felix, and really, through a string of events that we can only say was God's providence, they're aboard the ship and it ends up never being able to set sail for India.
[00:18:44] And so he has to get off the ship. And it's really through that delay where his wife Dorothy ends up having a change of heart.
[00:18:51] And she ends up deciding that she wants to go to India with Kerry. So they all board the ship together. And In June of 1793, the whole Carey family, they set sail to Calcutta. Calcutta. And this is kind of the route they would have taken. You can see they would have gone from England, they would have gone south around the Cape of Good Hope on the southern tip of Africa, and they would have arrived in Calcutta. And that was a five month journey on a ship.
[00:19:19] Five months on a boat, man. And now we can get there through plane in less than 24 hours.
[00:19:27] So they're on the ship for five months.
[00:19:30] And as they land in India, Kerry's going to face almost immediate opposition from what at the time was the British East India Company, if you've ever heard of them. They controlled most of India at that time, especially the part where Kerry was.
[00:19:46] And quickly Kerry's going to. Through opposition from them, and he actually runs out of money.
[00:19:51] He's going to be forced by the British East India Company to manage an indigo factory in a city called Munabadi in India.
[00:20:01] And so he's going to actually labor there, managing this indigo factory for seven years.
[00:20:08] And while he's there, he has time to learn the language. So he becomes a master of the Bengali language.
[00:20:14] He translates a large portion of the New Testament into Bengali. He's learning a language, he's evangelizing.
[00:20:23] And it's in the midst of all this where Cary gets hit with one of his first major trials as a missionary. So he, they had a young son named Peter. Peter contracted dysentery and actually ended up passing away in the midst of that seven year span when he's managing the indigo factory.
[00:20:44] And the loss of their son Peter really marks the start of his wife Dorothy's mental health decline. And if you guys have ever read anything about Carrie, you know, it's a really complicated and confusing part of his story. And if you want to learn more about that, I would recommend picking up a biography and reading more about that.
[00:21:05] But Carey continues to labor even through the loss of his son in mood and body for seven years. And during the seven year span, he doesn't see a single person come to Christ.
[00:21:16] So he's a master of the language. He's translated a portion of the scriptures into the Bengali language and they don't see a single person come to faith in Christ.
[00:21:25] And eventually through the London Baptist Missionary Society, they're going to send more missionaries to India.
[00:21:33] Carey and his family are going to relocate to a city called Serampore.
[00:21:37] And it's really there in Sarampur, working with other missionaries where Carey is going to start to see fruit for his years of language learning and labor. And he's going to actually labor there in Serampore for 35 more years until his death.
[00:21:52] He's going to be buried there.
[00:21:54] And so I said they start to see fruit here. Well, in the fall of 1800, after they moved to Serampore, there's a young Bengali man. So just think about up to this point, not a single person has come to Christ through his labors.
[00:22:10] But in the fall of 1800, there's this Bengali man by the name of Krishna, Paul.
[00:22:15] And Krishna is bathing in the Hooghly River. So he's taking a bath.
[00:22:20] And as he's taking a bath, he slips on the bank of the river falls and dislocates his shoulder.
[00:22:28] So he's got a dislocated shoulder. He climbs out of the river and he does. The only thing he can think of is to find the nearest doctor.
[00:22:37] And by God's providence, where he was bathing in the river was right next to the mission house where the missionaries lived in Serampore.
[00:22:47] And so he goes, you can imagine this guy, he goes to the mission house and he's like, guys, I really just messed up my shoulder. Like, you think you could set this back into place, get me a sling and I'm going to go on my way.
[00:22:58] Well, what he didn't know is he was walking into the House of the four first missionaries to India from England.
[00:23:06] And so he walks into the house, they do get his shoulder fixed, but as he goes on his way, they give him a rhyme to consider. And this. This is something that would have been common for the missionaries to do. It was, if you're familiar with Hinduism, they have something called mantras. And so this was their version of a mantra to give him to consider as he goes back home.
[00:23:27] And this is what the missionaries tell him.
[00:23:30] They say, krishna, I want you to think about this.
[00:23:34] What does this mean?
[00:23:36] Sin confessing sin, forsaking Christ's righteousness, embracing the soul is free.
[00:23:46] And so he's. You can imagine him hearing that. He's like, I have no idea what that means.
[00:23:50] He's a Hindu. He's been raised a Hindu. He's really confused.
[00:23:54] And so he actually ends up talking to the missionaries for about a month.
[00:23:59] He goes back and forth with the missionaries. They're able to converse with him because they've all mastered the language by this point.
[00:24:05] And after about a month of Krishna thinking about this rhyme, he's going to tell the missionaries that he's actually come to faith in Christ.
[00:24:16] And he's going to tell them, and I quote, that Christ gave up his life for the salvation of sinners. And I personally embrace that truth.
[00:24:27] And so Kerry's gonna baptize him in the very same river that he was bathing in whenever he dislocated his shoulder, the Hooghly River.
[00:24:35] So you can see there's Ward and Marshman, his co workers, right there with all the. The scene is painted as a bunch of Hindus looking on as they watch Krishna get baptized.
[00:24:47] And Krishna would just be the first of hundreds and eventually thousands of Hindus in India who would come to know the Lord Jesus Christ through William Carey and through his co workers.
[00:25:01] And Carey and his co workers accomplished a lot while they were in India.
[00:25:07] They raised up leaders. Actually. This guy Krishna would end up being in the church that they planted, the primary preacher. He would end up preaching 12 to 14 times a week and writing all of the most popular hymns for the church.
[00:25:22] They would raise up other Hindu leaders who would go and plant other churches, churches, by the way, which are still around today.
[00:25:31] Cary Baptist Church, it's been renamed since Cary didn't name it Cary Baptist Church. But this is the church that they planted. And you can go there. They actually just met a couple hours ago.
[00:25:42] They're ahead of us in time zone. They met a couple of hours ago. You can go to the church right now that they Planted and you can hear the gospel preached in three different languages there.
[00:25:53] They founded Saraimpur College, carried which they just started a new semester on July 23, over 200 years later.
[00:26:03] They offer a bunch of different degrees and they're completely ran by Hindu faculty and staff.
[00:26:12] Carrie and the missionaries there in Serampur, they translated or supervised the translation of the Bible into six of the major Hindu languages. So Bengali, Sanskrit, Marathi, Hindi, Assamese and Oria. And then they translated portions of the Scriptures into 29 other of the languages of India.
[00:26:35] So they. They accomplished a lot. And as. As we wrap up Kerry's life, and I know we didn't. We didn't get to talk about a lot.
[00:26:41] There's. There's a quote from Cary, and you guys probably know this, but I don't think. You can't talk. You can't talk about Kerry's life without talking about this quote.
[00:26:51] Kerry, by the end of his life, had become quite popular. He'd become somewhat of a celebrity in London, which he hated that, by the way, but he had become quite a celebrity. And he gets a letter asking to write about his life. So someone wants to write a biography about him.
[00:27:07] And this is what he says.
[00:27:09] This is what he writes back.
[00:27:12] He says, if anyone should think it worth his while to write my life, if he will give me credit for being a plotter. Plotter, he will describe me justly.
[00:27:23] Anything beyond this will be too much.
[00:27:27] I can plod.
[00:27:29] I can persevere in any definite pursuit.
[00:27:33] And to this I owe everything.
[00:27:38] So that word might sound funny to plod.
[00:27:42] It just means to persevere in a definite pursuit. He's going to define it right there. It's to keep moving forward, even when there's obstacles in your way. It's to take one step every day, put one foot in front of the other. Because missions, as Kerry understood, is a task that requires a life of plotting.
[00:28:05] It requires a life of pursuit, of a task in one direction. Because Kerry, he's going to suffer a lot on the mission field.
[00:28:15] He's going to bury two children.
[00:28:18] He's going to bury two of his wives, his first wife and his second wife, Charlotte.
[00:28:22] He's going to be sick on and off for most of his adult life.
[00:28:26] The mission is going to endure a fire that destroys all their translation work, years of translation work, all destroyed in a fire.
[00:28:35] He's going to face constant oppression from the British East India Company and from locals.
[00:28:41] But he kept working.
[00:28:43] Carrie kept working day after day because he had a goal. He had a prize.
[00:28:48] That was bigger than all of his suffering, which was the glory of Christ among all the peoples of the earth. And that kept him going whenever things got hard.
[00:28:59] And this is what Carey had inscribed on his gravestone, which he's buried there in Serampore in India. And you can go visit his grave.
[00:29:08] This is what he had inscribed on his gravestone when he died.
[00:29:12] It says, a wretched, poor and helpless worm, on thy kind arms I fall.
[00:29:19] So Carey, he was a great man, but he was just a man.
[00:29:24] And at the end of his life, he looks back and realizes he needed the grace of God, just like all of us.
[00:29:31] So if you want to learn more about Carrie and really the modern missions movement, there's this book that I. This is my copy, actually. I read as I was preparing for this class. It's called the Missionary Fellowship of William Carey. It will give you really good insight into the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society, the modern missions movement and Carey's life. It's really short.
[00:29:54] Anyone want this book?
[00:29:56] Anyone want this?
[00:29:58] Okay. I saw your hand back there. You can come get it after from up front. Okay.
[00:30:04] All right, well, let's move on.
[00:30:07] If Carey's the father of modern missions, it would be fair to say that Adoniram Judson would be the father of American missions. The father of American missions.
[00:30:21] And so you'll see there in your handout, Adoniram Judson and the rise of American missions.
[00:30:27] And just by the way, you might have heard his name pronounced Adoniram, that might be how you usually pronounce it. You know, I pronounced it like that for years and I was corrected recently that apparently it's Adoniram. So yes, if you go back and forth, if I go back and forth during the class, I'm sorry, just know if I say Adoniram or Adoniram, I'm talking about the same guy. So.
[00:30:53] All right, so Adoniram was born in 1788 in a city called Malden, Massachusetts.
[00:31:05] His father was a Congregationalist pastor. And if you read his biography, one of the things that you're going to really quickly figure out is that Adoniram came out of the womb a genius.
[00:31:20] So if you've read his biography, his parents claim that he learned to read at 3 years old.
[00:31:28] And if you have a 3 year old or you've ever met a 3 year old, like I've served in the 3 year old class at UBC, those kids cannot read. They can read maybe one word, but apparently Adoniram was reading his father chapters of the Bible at three Years old.
[00:31:44] So, you know, who knows if that's true? It could be myth. But the point is, he was very smart.
[00:31:51] He was very smart, and it's one of the things that the Lord's going to use in his missionary career to really help him.
[00:31:57] But for the sake of time, what you need to know that's really important is that Adoniram, from his youth, became acquainted with the sacred writings. He became acquainted with the sacred writings, as Paul will say of Timothy. He knew his Bible really well.
[00:32:13] His dad taught him the Bible from a really early age.
[00:32:16] But Adoniram is going to actually go to college at Brown University, and he's going to be one of the top students at Brown.
[00:32:23] A top student.
[00:32:25] And it's during his time at Brown, it used to be called. It was called Rhode Island College at the time. He's going to meet a student named Jacob Eames, and him and Jacob Eames are really quickly going to become best friends.
[00:32:40] Jacob Eames was a deist.
[00:32:42] So if you know anything about deism, it's a religious philosophy from the 17, 1800s, which essentially teaches that a supreme being, God, created the world, set some laws in place, and then kind of took a step back.
[00:32:58] So deists believe God doesn't interfere in the world in any way.
[00:33:02] He doesn't do miracles. He doesn't speak. He doesn't interfere with us as humans. And so Eames, Jacob Eames, his deism is going to rub off on Adoniram. They're going to become best friends.
[00:33:17] And Adoniram comes to the point where he completely actually rejects the Christianity of his youth that he grew up with.
[00:33:26] And it's going to get to the point where he actually drops out of college at Brown. He drops out of college even though he's a top student.
[00:33:33] His parents are absolutely furious.
[00:33:36] And he decides, you know what? I'm going to try my luck on Broadway. I'm going to go to New York, and I'm going to try theater.
[00:33:43] So he leaves Brown University as a top student. You can think about how mad his parents would have been. If you read his biography, they are so mad.
[00:33:51] He leaves Brown and he goes to New York to try out theater.
[00:33:55] And it's kind of funny. He makes it like three weeks and he runs out of money. And he realizes, you know, like, maybe this whole Broadway thing isn't for me. Like, this is not working out.
[00:34:06] And so it's like the prodigal son. He makes the shameful journey. He's like, I gotta go back home. Like, I have no Money. Broadway's not working out. So he heads from New York.
[00:34:15] He goes back home, and it's on his way back home. You guys, if you know Donna's story, you know this story.
[00:34:22] He's on his way back home, and he stops at an inn to rest.
[00:34:27] So he's going from New York to Massachusetts. He stops at this inn, and he lays down to sleep. And you guys know an inn. It's like a hotel. It's got a bunch of rooms.
[00:34:38] And the guy in the room next to him sounds like he's about to die.
[00:34:44] The guy in the room next to him, he's coughing. He's, like, heaving.
[00:34:48] He's having trouble catching his breath. He. His breathing is slowing down.
[00:34:52] They didn't have insulated walls like we would have had. So Adoniram can hear everything.
[00:34:57] And he's hearing footsteps back and forth in the hallway, and that guy in the room next to him who was dying. It causes Adoniram to start thinking about his own life.
[00:35:09] What would happen if he died?
[00:35:11] What's going to happen to the guy in the room next to him when he dies?
[00:35:15] Because the best answer that deism gave Adoniram was, I don't know. We can't know what happens whenever we die.
[00:35:23] And so Adoniram, he's tossing and turning all night, and he'll describe his soul as being, like, in anguish. He couldn't sleep.
[00:35:33] So he finally is able to fall asleep. And he wakes up late in the inn, and he goes to the innkeeper and, you know, he's paying so that he can go on his way back home.
[00:35:44] And he asked the innkeeper, like, hey, man, that guy who was in the room next to me, like, he wasn't doing so well. Is he okay? Like, what happened to him?
[00:35:55] And the innkeeper responds, he says, he actually died last night.
[00:36:01] He died.
[00:36:03] Don Arms, kind of. He's taken back. And he goes, he died. Wow.
[00:36:08] What was his name? Who was he?
[00:36:11] Innkeeper responds, oh, it's that Eames boy from Brown, Jacob Eames.
[00:36:19] Adoniram didn't realize it, but the guy dying in the room next to him was his best friend, Jacob Eames, the deist.
[00:36:29] And so you can imagine, Adoniram is absolutely devastated by this.
[00:36:36] He's concerned because he doesn't know what happens to. He didn't know what happened to Eames after he died because he's a deist at this point.
[00:36:45] And so he makes the journey back home devastated. But by God's providence, that event, the death of his best friend in the Room next to him is going to be what the Lord uses to eventually bring Adoniram back to Christ.
[00:36:59] He's going to use it to lead to his conversion.
[00:37:02] And so Adonim returns home, he becomes a Christian, and he enrolls at the time what was Andover Seminary.
[00:37:09] And during his senior year, he picks up this book.
[00:37:12] It's called An Embassy. It's called an account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, which was Burma at the time. Eva was the capital of Burma, which is modern day Myanmar, if you know Myanmar, next to Thailand.
[00:37:27] And so he picks up this book, and it's written by a British army officer, and it just. It's an account of the Burmese people, of their customs, of their religion, which was Buddhism.
[00:37:40] And his biographer is going to explain Adoniram's experience reading the book like this. This is what he's going to say, Adoniram. This is what he's thinking.
[00:37:49] He says, what a prospect Burma is for a missionary, thought Adoniram as he turned the pages of Syme's book.
[00:37:57] Surely a people like this needed nothing but the true word of God.
[00:38:05] What other place than Burma on earth offered a promise of such a harvest of souls?
[00:38:12] So Donaram, he reads this book. He becomes aware of the needs that the needs for the gospel to reach the kingdom of Burma.
[00:38:20] And later that year, he's going to be on a walk in the woods behind the seminary. He would often just take walks by himself.
[00:38:28] And this is how he's going to remember that event.
[00:38:31] He's on a walk in the woods and he's going to say, it was during a solitary walk in the woods behind the college while meditating and praying on the subject and feeling half inclined to give it up, that the command of Christ go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, was presented to my mind with such clearness and power that I came to a full decision.
[00:38:58] And though great difficulties appeared in my way, I resolved to obey the command at all events.
[00:39:06] And so you'd say this was his moment where he decided, I want to be a missionary.
[00:39:11] I want to bring the gospel to people who have never heard it. And so Adoniram at this point is resolved to be a missionary. And around this time, God's going to be moving in the hearts of several other college students in different colleges and opening their eyes to his global purposes. And so that brings us, you'll see on your handout there, to the Haystack prayer meeting.
[00:39:34] The Haystack prayer meeting. You guys might know this story.
[00:39:39] This happens in 1806. So four years before this moment for Adoniram, there's five students from Williams College, Samuel Mills being one of them. This is him right here.
[00:39:53] They are praying out in this grove. They're having a prayer meeting, and they're praying for the nations.
[00:40:00] They're praying that God would send out the gospel to Asia and that he would use them to do that.
[00:40:07] And in the middle of this prayer meeting, they get hit with a massive storm. A huge storm comes out of nowhere, and they end up taking refuge under this haystack. That's why it's called the haystack Prayer Meeting.
[00:40:20] They take refuge under this haystack. And it's during this prayer meeting that Samuel Mills leads this group of men to decide to commit their lives to bringing the gospel to Asia.
[00:40:35] To bringing the gospel to Asia.
[00:40:38] And these students are actually going to graduate from Williams College, and they're going to join Adoniram at Andover Seminary. They're going to go to seminary with Adoniram. And so Adoniram gets connected with them. They all figure out that they want to be missionaries, that they want to bring the gospel to Asia.
[00:40:57] And together, these men, these college students, are going to be the spark. They're going to be the catalyst for what would eventually become the first American Board for Foreign missions, founded in 1810 in Bradford, Massachusetts. And so these men together, even though they're college students, they petition to the Congregational churches in their area, and they say, hey, we want to be missionaries, but we have no way to get overseas.
[00:41:25] And so they end up founding the American Board of Commissioners for foreign missions in 1810.
[00:41:31] And this was a big deal, because before this, if you wanted to be a missionary in America, there was no formal way to be sent overseas.
[00:41:40] There was no missions board. Like I said, there's no imb, there's no gsi, there's no missions organization to help send you and get you overseas. And so this is a big deal.
[00:41:52] And the founding of this missionary board that day was a big day for Adoniram because not only had he helped start the first American Board for Foreign Missions, but that night, the very same night, he's going to be invited over to dinner at the house of one of the deacons of the hosting church.
[00:42:12] And it's at this dinner that he's going to spot a young woman by the name of Anne Hasseltine or Nancy Hasseltine as she went by. And I'm just going to let you read how his biographer described a Donoram's interaction.
[00:42:29] This is like the first time I met Emma Claire just read this.
[00:42:33] He said he had never seen a girl like her.
[00:42:37] He was anything but shy.
[00:42:40] Yet when Parson Allen introduced him and she looked him full in the face, he was struck dumb.
[00:42:47] He could hardly make an intelligent reply when he was asked a question about the missionary movement at the seminary. And so on the same day that Adoniram helps found the first American board for Foreign missions, he's going to fall in love. He's going to be struck dumb by Anne Haseltine, and he quickly is going to pursue marriage with her.
[00:43:09] And if you guys know Adoniram's story, you know what I'm about to say. He's going to write a letter to Ann's father.
[00:43:18] And if you're dating someone in here, I just want to let you know I would not recommend doing this to your future father in law. What he's about to say in this letter. But this is what he writes to.
[00:43:29] This is what he writes to Anne's father.
[00:43:32] He says, I now have to ask you, Mr. Hasseltine, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring to see her no more in this world.
[00:43:45] Whether you can consent to her departure and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life.
[00:43:52] 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 the perishing immortal souls, for the sake of and the glory of God?
[00:44:06] 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 redound to her Savior from heathen saved through her means, from eternal woe and despair.
[00:44:23] So, like I said, I wouldn't recommend doing this if you're asking your future father in law for his blessing, but he's actually going to give Adoniram his blessing. And so Adoniram quickly moves to marry Anne Hasseltine.
[00:44:38] And they were married in February of 1812.
[00:44:41] And for their honeymoon, two weeks later, they're going to go on a cruise.
[00:44:46] Just kidding. They don't go on a cruise.
[00:44:49] They get on a boat called the Caravan. Two weeks after they get married and they sail to Burma.
[00:44:55] They actually have to stop in India first because there was no direct ships to Burma.
[00:45:00] But they set sail with five other families and couples. And they're the first American missionaries sent by the American Board of Foreign Missions.
[00:45:12] And during their voyage, they, Adoniram knows that they're going to have to stop in India, and they're going to actually connect with William Carey when they get there.
[00:45:24] And so this causes Adoniram to start thinking over the topic of baptism, because Adoniram was raised a Congregationalist and he was baptized as an infant.
[00:45:35] And so he's thinking about baptism. He actually, while he's on the boat, he translates the.
[00:45:40] He starts translating the New Testament into Greek.
[00:45:43] And it's through that translation of the New Testament or from Greek to English that he starts to be convinced that believers baptism is actually the biblical position.
[00:45:55] And so he's on the boat. He had just been sent by a Congregationalist mission board, but he's on his way to India, and he becomes a Baptist on the boat.
[00:46:07] And just fortunately for Adoniram, as soon as he steps off the boat in India, he actually connects with William Carey. So he sees William Carey, gets off the boat, and immediately he starts talking over the topic of baptism.
[00:46:22] And through his conversations with William Carey, Adoniram actually is baptized. Adoniram and Ann are baptized actually in the same church.
[00:46:33] It wasn't called Cary Baptist Church, but they're baptized in this very church that actually just met a couple of hours ago.
[00:46:39] It was called Law Bazaar Baptist Church. And so they're baptized there, they become Baptist, and then they set sail for Burma.
[00:46:49] You can see this.
[00:46:51] So they're going to leave from India right here, and they're going to sail over to a city called Rangoon. And you see this is Myanmar. It used to be called Burma. So it's modern day Myanmar.
[00:47:06] And it's on the way there that while they're on their way to Burma, that Ann, she actually was pregnant at the time. She's going to go into labor on their way there.
[00:47:18] And while she's giving birth, they actually hit with a storm, and Ann falls ill. And unfortunately, before they even reach land, Ann gives birth to a stillborn infant before they even reach land.
[00:47:34] So you can imagine if you've experienced that, the grief that filled their hearts before they even set foot in Burma as missionaries.
[00:47:46] So with hearts full of grief, they're going to start their missionary careers in Burma.
[00:47:56] And so they get there, they're grieving the loss of their child, but they start learning the language.
[00:48:04] And for the first two years, Adoniram is going to work 12 hours a day with a language helper to learn the language. 12 hours a day for two years, he's going to learn the language.
[00:48:16] And it's in the midst of these two years where Ann's going to get pregnant again. And she's going to give birth to a little boy named Roger.
[00:48:23] And Adoniram would describe that season with Roger and Ann in Burma as one of the greatest seasons of their whole life.
[00:48:31] They were learning the language, they were excelling, making progress.
[00:48:36] But a couple years, actually eight months after he was born, little Roger, he got dysentery and he fell ill and passed away also.
[00:48:48] And so within the first two years, the Judsons had been hit with two massive trials.
[00:48:55] And you can imagine the grief that was filling their hearts, the questions like, why are we even here?
[00:49:02] Was it a mistake to come here?
[00:49:04] But they're going to continue and they're going to stay burma. And for seven years, Adoniram is going to work pretty much 12 hours a day to learn the language.
[00:49:16] Ann is going to also become really proficient in the language. And he's going to. Donoram is going to complete his translation of the New Testament into Burmese.
[00:49:28] And it's around this time that he completes his translation of the New Testament where they start to see evidences of grace in the hearts of the Burmans.
[00:49:35] A young man named Hmong Nao, he starts to show interest in the Gospel. And Adoniram is going to spend hours and hours and hours each day talking to this guy named Wong Nao.
[00:49:48] And eventually through conversation with him, Hwang now is going to turn from Buddhism and he's going to embrace Christianity.
[00:49:56] He's going to become the first Burmese convert to Christianity.
[00:50:01] The history of Burma.
[00:50:03] And I just want you to listen to what Adoniram said about that moment.
[00:50:08] He says, I begin to think that the grace of God has reached Hwang Now's heart.
[00:50:12] He expressed sentiments of repentance for his sins and faith in the Savior.
[00:50:17] The substance of his profession is that from the darkness and uncleanness and sins of his whole life, he has found no other savior but Jesus Christ.
[00:50:31] Nowhere else can he look for salvation.
[00:50:34] And therefore he proposes to adhere to Christ and worship him all his life long.
[00:50:40] It seems almost too much to believe that God has begun to manifest his grace to the Burmans.
[00:50:46] But to this day, I could not resist the delightful conviction that this is really the case.
[00:50:53] Praise and glory be to his name forevermore. Amen.
[00:50:58] So you can imagine six years, 12 hours a day, they had seen no fruit. And finally they start to see evidences of grace and fruit of their labor. And so Hmong now is going to be really the first of hundreds and eventually thousands who are going to come to faith in Christ through Adoniram in his ministry.
[00:51:22] And it's around this time that actually war breaks out. And this is a, this is a photo in his biography of Maung Ngao's baptism. But it's around this time that war is going to break out between Britain and Burma.
[00:51:36] And Adoniram, during this war gets suspected of being a spy for Britain. Even though he was an American, they suspect him of being a spy.
[00:51:46] And he's arrested and he's put in a Burmese death prison.
[00:51:52] And if just the name Burmese death prison doesn't sound bad, they actually, through some eyewitness testimony have been able to put together what one of these prisons would have looked like.
[00:52:04] And so you can see here, prisoners were often, and this is, Adoniram's going to talk about this in his biography.
[00:52:10] But prisoners were often hung for hours a day upside down.
[00:52:14] They weren't allowed to have any food unless someone brought them food. They had no bedding, no pillows, it was disgusting. They lived off like rats that they would catch on the ground.
[00:52:28] And when you're reading his biography, you get to this point and you start to realize that the best decision Adoniram had ever made in his life besides following Jesus, was marrying Ann Judson.
[00:52:40] Because every single day while Adoniram is in prison, she's going to make the multiple mile trek while pregnant to bring him food and keep him alive.
[00:52:51] Every single day, she's going to hike multiple miles and bring him food to keep him alive. She's going to smuggle him the only existing copy at the time of the Burmese New Testament, she's going to stitch it inside of a pillow and trick one of the prison guards in order to get him to him so he could protect it.
[00:53:10] And eventually, after two years of these really harsh conditions, Adoniram is going to be released from prison at the conclusion of the war and he's going to be used as a translator by the Burmese government as they negotiated a peace treaty with Britain.
[00:53:28] And unfortunately, caring for Adoniram during those two years, it had broken Anne's health so much to the point that she fell ill after he was released and she never was able to recover. And so she's gonna, he's gonna lose ann to illness 11 months after he's released from prison.
[00:53:46] And Adoniram is gonna describe that period of his life as the darkest days of his entire life.
[00:53:54] He's basically gonna become a hermit, as he would describe himself, and he's gonna go in the woods and he's going to spend months alone in solitude.
[00:54:03] But he eventually rebounds. And after Anne's death He remarries and he works in Burma for another 24 years.
[00:54:12] So he's going to be in Burma 37 total years.
[00:54:15] He's going to complete the entire translation of the Bible into Burmese, which, by the way, his Bible translation is still being used today by Burmese Christians in Myanmar with a slight. With just a couple slight alterations, his translation is still being used.
[00:54:31] You can see the. The translation of the Bible right there.
[00:54:34] That's the first copy.
[00:54:37] And he planted churches which, like Carrie, are still meeting today and now in Burma.
[00:54:45] Burma has the third most Baptists of any country in the world besides India and the United States.
[00:54:52] And so just think about the legacy of Kerry and Judson on the countries in which they worked.
[00:54:59] It's incredible. And so if you want to learn more about Judson and about his life, I have. Let me get this book.
[00:55:10] I have two books to give away.
[00:55:14] The first one I'd actually love to give away to a lady.
[00:55:18] And I haven't read this one, but my wife, Emma Claire has read this. It's called Ann A Missionary Life for Burma. And if you want to learn more about Anne and her life, this would be a great resource. Anyone want this?
[00:55:32] Okay.
[00:55:34] I saw your hand. You can come get it after the class.
[00:55:37] Got it.
[00:55:39] And then this one, I would say it's the best missionary biography ever written. It's called to the Golden Wonderful Account of Adoniram's Life. Anyone want this?
[00:55:50] Okay. Come get it after the class.
[00:55:53] Okay.
[00:55:56] Well, for the sake of time, we weren't able to talk a ton about their lives, but hopefully, through the lives of Adoniram and Carrie, you were able to get just a glimpse of the type of missionaries and the type of work that emerged in the modern missions movement.
[00:56:13] And as we close this morning, I just want to leave us with a couple takeaways, a couple lessons for us as a church as we think about the modern missions movement and as we move forward.
[00:56:26] So the first one you'll see in your handout there is, I think if we're going to take away anything from the modern missions movement, it's the significance of prayer.
[00:56:37] The significance of prayer for missions.
[00:56:40] The modern missions movement was it was both started and it was sustained by prayer.
[00:56:46] Whether it was Carrie and Fuller praying for eight years before Carrie ever went overseas, or the haystack prayer meeting, which was the spark of the American missions movement.
[00:56:59] Missions is both started and it's fueled by prayer. And since we're already talking about William Carey, he said this about prayer and missions, and I think it's true.
[00:57:11] He says the most glorious works of grace that have ever took place have been an answer to prayer.
[00:57:20] You know, it can be tempting to think that all the things that these men did, they did in isolation, they just did it by themselves.
[00:57:28] But that's just not true.
[00:57:31] William, Carrie and Adoniram Judson, they rode the waves of thousands and thousands and thousands who were praying for them back home.
[00:57:40] Not to mention all the years of prayer that they themselves did before they even left. So I think prayer is the single most important but also the easiest way that we can be involved right here in Fayetteville and God's global purposes. And so that'd be the first one I would say prayer. Praying for the world, praying for the nations and praying for our workers.
[00:58:02] And then the next one, a lesson that as I read these guys biographies that pops off the page, is how important it is to learn language and culture when we're doing missions.
[00:58:14] The modern missions movement, it really with Carrie started for him with a conviction that in order to effectively do cross cultural missions, missionaries would need to master the language and the culture of the people that they're trying to reach.
[00:58:30] Because it's words heard in a language that we can understand.
[00:58:35] That's the means by which God communicates his saving grace to us.
[00:58:39] And so all the nations in the world, all the peoples who are lost and perishing without Christ, who are his enemies because of their sin, they're never going to become friends with God unless someone brings the gospel to them in a language that they can understand.
[00:58:57] There's this dude named Scott Swain and he wrote this book, it's called Trinity Revelation and Reading.
[00:59:04] And he has this quote in the book and it's one of those quotes that when you read it, it stops you in your tracks.
[00:59:11] And I just want you to think about this quote and how it relates to missions and how we think about missions at ubc. This is what he says.
[00:59:20] He says God speaks to us in our language in the Bible as a consequence of his covenantal purpose.
[00:59:27] God desires to be our God and to make us his people.
[00:59:32] God condescends to us in covenant communication because God condescends to us in covenant friendship and friends must speak the same language.
[00:59:46] And so when we do missions, if we want the nations to become friends with God, we need to bring the gospel to them in a language that they can understand because friends have to speak the same language. So they need to hear God's word in a language that they can understand.
[01:00:05] And then lastly, and there's A lot of lessons, but this is just one I want us to think about this morning is the necessity to be patient in missions, patience in missions.
[01:00:17] Because another thing that the modern missions movement teaches us is that bringing the gospel to unreached peoples is not something that happens overnight.
[01:00:27] It's absolutely not something that happens quickly.
[01:00:30] It took William Carey seven years and it took Adoniram six years before they ever saw a single person come to Christ.
[01:00:38] Not to mention the decades of labor after that that it took to plant churches, to disciple those converts to translate the scriptures.
[01:00:46] And so for us, from our perspective, missions is a long term task.
[01:00:53] And if we just think about, for us as those who are staying in Fayetteville so we're not overseas as missionaries, we need to be prepared to hold the rope for a lifetime for our supported workers.
[01:01:05] They need our support for a lifetime because they're committing to a lifetime of work and missions.
[01:01:13] Well, as we, as we close this morning, I didn't want to end the class without doing this, so I'm glad we have time.
[01:01:22] I wanted us to take a second and I just want to highlight our scent workers at ubc.
[01:01:28] You guys, I'm not going to say their names because I guess this isn't being recorded anymore because I forgot to record it.
[01:01:34] But just for security I'm not going to say their names. But you guys know them by their faces.
[01:01:39] Some of you guys have known these people for years.
[01:01:42] Some of them were really dear friends to you. Some of them are family.
[01:01:49] These families that we've sent through UBC are seeking to do the same work that marked the modern missions movement.
[01:01:57] I think we as a church at UBC have, we've taken up the responsibility of Judson and Carey.
[01:02:03] We have taken up the responsibility to steward our lives, our resources, our budget, our time to make Christ known where he isn't.
[01:02:13] And I think these families are an evidence of that.
[01:02:17] And we've given our best, we've sent our best because we believe, just like Carrie and just like Judson, that Jesus is worthy of the worship of all peoples and he's worthy of us giving and sending our best.
[01:02:34] And I know for a lot of us this has been been a hard season for a lot of us.
[01:02:42] And I'm not gonna sit up here and act like it's been like sunshine and rainbows because that's not fair.
[01:02:47] It's not fair to those of you who have been hurting, for those of us who are hurting.
[01:02:52] But what I think really important for us in the midst of this really hard season is, and this is good for our souls, is for us to lift up our eyes and to see what God's doing in the world.
[01:03:06] To think about our scent workers and to think about these families right here who are evidences of God's grace and goodness to this church in this season. They need our support.
[01:03:18] They need our love, they need our prayers, they need our communication, and they need us to hold the rope while they're gone.
