The Macedonian Call by J. E. FULTON

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 11, 1915

The Macedonian Call

By J. E. FULTON

(Reading for Friday, December 17)

The Macedonian Call

J. E. FULTON

THE book of Acts is a great missionary record. The first chapters tell of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the “early rain,” and the preaching of God’s Word and the establishment of his work in the regions of Palestine, Syria, the islands of the Mediterranean, and in Asia Minor. In chapter sixteen we find the first Macedonian call, which led to the first great foreign missionary movement.

OUR LAPLAND WORKER EN ROUTE WITH THE MESSAGE

Concerning the work started in Palestine and preached in the surrounding countries, we have the record that when the churches had become fully established, the Holy Spirit forbade the apostles to neglect the “regions beyond.” We read that “when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, after they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.” Acts 16:6, 7.

Duty pointed only one way: they must leave for the foreign fields across the sea; they must enter a new continent to the west. And God set in motion impelling forces to dislodge the apostles from continuing too long with an engrossing work while a new continent was to be annexed for missionary enterprise. The Spirit challenged their restricted evangelistic policy. And not only did the Holy Spirit direct that some of the early missionaries should leave Asia, but, further, from eastern Europe, then in darkness, destined later to be the land of light and progress, came the earnest and unresisting plea, “Come over, . . . and help us.” When this appeal came to Paul in vision he received his first inspiration, shall we say, for labor in far-off fields. “A vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him,

saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.” The effect of this vision upon the apostle’s mind is shown by the statement that when he heard the call from Macedonia, “immediately” he and others “endeavored to go,” believing that this was a call from God.

What was recorded in the book of Acts concerning these early days of the church is being repeated in these closing days of God’s work. As in the beginning the Holy Spirit came with power, imparting efficiency to the labors of the early missionaries, so now we wait with expectancy for the “latter rain” to ripen the world’s great harvest. In apostolic days the church was led forth to new fields of missionary endeavor, so now also the Macedonian calls come to us with multiplied urgency to preach the message to “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.”

Distinctly these appeals from many lands sound in upon us. Never before were there so many doors swung wide open in lands formerly forbidden. God is turning the hearts of the heathen longingly toward us. Sister Bothilde Miller, working among the heathen of eastern China, said at the recent Shanghai council: “There is a wonderful desire on the part of the heathen in my district for truth. They want something better than ancestral worship.” Continuing, she added, “Educated and uneducated, rich and poor, sick and blind, are turning to the Lord.”

During the past decade waves of spiritual awakening and expectancy have spread over the nations of the Far East, and as a result many of the heathen have turned to the Lord. This has been especially noticeable in Korea, and is now also very manifest in China and the Philippines. In no part of the world does our work present a more hopeful aspect. Our missionaries have been successful. Young men and women have gone out to these heathen lands; they have acquired the difficult languages, and have had quickly thrust upon them heavy responsibilities under which they stagger. God is helping them greatly, and is giving fruitful harvests from their seed sowing. But in many places the burdens are too heavy and our missionaries are crying out for associate workers. Think of Pastor R. C. Wangerin, in southern Korea, with his few native helpers, ministering amid a population of six millions! Is not this a call for more help? Yet Korea is blessed, so far as laborers are concerned, above many other parts of the East.

In Manchuria and northern China one travels over thousands of miles of territory, with many large cities and villages, where not a Seventh-day Adventist missionary is yet stationed. The countless cone-shaped grave mounds, so characteristic of this part of the East, tell their sad tale of the millions who have died, most of them having never heard of Christ; and on every side men and women are dying without a messenger to point them heavenward. Northern China, which contains the chief city of China, calls loudly for workers. Only at Mukden has the work been started. God has greatly blessed the young workers who have been pioneering the work in this northern district; but they are so few in a large and populous region. How it pulls upon the heartstrings to pass through such vast stretches of country inhabited by millions of intelligent people, and be constantly reminded of their pathetic need. Has not the time come to send help?

In central China a strong work in connection with the message has been established. Many churches have been organized, numerous companies formed, schools established, and a strong propaganda by use of our literature is being carried forward. Yet in the province of Honan, with its thirty-five million people, there is but one English-speaking minister to look after the many interests of the cause. Directing the various branches of the church work and visiting outstations require time and much wearing labor. Then come the training of evangelists and colporteurs and a thousand other cares that fall to the lot of a director of a large district. When so much is expected of one man, is it not imperative that more go to the front?

When we say there are thirty-five million people in Honan we have not selected an extreme case. The province south has as many people. Each province in China in size and population is a nation in itself. Szechuan, where Pastor Allum and his few collaborators are stationed, has an area as great as that of France, and a population equal to nearly three fourths that of the United States, and more than that of the entire German Empire. All the provinces are populous, especially those in central China. It is said that along the great Yang-tze-kiang River and its tributaries live two hundred million people.

But China, with its more than four hundred million souls, is but one country in this great Eastern field. Think also of India, with its three hundred and twenty-six million; of the East Indies, with fifty-five million, Java alone numbering thirty-five million; and then of Japan and Korea, with their eighty-odd million. If numbers constitute calls to the church of God, how many and loud the calls! Was the ancient plea from Macedonia urgent? Countless doors of opportunity are now open to us in these great countries where thousands of longing souls in most urgent and pathetic entreaty bid us come over and help them. Can we delay? Think of the years of missionary toil during the past century, the prayers and tears, and the lives that have been sacrificed to prepare the way for us. Toward this moment of opportunity God has been leading us.

Consider what a staggering load is placed upon our workers in these fields, who labor so short-handed, with facilities so inadequate, constantly facing problems that weigh so heavily upon the heart. Surrounding them are thousands of souls groping for the light, needing instruction and guidance—and the missionaries are many times compelled to neglect them.

Look at this sad picture. Not long ago, in central China, eighty persons heard a little about the message, and commenced to observe the Bible Sabbath the best they knew how. But no one went to their assistance,—there was no one to send,—and the poor souls became discouraged and fell away.

There has been no time since we commenced missionary operations as a people when the calls from the foreign field have been so many, so great, and so insistent. There are calls for men from all parts of the East, and how can we hold them back? Then there are urgent calls for money for homes; training schools are needed for native evangelists and other workers; printing offices must be started for vernacular literature; money must be had for preaching tents and for other much-needed equipment. All this calls for extra appropriations of over one hundred thousand dollars. The times, the opportunities, and the great needs of the field, call for a mighty forward movement. Can we deny our missionaries at the front these requests they make? Having enjoyed so many blessings ourselves, and having received from the God of missions the commission to take this gospel to every nation, now is our time and opportunity to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty.

But there is a positive danger threatening us as a people, and that is that the marvels of God’s opening providences in foreign lands shall not be realized because of our torpid senses,—that the many signs and signals shall be read with dimmed eyes, and that the call to “go forward” may fall on dull ears.

In his work for souls as the world’s first foreign missionary, Jesus was “clad with zeal as a cloak.” But how sluggish many of us sometimes are, how lukewarm and inactive! And so to his remnant people he sends the Laodicean warning against this lethargy which is so likely to eat at the vitals of our spiritual life. The True Witness says, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot.”

Of the urgency of the situation in the East, Dr. J. R. Mott truly says:—

“The vast continent of Asia, with its multitudinous population, is in the midst of stupendous changes—changes political, educational, economic, social, and religious. From the Near East to the Far East one feels the thrill of a new life. The situation thus presented to the Christian church is unprecedented in opportunity, in danger, and in urgency. This is the greatest single fact to be pressed upon the mind and conscience and will of Christendom.”

The demand upon us for more men and more money is imperative. The church must settle down to the greatest task it has ever confronted. It will cost heavily. The Macedonian call will claim our best and brightest young people. It will ask for our wisest and best leaders. In apostolic days, when the needs of the home work were pressing, the Holy Spirit said, “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them;” and that was the foreign work. The best gifts of the early churches were claimed. Today, also, there is need of educated missionaries—men mentally

agile, and possessed with gifts of leadership.

And then, besides the work of warning the teeming millions of Asia, Africa, South America, and other populous countries, there still remains the humiliating fact that over a million natives of the islands of the Pacific are still savages. Many are terribly sunken in vice and dwarfed with ignorance. And our workers in heathen New Guinea, in cannibal Atchin in the New Hebrides, and among the fierce tribes of the Solomons, plead earnestly for additional recruits. In New Guinea, Atchin, and the Solomon Islands we are the first missionaries to occupy the districts where our workers are stationed; and although the situation has seemed so forbidding, the light is breaking and we are encouraged to expect good results. But we must send forward more workers.

Years ago in Fiji, a chief, Ratu Ambrose, won to the message from a terrible life of sin, and then solicitous for his people, asked the writer, “Are there not many in other lands who have become believers in this great message?”

“Yes,” was my answer.

“And,” he continued, “are there not many young people trained to be missionaries to send to these needy islands?”

“There is no reason,” I told him, “why there should not be a number fitted for such work.”

“O why, then,” he asked, “are they so long in coming?”

So from the perishing souls of many an isle and of the great continents, especially from among the eight hundred millions of the great East, sounds to these lands of plenty, of light, and of blessing the ardent and insistent plea: “We perish in darkness. O, when will you bring us your message of salvation? Why are you so long in coming?”

Of the call to the Christian church, Mr. Sherwood Eddy says:—

“The church is facing today the need of more than half the human race. No pen can describe it, no heart can grasp or fathom that great ocean of need; no imagination can picture it, no tongue can tell it. There is a continent of need embracing nations newly awakened. . . . And here are we, young, strong, and free to give our lives, our gifts, our prayers, all that we have and are, to the greatest cause in the world. The call comes to the West, to the Christian church. It comes to you personally and individually. The call is before you. What will your answer be? It combines the challenge of a great need, and the call of an overwhelming opportunity.”

“Through midnight gloom from Macedon. The cry of myriads as of one: The voiceless silence of despair Is eloquent in awful prayer. The souls’ exceeding bitter cry, ‘Come o’er and help us ere we die.’ “How mournfully it echoes on! For half the world is Macedon. These brethren to their brethren call. And by the love that loved us all, And by the whole world’s life they cry, ‘O ye that live, behold we die!’”