How the Mission Fields Call Again for Earnest Praying and Liberal Giving
By W. A. Spicer
(Reading for Friday, December 8)
How the Mission Fields Call Again for Earnest Praying and Liberal Giving
W. A. SPICER
Tonight’s topic turns our minds to the outlook in the great mission fields, with its call to earnest prayer and liberal giving for missions. It is an appropriate Friday evening topic; for it is on Sabbath eve, we are sure, that the thoughts of the missionaries turn most often toward the believers and churches in the homelands. Our prayers shall meet theirs tonight at the throne of grace, we kneeling in the old home churches and at home firesides, they at far-sundered points in the uttermost parts of the earth. Like balm to our hearts again, is the blessed truth that,—
“Though sundered far, by faith they meet
Around one common mercy seat.”
Once in a week of prayer reading we could follow the line of missions round the earth. Now we can take only a few glimpses of the onward sweep of the message. And the message is sweeping onward. This advent movement is no experiment. It is a success, moving ever straight forward in its predicted course since the days of 1844. In it the power of God unto salvation is displayed, as the last message of the everlasting gospel is being hastened on to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.
“This is no losing cause
We fight for every day;
This is no hope forlorn
For which our prayers we pray.”
It is a living cause, glowing with light from heaven, that has won our heart’s devotion; and how we rejoice to see it bringing the same hope and blessing to other souls!
A year ago we rejoiced in the statistical secretary’s report of 15,000 persons —lacking but one—baptized during the year 1914. This time that shining column of figures runs to over 17,200, and the reports are incomplete on account of the war. This, remember, is for 1915, which was wholly a year of war over a vast portion of the field of our work. Think of it! this army of new believers coming into the ranks last year to join in lifting the voice of the message to a yet louder cry! Their number is more than was our entire membership in 1882. Well may we pray and labor for yet greater things, as the Lord makes bare his arm for the finishing of the work.
What a story these figures tell! The addition of more than one thousand every quarter in Europe, amid the desolating clash of earthly powers—how it speaks of the presence of the loving Shepherd close beside the brethren and sisters who have tried to seek and to save! The figures tell of converts coming in literally by the hundreds in the heathen Orient, and of hundreds won from the clinging grasp of Catholic superstition in the South American and other Latin fields. And more than nine thousand of these souls new-born into the kingdom found the way of life in the North American Division, the oldest field in the preaching of the message. Everywhere it is the same—souls are won as the message of heaven is delivered in this decisive hour.
Just in passing, turn the thought from the large number to each single one of these who have newly found the way. They have come, one by one, every one beloved of God, every one sought for by the loving Saviour; and over every one of these 17,000 there was joy among the angels in heaven as the old life was buried and the new life begun. And to each one who finds the Saviour, as the good hymn says, the blessedness is something that tongue can never fully tell:—
“But what to those who find? Ah! this
Nor tongue nor pen can show:
The love of Jesus,—what it is,
None but his loved ones know.”
While we lift thankful hearts in prayer for these souls redeemed, God forbid that there should be one among us, old or young, this Sabbath eve, who has not found the love of Jesus. While we talk of his power to save in far mission fields, may every one among ourselves, as this week of prayer is passing by, know the joy of ceasing the struggle, and giving a sinful heart to the Saviour who pleads for it so earnestly. We do not have to beg him to be gracious. He is begging us just to let him forgive and save.
During this year 1916, now closing, the same soul-winning work has been going forward. The sounds of the closing harvest hour are heard over the whitening fields. “I wish we had double the number of native workers to put into the field,” wrote Elder L. V. Finster, from the Philippines; and with but seven months of the year behind him, he added: “I am glad to tell you that thus far this year we have baptized three hundred people. There are many, many calls that we are not able to answer for lack of workers.”20
There is Nigeria, on the west coast of Africa—a field so new to us that really we have thought of Elder D. C. Babcock as only just getting his mission home up and a few souls gathered out as a beginning. But here is the message that our brother sent us at the time of the recent British Union Conference:—
“There are now fully five hundred believers in Nigeria, eighty-eight of these are baptized, and probably fifty to seventy-five more will soon follow. We can see and know that we are in the time of the ‘loud cry.’ We witness the mighty movings of God’s unbounded power, and trials and perplexities sink into oblivion.”
This is a word unexpected and surprising from that new field. Truly the Lord is hastening the ripening of the harvest. We hear of it everywhere. And it brings to our ears such calls for consecrated workers and consecrated money as we never have heard before. In response to these calls there will have gone out this year, by the time of the week of prayer, over one hundred and twenty missionaries. This great enlargement has been made possible only because of the faithful gifts of the believers and the consecration of the workers, leading them to offer themselves for service. Again, conferences and churches and family circles have bidden the recruits go forward. It is no light thing that adds these forces year by year. It is the hope of us all—the blessed hope—that leads our comrades out from their fatherland into unknown regions beyond.
“God guide them, then, where’er they go.
The outward bound, heroic band,
And fill their sails with airs that blow
Off heaven’s eternal fatherland.”
But still the calls come insistently for yet more help. Thank God it is so. It seems that the Lord is rapidly enlarging the work. He tells us to pray for yet more laborers, and that means prayer for yet larger gifts to missions.
We can list but a few of these calls, illustrative of the Macedonian cry from every quarter. Some of the plaintive cries from the byways sound month after month. The Indians of the upper Guiana wilds still send word now and then that they are waiting. This year the call from the Mosquito Indians of Nicaragua is repeated. Our first Indian convert there started to translate something on the Sabbath truth into their tongue. He began with a Sabbath hymn, and then died. The people are still singing in their Indian tongue,—
“Thy holy Sabbath, Lord,
Thy people hail with joy,”
and are waiting for us to send a missionary.
From the East Indies a brother, a native of the Celebes Islands, pleads for his people. He has sold our books among them, and they wanted to know where the missionary of this religion was. “I told them,” he says, “that these books were the substitute for the minister.” But they could not understand how it was the living preacher did not come. Our brother says they are “really thirsting,” and he adds:—
“Remember, honored brethren, the millions of people of the Celebes who are in darkness. I feel that the message of Revelation 14 has not yet come to all nations and languages. We pray to God and ask that he will send a worker to Menado, to the people who are really hungering after truth.”
How forcefully another call comes in this plea from a far part of China, addressed some little time ago to “the honorable pastors and evangelists” in Honan. Those who appealed had met a colporteur and were convinced of the Sabbath truth. They said:—
“Seeing there is this difference in your church, there must also be other important doctrines of which we are unaware. Furthermore, we know that your teaching of the Bible is very deep, so much so that one can never finish learning the truths of the Bible as brought out by your honorable church. When we heard this great message of truth, we said in our hearts that this was almost like having Christ on the earth once more to teach us. We would be very willing to go to — to learn these important truths. What a shame it is that we live so far away, and we have not the means to travel so far! So we beseech all the honorable pastors and evangelists to pray earnestly for us, and we are praying that the Lord will open the way for us to meet each other. As soon as you receive this letter, please send us an answer as soon as possible, and teach us about your doctrines.”
AMONG THE FIRST FRUITS ON THE ISLAND OF BORNEO
From South Africa, last February, came the plea, so reasonably and fully stated in a resolution that we have not time to read it here, for just two more missionaries for the native missions, to hold one outpost, it might be, or to release some stricken worker so that he might get a brief furlough in the healthful Cape region. Hard as it was, the Mission Board had to say, Wait till we see how the mission funds come in toward the end of the year. God grant that the gifts may come flowing in to add these two to that hard-pressed little force in Africa.
Up in the heights of the Andes, by Lake Titicaca, the wonderful work among the Indians is still growing and spreading. Recently, as Elder F. A. Stahl was establishing a school in a new place, the most murderous attack yet made upon our work there nearly cost him his life at the hands of furious priests and their followers. But God delivered; and now the brethren report the interest greater than ever, and the openings fairly bewildering. In a recent letter Brother Stahl writes:—
“We are just swamped with calls. Many Indians in new places are turning to the Lord. I am getting afraid to visit new places, as I find such an interest, and we have not workers to supply. We are putting out native workers, but in most of these places we need a good man from abroad. We hope and pray that soon others will be on the ground. I know that it must be difficult to provide means and workers, but we cannot help it. We are compelled to plead and plead. Please do not become tired or impatient with us. We have asked for seven workers. It is not all we need, but we do need every one of these at once. Please send them to help us win this part of the great field for God. What is the use of God’s opening too many places if we cannot hold them for him?”
There we have it, the cry from a dark region where this message kindled the first ray of gospel light that ever shone in, and where hundreds upon hundreds are begging to be taught. Surely God must have the men and the means among us to meet the calls of his own wonder-working providences. In closing, here is one more item from Peru, relating to a region near the coast. In making a plea for more help, Elder E. L. Maxwell writes:—
“The brethren at the place where Elder W. R. Pohle preached in the Catholic church three years ago, have never been visited since. They are holding faithful, some having spent six months in prison for their faith.”
The story told of this place three years ago is this: A colporteur, Brother Salazar, had a controversy with a priest in the town square. Hundreds heard the disputation and called for a preacher. Elder Maxwell at that time reported:—
“When Brethren W. R. Pohle and R. B. Stauffer reached this place, they found the people hungry for the message, and some of them were already keeping the Sabbath as best they could. As there was no place large enough to hold the crowd of people that desired to hear the word preached, the city authorities proposed to use the Catholic church, which they said they had built and therefore owned. A curtain was placed before the altar, and meetings were held there every night for nearly a week. As a result of the work done, a Sabbath school was organized, with the leading officials of the town as officers, and with21a membership of eighteen men, besides women and children. Three public-school teachers are keeping the Sabbath, and the only saloon keeper in the town agreed to close out his business and quit the sale of liquor. A unanimous vote of the people approved this action of his.”
How pitiful that they have been left to themselves, with no shepherding, ever since. Because of these things the brethren plead for just a few more workers.
So it would be found over the whole wide earth if we had time to call the roll of our mission fields. Truly, “they call us to deliver.” Let us pray for the workers and the work; and let us give as Christ would have us in answer to these calls in tomorrow’s week of prayer offering.
It is a wonderful picture that is spread before us week by week by the reports from the mission fields. Marvelous stories are told us. It is a continuation of the book of Acts. It is a moving panorama of the closing work of God that is passing before our eyes. May he help us to do our duty now, and bless us that we may be the blessing that he means his children to be to all the world in this last hour.
“God, even our own God, shall bless us.
God shall bless us;
And all the ends of the earth shall fear him.” Ps. 67:6, 7.
