Adoniram Judson, pt2 2019 - John 12:24

Ed and Hiram Johnson lived a life of adventure and suffering but he didn't want to talk about himself. He wanted to talk about Christ and the power of the gospel to change lives.

Everybody wanted to meet the first American missionaries in our return. 20 years later with stories of distant lands and rate disease and present shackles and get all that stuff congregations are somewhat disappointed that instead of talking about his adventures.

He most often simply wanted to whisper at an Hiram Johnson lived a life of adventure and danger and suffering.

Coupled with incredible faithfulness for God. It's only natural that when people met him. They wanted to hear stories of God's grace and learn more about how God works through his life and ministry, but Judson didn't want to talk about himself.

He wanted to talk about Christ and the power of the gospel to change lives.

His incredible example is our theme today here on wisdom for the heart. Stephen Devi continues through his series legacies of light now pierced on the same day he presented itself to the Congregationalist mission board, he met a young woman named and hassle time in over the next few weeks.

They quickly fell in love and I was clear about his life goal is a letter to Ann's father is revealing to read some of it to because it reveals his passion for the lost and and it's almost prophetic in detail the letter reads.

By the way dad's imagine some young man wanting to marry your daughter, and his proposal sounding like 1800 and I quote I have now to ask you whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring to see her no more in this world is a. Think about it.

Listen whether you can consent to her departure for a heathen land. Her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of the missionaries life whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean to the fatal influences of the southern climate of India to every kind of wanted to stress to degradation insult persecution and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this for the sake of him who left his heavenly home and died for her and for you, for the sake of perishing immortal souls for the sake of heaven and the glory of God. Can you consent to all this in the promise of meeting your daughter in the world of glory with a crown of righteousness brightened by the exclamations of heathen now save through her means who will there be praising her Savior as ever proposal can imagine, I'd like to take your daughter away from you to heathen land which will probably suffer every deprived nation and more than likely a violent death you can see, can't you in this young man no holds barred. This is what I meant to do. So what were going to go. This is what matters most.

Ann's father said yes and so did she and away and father mother really were all saying the same thing to God, just in different ways.

Here am I bearing me two weeks after their wedding, they are on a ship bound for India. The voyage would last four months and I want to bring up one thing because it creates problems that he can show you little bit other character is to create problems with her Congregationalist supporters back home and her family. Remember, his dad is a Congregational pastor see during during this voyage.

They spent a lot of time ransacking the book of acts the Gospels studying the word on on subjects related to church planting and they came to the conclusion that salvation should precede baptism and they also concluded that baptism correctly understood, literally translated, could only mean immersion in that voyage they change their entire view and their affiliation so which means about this is no small thing.

They departed from America as Congregationalist and landed in India as Baptist. Another problem was there was no American Baptist missionary board. He's the first missionary from America so they effectively declined walked away from all of their support and their supporters bring that issue because it reveals something about them early on both of them.

Their willingness to confront the religious past their willingness to potentially up to their families, their willingness to lose other financial support, all for the sake of biblical conviction reveals quite a bit about the metal their character that will be put to the test at an arm and and Judson were baptized by immersion. Soon after landing in Calcutta India by the son of William Carey. Felix was his name with whom they stayed when they arrived they trust God frankly never look back.

Now the good news was when news reached America of their changed position Baptist churches rallied without a little slower than the Congregationalists and they created the American Baptist missionary union and probably began reporting there are other changes ahead for them.

They expected to settle in an area where they were not allowed when they arrived they do move several times and eventually they settled on an area known as Rangoon, Burma, just north of Thailand. There they would spend the next 10 years of their lives attempting to learn the Bernie's language they had to learn it without a teacher without a grammar without a dictionary without any other believers without a church without any help. I had to learn and his wife and by literally creating his own Burmese grammar God wired him at three to prepare him for what he would be doing a 23 so he would spend several years creating his own grammar. Learning the language it would take six years of study before he was able to preach his first sermon finally seven years after arriving at an arm led the first Bernie's individual faith in Jesus Christ, think about seven years before one cover the correct way that doesn't really sell all that well supporters back home. They stayed with part of the problem was in Burma converting from Buddhism was punishable by death. Little wonder it would take Judson 12 years before he had 18 people baptized in the church 12 years. 18 people on one occasion at an iron and another missionary travel to see the Emperor of Burma to petition for freedom to preach and for people to convert without losing their lives or were being threatened of the loss of their lives in.

He not only disregarded their requests, but he through the gospel tract that added iron had written to the ground after reading only a few line in the meantime, Roger William Judson their little boy died at eight months of age.

Back in their home region and Judson continued serving along with her husband. She had been able to befriend the wife of the political leader in Rangoon's were like the governor in our culture and and begin to make inroads for long. A printing press arrived and and materials that added iron to translated the Bernie's work now being printed by the thousands. Still no real fruit that they were now coalescing into printed materials that they could distributed they were being distributed included a full and complete translation of the gospel of Matthew. Eventually added iron would complete the entire New Testament in into Burmese by the time he finishes this translation work. War breaks out between England and Burma and all of the English missionaries are immediately suspected of being spies for the British government. There was trouble in the air five years after baptizing their first convert on June 8, 1824 Burmese officials suddenly broke into their home through added iron to the ground, tied him up and dragged him away to prison. He was placed in a prison building with 100 other inmates, male and female. They were all lying on the floor of their feet in stocks and iron chains weighing 14 pounds. In fact, at arm would wear the scars of those chains for the rest of his life at night. He records a bamboo pole was passed between the prisoners shackled feet and then hoisted up by pulleys to the prisoners, literally hung upside down at a height, which allowed their shoulders to rest on the ground while their feet were pulled above their heads all night long. After some time at an iron was moved to a cage that once housed the lien not high enough to stand not broad enough to lie down during this time and delivered their daughter Maria. She would walk to the jail every day bringing at announce food that she would beg the jailer to pass along to you because the prison supplied no food.

Inmates simply starve to death since she became ill and unable to nurse baby and finally, if you can imagine this, the jailer had mercy on them and actually let added iron take the baby. Each evening into the village and begged for some nursing mother to give their baby milk.

Finally, suddenly at I was released from prison almost 2 years and there he was evidently needed to translate between the English and the Burmese without a use for him. By the time he returned home and was dead a few months later, there little Maria died a few months after that he received news that his father had also only recently died as well is crushed vital just all bore down, he entered a deep depression would last nearly 3 years. He dropped this translation work. He retreated from anything that might promote any sense of happiness or pleasure.

He refused to eat with those outside the mission station. He renounced his honorary doctorate that he'd been given from Brown University. He gave all of his savings away to the Baptist mission board and asked that his salary be reduced. He then built a hot some distance from his mission compound deep in the jungle, dangerous and alone where he moved in. Even next to the hot open grave where she expected to be buried, and he would sit in that grave for hours contemplating the decaying of his own flesh, he would write in his journal, though one occasion during this time he wrote these words about her spiritual desolation, he said and I quote God is to me the grace unknown.

I believe in him, but I cannot find. He subsisted on a little rice each day. He actually spent his days reflecting in any would even pray for some sign that God had forgiven him for all sorts of imagine failures for not living up to his calling for not being a more humble missionary for getting caught up with the pride of his commitment for accepting the accolades that he had received from others on the turning point came in.

It was surprising was actually a letter informing him that his brother El Nathan had died at the age of 35 but ironically, this became the first step out of depression because added iron had been praying had prayed for 17 years, specifically for his brothers salvation, but to no avail.

However, the letter informed him that not only had El Nathan die, but El Nathan before dying had trusted Jesus Christ for salvation, and that was sort of this puff of wind in his sales that moved him back to the mission compound. He picked back up this translation work in the next year 1831 was the beginning of an incredible outpouring of spiritual interest that he never seen before. Is it possible God and his timing waited until this seed truly died.

But now the refreshing work of God's spirit was enabling him breathing new life back into heaven. Ironically, a great harvest is about to begin.

Start out slowly at first, but it's already seen his is different. Part of what God did for him eight years after Anne's death was bring to him. Another bride added iron married a widow of a longtime missionary partner in Burma instead of going back to the states. She decided to stay there. They married had several children. The family grew as it grew, the church group on September 1835 he completed the Old Testament translation of the Bible into Burmese and he also baptized the 100 member of the Burmese Baptist church that these leaves started out had been his goal. He wanted to translate the Bible into Burmese and he wanted to baptize 100 converts who trusted in Jesus Christ and they were now accomplished.

He was rejoicing through Vince. His his wife Sarah's health began to decline. They decided to go home to America to recover for her and and to raise awareness of the mission that God was indeed establishing taking root. There were now 100 believers. Sadly, she would die in route to America and be buried on an island while adding iron and their three oldest children continued when they arrived in Boston added arm much to his surprise was greeted as a celebrity. Newspapers covered his arrival and every everybody wanted to meet the first American missionary to now return 20 years later with stories of distant lands in great danger and disease and difficulty in present shackles and you know all that stuff since abnormal was actually suffering at the time, with a long problem. He could only talk in a whisper through an assistant. In addition, he hadn't spoken English for nearly 20 years and any had a hard time. He said putting three sentences together properly. If IT is written to his board before his arrival and he said to them, and I quote, do not expect me to make public addresses for in order to become an acceptable and eloquent preacher in a foreign language. I had deliberately abandoned my own. He had literally stopped speaking English congregations and gatherings. You know, in the eastern part of America were somewhat disappointed that instead of talking about his adventures. He most often simply wanted to whisper the gospel and talk about Christ. He had truly died to self while in America he met a woman with a rather well-known literary career underway. They fell in love. She agreed to be his wife leave her career comforts of home, 408° weather disease, difficulty, she too became one more seed to say here I am Lord Barry. They arrived back in Burma and that's when the work literally exploded at her and begin a ministry with a group of people called Karen's people grip a large ethnic group there in the country that was still following traces of Old Testament truths really interesting to study some of this up amazing preservation of of truth through oral traditions.

In fact, they in hand these down for centuries. They call them the traditions of the elders.

Justin, by the way, had no idea, no idea. It's as if God had reserved his encounter with the first. Karen people group member. Until now, but there traditions included. For instance, listen to these the story of a creator God who created man and then a woman from that man's rib. They also believed in the devil who tempted them in the sitting they believed in a Messiah who would come one day to the rescue. They were actually living with the expectation of a messenger who would come to deliver news of the Messiah and deliver to them. News from a sacred parchment role. And here comes added arm. Judson just perfectly timed by the Lord while he had once spent years sitting in a public cut he had built praying that someone would accept his invitation to come in and inquire about the gospel now in one winter alone when they returned 6000 people came to their home to inquire and ask for material.

Some would travel three months from the borders of China and arrived saying I'm reading what he was writing quote server we hear that there is an eternal hell. We're afraid of it. Do give us a writing that will tell us how to escape it. Others came from the North say we seen writings that tell of an eternal God. If you are the author referring to his tracks the by now had been distributed that for if you are the author. Please give us more so we can know the truth before we die we can imagine this beloved in one year alone added arm Judson and his team baptize more than 1000 converts 12 years to reach 18 people in one year over thousand that buried seed is now bearing the harvest of fruit.

Truly amazing. After several years of fruitful ministry. His health began to fail he was now 61 years of age he had been through so much when he arrived in his early 20s.

He hoped and prayed for 100 believers. Soon after his death at the age of 61 there were more than 200,000 Christians and hundreds of churches.

In fact, one out of every 58 Burmese citizens have accepted Jesus Christ for the last 150 years. By the way, since his death. Every dictionary and every grammar written in Burma is based on the work of Abner juts his Bible is still the most popular premier translation of the Burmese people, all of that he did alone. On the day he baptized his first convert. He waited seven years to see it happen.

He had written in his journal. These rather audacious words love this. He says and I quote oh, may this baptism proved to be the beginning of a series of baptisms in the Berman empire which shall continue in uninterrupted success to the end age and guess what, it's still taking place.

There are now nearly 4000 evangelical Baptist congregations which include 1.9 million people in the country and counting, and they all trace their spiritual lineage to the legacy of adding iron juts on April 3, 1850, he boarded the ship for a voyage he hoped would help him recover his strength. Instead, he became terribly ill. Eight days into the voyage, he passed away. Listen to the simple conclusion, the crew gathered in silence as they wrapped his body for burial at sea. No family or friends on board and after a few words by a captain who didn't believe the gospel.

His body was lowered into the Indian Ocean without even a prayer I don't think that would've mattered. The added arm. Judson died long ago in his welcome into the presence of his eternal Savior would have been wonderful to see the seed of Col. of wheat surrendered sacrificed married but even to this day bearing fruit.

We can observe a lot of trees from this man's life that I might give you three statements very quickly. Number one, serving Christ does not eliminate potential self serving Christ is not eliminate potential suffering.

Secondly, willingness to suffer is often the key spiritual fruit willingness to suffer is often key spiritual fruit number three. What matters most is a life surrendered, which effectively says no matter where you are and where I am.

What matters most is that we are saying, Lord, here at my Barry me as a marble slab outside a Baptist Church town where he was born mold in Massachusetts place there and Mario says all that, I believe that an arm Judson and I close with what that slammed Rev. added arm. Judson, born August 9, 1788, died April 12, 1850, Mauldin's birthplace the ocean's grave converted Berman's and the Burmese Bible.

My his record is high and then I run Judson lived his life purposefully and intentionally he wanted his only legacy to be treasurers in heaven. I hope you are encouraged from today's lesson.

This is wisdom for the heart.

The Bible teaching ministry of Pastor Stephen dating you can send Stephen a note if you address your email to info@wisdomonline.org you can also call us today at 86 648 Bible or 866-482-4253. Thanks for listening and join us tomorrow for more wisdom for the heart