Mary Webb

Mary Webb

Born in 1779 in Boston, Mary Webb contracted a disease at age 5 which paralyzed her from the waist down – confining her to a wheel chair for the rest of her life.  At age 13, her father died and her mother provided by running a school from their home.  Despite her condition, she was the focus of attention and became ‘the life of the party’ wherever she was.

Seeing the family’s need, a neighbor, pastor Thomas Baldwin of Second Baptist Church in Boston, ministered to the family.  Mary started attending church and began studying the Bible.  She made a profession of faith and was baptized at age 19. 

The following year, she was deeply moved after hearing a visiting preacher speak from the text of 1 Chronicles 15:7, “Be ye strong, therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded.”  She spoke to her pastor about supporting missionaries and he encouraged her in this work.  A year later, at age 21, in a day when women did not form formal groups like this, she founded the Boston Female Society for Missionary Purposes with a small group of 13 women.  She served as the Secretary and Treasurer of this group for the next 56 years – a group which was the forerunner of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Women’s Missionary Union.

An able organizer, she coordinated the efforts of Baptist and Congregational churches across the country.  Unable to travel, she became a prolific letter-writer, writing literally thousands of letters pleading for support, advising like-minded groups that sprung up after her example, and encouraging cooperation among churches, denominations, and individuals in the effort of missions.  Following her example, over 200 other missionary societies around the young United States sprung up – most of which she had a hand in helping get started.

In 1803 she established the Female Cent Society, with the goal of each member donating a penny per week for missions, and an additional two dollars per year.  This money went to the support of missionaries in the field, both internationally and at home, and toward the translation and publication of Bibles.  In 1811, she established the like-minded Children’s Cent Society.

Second Baptist Church started a Sunday School in 1816.  She served many years as its superintendent.

In addition to this work, she was involved in efforts to raise money to educate young ministers, provide clothing for needy children, provide a day care for working mothers, start a Sunday School for impoverished children, and even got involved in work to rescue and rehabilitate prostitutes from the street.

Mary died in 1861 of breast cancer.  She was 82 years old.  Buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett, Massachusetts, there is a marker next to her grave placed there in 1988 by the Southern Baptist Convention Women’s Missionary Union and the American Baptist Women.

https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1701-1800/mary-webb-organized-missions-from-wheelchair-11630334.html

https://thealabamabaptist.org/heroes-of-the-faith-mary-webb-pioneer-for-female-missionaries/

 

 

 

 

Luther Bridgers "Sweetest Name"

Luther Bridgers was born in North Carolina in 1884.  His father was a traveling evangelist and often brought Luther with him to revival meetings.  Born into a strong faith, which became his own faith, Luther began preaching at age 17.  He attended Asbury College in Kentucky, and developed his own reputation as a pastor/evangelist/church planter.  He married a godly woman named Sarah, the couple moved to Georgia, and Sarah bore him three sons.

By age 26, the Bridgers family was prospering.  Invitations to conduct revival meetings were plentiful, and when an invitation came to conduct two weeks of services near Lexington, Kentucky, where they both had grown up.  They made plans to travel as a family, with the intent of Sarah and the boys staying with her parents while Luther ministered.

The first week of the revival was very fruitful.  Christians were encouraged and people were saved.  In the middle of the second week, Luther was awakened in the middle of the night by a policeman at the door.  Hat in hand, and trying to control his emotions, the policeman informed him that Sarah and their sons had perished in a devastating fire earlier that evening.

Luther was understandably devastated at the news.  He felt he could not go on preaching, and in the following months was even depressed to the point of considering suicide. 

As he worked through his grief over a period of months, God brought a Bible verse to his mind.  Psalm 77:6, “I will remember my song in the night…”.  As he pondered this verse, words and melody flowed from him, in a song he called “Sweetest Name”:

There’s within my heart a melody.  Jesus whispers sweet and low.

“Fear not, I am with thee; peace, be still.”  In all of life’s ebb and flow.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Sweetest name I know,

Fills my every longing, Keeps me singing as I go.

Al my life was wrecked by sin and strife; Discord filled my heart with pain.

Jesus swept across the broken strings, Stirred the slumb’ring chords again.

(When people asked him later how he could go on, he answered with this verse)

Feasting on the riches of His grace, Resting ‘neath His sheltering wings.

Always looking on His smiling face, That is why I shout and sing.

Tho’ sometimes He leads thru waters deep, Trials fall across my way.

Tho’ sometimes the path seems rough and steep, See his footprints all the way.

Soon He’s coming back to welcome me.  Far beyond the starry sky.

I shall wing my flight to worlds unknown; I shall reign with Him on high.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Sweetest name I know,

Fills my every longing, Keeps me singing as I go.

Luther Bridgers remarried and spent his remaining 38 years of life in ministry: evangelism, missions, and pastorate.  He died in Atlanta in 1948.

 

 

Morgan, Robert J., Then Sings My Soul, Nelson Publishers, 2003.

https://enjoyingthejourney.org/hymn-history-he-keeps-me-singing/

Saint Telemachus

Saint Telemachus

The story of Telemachus comes to us from church history, first recorded by Bishop Theodoret of Syria in the early 5^th Century – contemporary with the incident.  His story has been told throughout the history of the Church, including being repeated in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and even told by President Reagan in 1984 during the National Day of Prayer.

Telemachus was one of the hermits of the early church.  Once Rome became a Christian empire and the persecutions ceased, many Christians felt the Church had become ‘watered down’.  Many of these people withdrew from society, wore distinctive old clothing, and spent their lives in solitude.

Living a life of self-deprival and contemplative prayer, Telemachus was little-known outside his own little group of hermits in Asia Minor.  During a season of prayer, he felt God strongly prompting him to leave his enclave and re-enter the world.  He did so, eventually traveling to Rome. 

In Rome, he saw something shocking to him, the games of the Gladiators.  Despite Rome being now a Christian empire, and having the godly Emperor Honorius on the throne, Rome still held these ancient, blood-thirsty games.  In these games, the combatants would fight to the death with a variety of weapons, to the great delight of the cheering, frenzied crowds.  Horrified that Christians would slaughter each other is such violent ways, Telemachus went to the stadium, entered the arena where two Gladiators had swords drawn on each other, and stepped between them and shouted, “Do not [return] God’s mercy in turning away the swords of your enemies by murdering each other!”  

Furious that their sport had been interrupted, the crown began shouting at him.  Many had stones they threw at him, and it is possible the gladiators struck him with their swords.  Either way, Telemachus died in the arena that day.  As the scene settled and the people realized what had happened, they realized by his dress that they had killed a man of God.  Foxe says that he “turned the hearts of the people: they saw the hideous aspects of the favorite vice to which they had blindly surrendered themselves.”  Some accounts have the crowd leaving the arena in silence and shame.  From that moment onward, the bloody games of the Coliseum were no more.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160306175629/http://prayerfoundation.org/favoritemonks/favorite_monks_telemachus_coliseum.htm

https://www.ccel.org/ccel/foxe/martyrs/files/fox103.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Telemachus

Elizabeth Dirks

Elizabeth Dirks – Martyr

Elizabeth Dirks grew up in a convent in East Friesland, in the Holy Roman Empire in the mid-1500s.  As a nun she learned to read, both in her native German and in Latin, and became a devout student of the Bible and, in reading it, she was convicted that her monastic lifestyle was not Scriptural.  Seeking to leave her convent, she switched clothes with a visiting milkmaid and walked out wearing that simple disguise.

Elizabeth became a follower of the Anabaptist Menno Simons – the man from whom the Mennonites take their name.  Her knowledge of the Scripture placed her in high esteem with this group of Believers.  Such was her familiarity with Simons that, when she was arrested by Catholic authorities in 1549, they initially thought she had married him.  As it was, they caught her with a Bible – that being the chief indication of her status.

At her interrogation, they initially tried to get her to take an oath.  To this she refused, saying that Christ commanded that her “Yes should mean yes, and her no should mean no.”   She was threatened with torture if she refused to name those whom she had taught.  She replied, “No, my Lords, do not press me on this point.  Ask me about my faith and I will answer you gladly.”

Moving away from naming names, they hoped to corner Elizabeth on her beliefs.  Her answers were full of Scripture, countering every argument they made against her.  She declared that church buildings were not the house of God, but our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit.  Asked if she were saved by baptism, she said, “All the water in the sea cannot save me.  All my salvation is in Christ, who has commanded me to love the Lord, my God, and my neighbor as myself.”  She insisted that only Christ has the authority to forgive sins, not priests.

Persisting in her refusal to name names, she was taken to the place of torture.  They placed screws on her thumbs and fingers until blood spurted from her fingernails.  She did not give up her friends, but cried aloud to Jesus for relief from her agony.  Next, they lifted her skirt to apply larger screws to crush her shins.  She pleaded that she had never allowed anyone to touch her body and the torturers promised to respect her.  Tightening the screws until her shin-bones were crushed, the torturers realized they would get nothing out of Elizabeth.  Rather than burn her at the stake, as was customary, they tied her in a bag and drowned her.

The testimony of Elizabeth Dirks shows great courage, determination, modesty, and faith.

https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1501-1600/elizabeth-dirks-drowned-as-anabaptist-11629978.html#google_vignette

Joseph Hart

Joseph Hart

Born to Godly, Calvinistic-minded parents, Joseph Hart was born in London in 1712.  His parents were well-to-do, and ensured he was educated in the classics.  He loved literature, and was often seen in his early life browsing bookstores, looking for volumes he had not yet read.  He went on to teach the Classics of literature.

At the age of 21, he began to have doubts about the state of his soul.  He tried fasting, self-deprivation, and strict observance of religious duties in order to gain favor with God.  This proved, ultimately, fruitless.  He then tried the opposite tack, frequenting taverns and theaters and associating with friends of low repute.  After several years he, in his own words, began to “sink deeper and deeper into conviction of my nature’s evil, the wickedness of my life, the shallowness of Christianity and the blindness of my devotion.”

At this time, the Methodist preachers John Wesley and George Whitfield were upending the nation with their evangelistic preaching.  Hart still called himself a Calvinist, and was doubly incensed with not only the Christian teaching, but that of the Methodists – decidedly not Calvinistic.  In 1741, after a very popular sermon of Wesley’s was published which declared his belief in the universal opportunity for redemption, Hart published his own book entitled ‘The Unreasonableness of Religion.”  In it, he argued that human reason expects that God would accept us on the basis of our own good works, while Christianity as taught by Wesley and Whitfield teaches that our acceptance before God is on the basis of work done by Another, freely given to a person without any basis of their own merit or worthiness. 

He even began to mock Christians, declaring that he was more faithful than they were since he sinned more, giving God even more opportunity to forgive him.  He later confessed, “I committed all [types of] uncleanness with greediness.”  While still a lover of and teacher of the classics of literature, the Bible remained off his reading list.

In 1751, he made the decision for sobriety.  Again, he saw his own action as being ‘good enough’ in the eyes of God.  In 1752, he married the daughter of a Baptist preacher.  Hart finally resumed his reading of the Scriptures, but still remained is his state of unbelief.  Two years later, a friend of his who had become converted under Whitfield’s preaching was asked to fill a pulpit at the London Tabernacle.  Hart attended, and later went back to hear Whitfield preach.  Whitfield’s preaching was searching and convicting and caused him distress.  Desperately, he cried out to God for some sort of conviction in his heart.  For five years, he struggled before eventually coming to faith at church on a Sunday in 1857.

Remembering his conversion he wrote, “I was hardly home when I felt myself melting away into a strange softness of affection, which made me fling myself on my knees before God.  My horrors were immediately dispelled, and such light and comfort flowed into my heart as no words can paint.”  He continued, “Tears ran streaming from my eyes.  I threw my soul willingly into my Savior’s hands; lay weeping at His feet, wholly resigned to His will, and only begging that I might, if He was graciously pleased to permit it, be of some service to His church and people.”  He was later asked to take a pulpit, a task he was eager to accept.

Joseph experienced trials in his life.  His oldest son suffered from sporadic fits of seizures.  Another son died at age 3. Later in life, his wife became ill and an invalid, requiring constant care.  God used these trials to mold and shape him.

He began writing hymns and verse.  His attitude toward suffering is captured thus:

Gold in the furnace tried

Ne’er loses aught but dross;

So is the Christian purified

And better’d by the Cross.

 

And when undergoing suffering…

 

If pain afflict, or wrongs oppress;

If cares distract, or fears dismay;

If guilt deject; if sin distress;

The remedy’s before thee, Pray!

 

Joseph Hart wrote many hymns which were often sung in his day.  One we will recall:

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, Weak and wounded, sick and sore;

Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity love and pow’r

 

Chorus:

I will arise and go to Jesus, He will embrace me in His arms;

In the arms of my dear Savior, O, there are ten thousand charms.

 

Come, ye thirsty, come and welcome, God’s free bounty glorify;

True belief and true repentance, Every grace that brings you nigh.

 

Let not conscience make you linger, Nor of fitness fondly dream;

All the fitness He requireth Is to feel your need of Him.

 

Come, ye weary, heave laden, Lost and ruined by the fall;

If you tarry till you’re better, You will never come at all.

 

 

 

https://www.evangelical-times.org/joseph-hart-1712-1768/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Father Daniel Nash - mighty in prayer

Father Daniel Nash

Before there was a Billy Graham, or a Billy Sunday, or a D.L. Moody, there was Charles Finney.  Rev Finney is often credited as one of the chief catalysts of the Second Great Awakening in the United States, in the 1790s to the early 1800s.  He preached a Gospel of personal conversion and called out sin – often naming people by name.  He had a great ability in his preaching to show love while at the same time calling out specific sins.  His revival services were used by God to impact entire communities for the Gospel, and many thousands were led to Christ.

Enter Finney’s friend, Father Daniel Nash.  Father Nash was an Episcopal priest, 17 years older than Finney, who had been run out of his little parish.  Charles Finney was at a prayer meeting when he first heard Father Nash speak.  Nash was still broken from his rejection, but his eyes darted back and forth among the crowd as he spoke.  However, it struck Finney that, instead of preaching, Father Nash was actually praying.  Finney later wrote, “He was full of the power of prayer.”  The two met and they both strongly felt that God was leading them into an evangelistic ministry.  They agreed that their calling was to go to the places where there were few or no churches, and refused to reach out to established churches unless the churches first reached out to them.

Their established practice was like this.  They would pray about where God would lead them to preach next.  When they felt established about a place, Father Nash would quietly slip into town, rent a boarding-house or basement of a home or even a grove of trees, and find two or three people to covenant with him in prayer for God to move within the community.  Father Nash would pray with this small group, and Nash would send word to Finney when he felt impressed that the time was right, often 3 or 4 weeks later.  During the meetings, Nash and his recruited partners would remain fervent in prayer throughout the revival – and God blessed with great success.  One person wrote of Nash, “With all due credit to Mr. Finney for what was done, it was the praying men who held the ropes.  The tears they shed, the groans the uttered are written in the book of the chronicles of the things of God.”

In one New York town, after the revival, it was observed, “The whole community was stirred.  Religion was the topic of conversation in the house, in the shop, in the office and on the street.  Practically everyone in the city was converted.  The only theater in the city was converted into a livery stable, the only circus into a soap and candle factory, and the grog shops (bars and taverns) were closed.”

Finney was in awe of his friend and his prayer life.  He felt that the real work of the revival was done by Nash in prayer, bringing the Holy Spirit to fall on people.  At that point, he had little to do but point them to the Lamb of God.

Finney’s revivals led to an estimated 100,000 conversions.  Even more remarkably, it is estimated that 80% of those who professed faith were solid Christians, active in their churches many years later.  By way of comparison, the same number for D.L. Moody is estimated at about 50% and such revivals today trend at about a 20% rate of faithfulness to the Gospel over the course of their life.  What made Finney so unique?  He had a personal prayer warrior. 

In 1831, as Father Nash was on his deathbed, his main regret seemed to be that his pain made it difficult to focus on his prayer as he had done for so many years.  He was found dead in his room, with an open map, as he had been praying for the countries of the world.

Today, if you drive in upstate New York, almost to the Canadian border, in a neglected cemetery along a dusty road, you will find the grave of Father Daniel Nash.  It reads simply, “Daniel Nash, Laborer with Finney, Mighty in Prayer, Nov 17, 1775 – Dec 20, 1831.”

Less than six months after the death of his friend, Charles Finney left the evangelistic trail and accepted a pastorate in New York City, and later became the professor of Systematic Theology at the newly formed Oberlin College in Ohio.

https://www.hopefaithprayer.com/prayer-warrior-charles-finney/

https://dwoj.org/daniel-nash-the-great-charles-finneys-intercessor/

https://www.wayoflife.org/reports/daniel_nash_prince_of_prayer.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Grandison_Finney#Abolitionism

 

 

 

 

 

Samuel Lamb

Lin Xiangao (known in the West as Samuel Lamb) was raised as a believer, born the son of a Baptist pastor in 1924, in the mountains overlooking Macau, China.  Following in his father’s footsteps, he preached his first sermon at age 19, shortly before Mao Zedong’s full-scale persecution of the Church.  Lamb was first arrested in 1955, accused of being a counter-revolutionary. 

He served 18 months before his release, and was arrested a second time in 1958, this time sentenced to twenty years of hard labor.  He served his sentence in a coal mine, where his task was to couple coal cars together.  He worked underground in low light and in very hazardous conditions, and continued to teach as he was able.  Working like this killed or severely injured many men, but Lamb emerged from his sentence in 1979 unharmed.  His wife died a year before his release, but Samuel was not allowed to attend her funeral.  He said later that her death “was like an arrow from the Almighty, until I understood that God allows the pain, the loss, the torture; but we must grow through it.”

Lamb was targeted mainly for his refusal to merge his house church with the Three Self Patriotic Church (TSPC), the state-controlled church.  The TSPC forbade the teaching of the Gospel to children under 18 years of age, denied many fundamentals of the Christian faith such as the Virgin Birth and Christ’s literal, physical resurrection.  China’s control of the state church led to their teaching principals geared more toward government support rather than Christian beliefs.

In 1979, Lamb resettled in Guangzhou, where he began to teach English and converted many of his students to Christ.  He soon restarted his house church, which quickly grew and had to move to a much larger building.  The church continued to grow, and began to occupy multiple buildings and had meetings several times per week.  According to the Open Doors organization, his church was a conduit for many thousands of Bibles and other Christian literature smuggled in from the West – Open Doors numbered the pieces of literature at over 200,000.  Even so, he adamantly taught his congregation that they should submit to the authorities in all things, except for when doing so directly opposed the teachings of the Scripture.

Suffering was a frequent topic of Rev Lamb’s sermons.  “I can understand Job’s victories and Job’s defeats,” he often said.  “It taught me that grumbling does not help.  Not against God and not against those who persecuted me.”  He taught what he called the “Holy principle of persecution”, which was that persecution has only one outcome: more growth for the church.

His church was raided again in 1990.  Lamb was arrested and his congregants were admonished not to attend services any longer, but Lamb was released the next day.  Though many in the church were intimidated into not coming the following week, Lamb and a few brave souls met the following Sunday without incident.  Soon the church was larger than ever, numbering over 5,000 regular attendees. 

Even though his congregation was still illegal, Samuel Lamb’s church was not bothered again, up to his death in August, 2013, at the age of 88.  Even so, he was prepared for more suffering.  He kept a bag packed with a change of clothes, shoes, and a toothbrush – prepared in the event of his arrest so he could just pick it up and go.  At his death, over 30,000 people spontaneously crammed the streets of Guangzhou to pay him homage.

His church was raided again just before Christmas, 2018, as part of the Communist Party’s new crackdown on Christian worship.  Since 2016, the Communists have sought an ever-increasing dominance over everyday life.  The government has banned online sales of the Bible, burned crosses, demolished churches, and forced many places of worship to close.  Many church members have been instructed by the authorities to sign letters stating they no longer believe in Christianity.  The church has, in many cases, again been forced to move underground and meet in secret.  If Samuel Lamb’s “Holy principle of persecution” is to be believed, we should be excited for the long-term spiritual growth of the church in China.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/death-of-pastor-samuel-lamb-leaves-hole-in-the-chinese-church-says-open-doors-usa.html

https://www.christianpost.com/news/chinese-police-raid-childrens-bible-class-shut-down-underground-megachurch.html

https://www2.cbn.com/news/news/china-strikes-again-shuts-down-third-underground-church-weeks

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2018/december/china-churches-early-rain-rongguili-wang-yi-samuel-lamb.html