Altar Of Sacrifice Order Printed Copy

Author: Mike Bamiloye
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About the Book

"Altar of Sacrifice" by Mike Bamiloye is a Christian fiction novel that explores themes of faith, sacrifice, and spiritual warfare. The story follows a young man named Tade who is called by God to embark on a dangerous mission to confront the forces of darkness and save his village from destruction. Through his journey, Tade learns the importance of obedience, perseverance, and relying on God's strength in times of trouble. The novel ultimately emphasizes the power of faith and the need for believers to stand firm in their convictions.

Hudson Taylor

"China is not to be won for Christ by quiet, ease-loving men and women … The stamp of men and women we need is such as will put Jesus, China, [and] souls first and foremost in everything and at every time—even life itself must be secondary." In September 1853, a little three-masted clipper slipped quietly out of Liverpool harbor with Hudson Taylor, a gaunt and wild-eyed 21-year-old missionary, aboard. He was headed for a country that was just coming into the Christian West's consciousness; only a few dozen missionaries were stationed there. By the time Taylor died a half-century later, however, China was viewed as the most fertile and challenging of mission fields as thousands volunteered annually to serve there. Radical missionary Taylor was born to James and Amelia Taylor, a Methodist couple fascinated with the Far East who had prayed for their newborn, "Grant that he may work for you in China." Years later, a teenage Hudson experienced a spiritual birth during an intense time of prayer as he lay stretched, as he later put, "before Him with unspeakable awe and unspeakable joy." He spent the next years in frantic preparation, learning the rudiments of medicine, studying Mandarin, and immersing himself ever deeper into the Bible and prayer. His ship arrived in Shanghai, one of five "treaty ports" China had opened to foreigners following its first Opium War with England. Almost immediately Taylor made a radical decision (as least for Protestant missionaries of the day): he decided to dress in Chinese clothes and grow a pigtail (as Chinese men did). His fellow Protestants were either incredulous or critical. Taylor, for his part, was not happy with most missionaries he saw: he believed they were "worldly" and spent too much time with English businessmen and diplomats who needed their services as translators. Instead, Taylor wanted the Christian faith taken to the interior of China. So within months of arriving, and the native language still a challenge, Taylor, along with Joseph Edkins, set off for the interior, setting sail down the Huangpu River distributing Chinese Bibles and tracts. When the Chinese Evangelization Society, which had sponsored Taylor, proved incapable of paying its missionaries in 1857, Taylor resigned and became an independent missionary; trusting God to meet his needs. The same year, he married Maria Dyer, daughter of missionaries stationed in China. He continued to pour himself into his work, and his small church in Ningpo grew to 21 members. But by 1861, he became seriously ill (probably with hepatitis) and was forced to return to England to recover. In England, the restless Taylor continued translating the Bible into Chinese (a work he'd begun in China), studied to become a midwife, and recruited more missionaries. Troubled that people in England seemed to have little interest in China, he wrote China: Its Spiritual Need and Claims. In one passage, he scolded, "Can all the Christians in England sit still with folded arms while these multitudes [in China] are perishing—perishing for lack of knowledge—for lack of that knowledge which England possesses so richly?" Taylor became convinced that a special organization was needed to evangelize the interior of China. He made plans to recruit 24 missionaries: two for each of the 11 unreached inland provinces and two for Mongolia. It was a visionary plan that would have left veteran recruiters breathless: it would increase the number of China missionaries by 25 percent. Taylor himself was wracked with doubt: he worried about sending men and women unprotected into the interior; at the same time, he despaired for the millions of Chinese who were dying without the hope of the gospel. In 1865 he wrote in his diary, "For two or three months, intense conflict … Thought I should lose my mind." A friend invited him to the south coast of England, to Brighton, for a break. And it was there, while walking along the beach, that Taylor's gloom lifted: "There the Lord conquered my unbelief, and I surrendered myself to God for this service. I told him that all responsibility as to the issues and consequences must rest with him; that as his servant it was mine to obey and to follow him." His new mission, which he called the China Inland Mission (CIM), had a number of distinctive features, including this: its missionaries would have no guaranteed salaries nor could they appeal for funds; they would simply trust God to supply their needs; furthermore, its missionaries would adopt Chinese dress and then press the gospel into the China interior. Within a year of his breakthrough, Taylor, his wife and four children, and 16 young missionaries sailed from London to join five others already in China working under Taylor's direction. Strains in the organization Taylor continued to make enormous demands upon himself (he saw more than 200 patients daily when he first returned) and on CIM missionaries, some of whom balked. Lewis Nicol, who accused Taylor of tyranny, had to be dismissed. Some CIM missionaries, in the wake of this and other controversies, left to join other missions, but in 1876, with 52 missionaries, CIM constituted one-fifth of the missionary force in China. Because there continued to be so many Chinese to reach, Taylor instituted another radical policy: he sent unmarried women into the interior, a move criticized by many veterans. But Taylor's boldness knew no bounds. In 1881, he asked God for another 70 missionaries by the close of 1884: he got 76. In late 1886, Taylor prayed for another 100 within a year: by November 1887, he announced 102 candidates had been accepted for service. His leadership style and high ideals created enormous strains between the London and China councils of the CIM. London thought Taylor autocratic; Taylor said he was only doing what he thought was best for the work, and then demanded more commitment from others: "China is not to be won for Christ by quiet, ease-loving men and women," he wrote. "The stamp of men and women we need is such as will put Jesus, China, [and] souls first and foremost in everything and at every time—even life itself must be secondary." Taylor's grueling work pace, both in China and abroad (to England, the United States, and Canada on speaking engagements and to recruit), was carried on despite Taylor's poor health and bouts with depression. In 1900 it became too much, and he had complete physical and mental breakdown. The personal cost of Taylor's vision was high on his family as well: his wife Maria died at age 33, and four of eight of their children died before they reached the age of 10. (Taylor eventually married Jennie Faulding, a CIM missionary.) Between his work ethic and his absolute trust in God (despite never soliciting funds, his CIM grew and prospered), he inspired thousands to forsake the comforts of the West to bring the Christian message to the vast and unknown interior of China. Though mission work in China was interrupted by the communist takeover in 1949, the CIM continues to this day under the name Overseas Missionary Fellowship (International).

was my life better back then

Our family serves in the Himalayan mountains, with the desire to see the church spread and flourish far into the unengaged villages confettied on these snowy peaks. The people here, as you might imagine, have a grit that I haven’t inherited from my suburban childhood. Wrinkled shepherds lead their goats to menacing heights with learned ease. If you peek inside a brightly painted cement home, you might see a woman browning onions over a fire, her daughter wringing out clothes, and her toddler sleeping to the buzz of cartoons. I’ve always dreamed of this sort of a place. As a middle-schooler, I read Jesus Freaks aloud to the kids at my art table, and when playing Would You Rather on the topic of death, I would argue that martyrdom is the best way to go out. If I could have seen the place where I would raise my children, I would have thought all of my dreams had come true. What I didn’t expect was that life here would feel like a meat-tenderizer to the heart. I didn’t see the grief coming in like a tidal wave. I’m learning a language that puts me in situations where I’m exposed and embarrassed. We are always the ones asking questions and bending our preferences to better serve those around us. Homeschooling five kids and cooking food from scratch doesn’t make me feel like Wonder Woman, but just very, very tired. How was I to know how sharp the sting of this calling would be, the pain of dying daily? I have formed a bad habit when I’m hurting. When too many guests come for chai and my character is as robust as the brown apple core in my toddler’s sticky grip, I exit mentally. I cherry-pick a golden memory and think how those were the days . Imagined Land of Yesteryear The past is a commonplace to run for escape. Isn’t the entire world wishing for life to go back to normal, before COVID reared its ugly head? How often do we pine after the freedoms of life before kids, only to ache for that noisy house a decade later? Don’t we wish relationships could morph back to what they had been before the argument? If only time could rewind the consuming cancer, the regretted affair, and the old age from surprising us. When the call to live in the present feels like cruelty, dealt out by God’s own hand, we can drown in self-pity and enter an ugly world. A world based on our memories of the past, but altered. Everything was right back then. Such good old days are often talked about in passing, and most people agree how much better it would be if only we could return. We don’t realize the damage at stake in allowing our brains and hearts to live in this imagined land of yesteryear. “We don’t realize the damage at stake in allowing our brains and hearts to live in this imagined land of yesteryear.” The worst part in exchanging the present for the past is that we can make ourselves gods. We become interpreters of what’s good and what’s not. We don’t lean on the Lord’s providence, but think we know what we need. We remember ourselves ten pounds thinner and everyone a lot happier than they truly were. We are most deceived about ourselves, the memories usually a highlight reel of us at our prime. Running Somewhere Maybe you aren’t tempted to live in the past like me. But Luke 15 makes a good case that all of us are running somewhere when the present feels difficult to swallow. Here are two sons discontent at home. When life isn’t what they want, the younger son runs to another country to feed his appetite for pleasure (Luke 15:11–13). Meanwhile, the older brother stays physically near his dad, but his heart is far from home (Luke 15:28–32). Where are we running when life is not what we want it to be? Perhaps we seek success, to create a comfortable home, or to be thought well of in our workplace and church. If we seek escape in these places, as I have in memories of the past, we won’t like where we end up. Life away from the Father is empty. Like a popped balloon, joy whooshes out and we are left limp, deflated. The sons’ attempts of finding life elsewhere leave them homeless and toiling like slaves (Luke 15:14–16, 29). Even if we have a lifetime of sermons in our head, do we live what we claim to know? If we did, how could we ever run from someone so ready to love us, who waits with unparalleled patience and pursues us wherever we are, however painful the present moment? God wants us home with him. So much so that he left perfection for a world writhing in pain. He took on the violence of hell so that his children wouldn’t have to. Home Among the Thistles Maybe we are at a crossroads. Perhaps, like myself, your shoes are well-traveled. You’ve also formed bad habits in order to escape the places where life hurts the most. You’ve called God names and aren’t certain you can live with the one who ordained life’s present pain. Look again at Luke 15 and dare to believe this is your story, too. The house is alive with music, and the table is set. You smell meat roasting in herbs and touch the silk of the slippers placed on your feet. See your Father run to embrace you. Hear his laughter that fills your heart with a happiness you were born to enjoy. “We can make our home among the thistles because God promises to be there too.” Or hear the father’s words to his older child: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (Luke 15:31). These words are for us, right now. Do we believe it? If so, we can make our home among the thistles because he promises to be there too. He will never, ever leave us. And because we have his promised nearness, all that is his is now laid before us as a feast. Every spiritual blessing is at our fingertips when we live at home in our Father (Ephesians 1:3). Especially when our circumstances are January gray, he’s waiting for us to see the rainbow of his love. Black-Edged Envelopes Charles Spurgeon once testified, The worst days I have ever had have turned out to be my best days, and when God has seemed most cruel to me, he has then been most kind. If there is anything in this world for which I would bless him more than for anything else, it is for pain and affliction. I am sure that in these things the richest, tenderest love has been manifested to me. Our Father’s wagons rumble most heavily when they are bringing us the richest freight of the bullion of his grace. Love letters from heaven are often sent in black-edged envelopes. The cloud that is black with horror is big with mercy. . . . Fear not the storm, it brings healing in its wings, and when Jesus is with you in the vessel the tempest only hastens the ship to its desired haven. I am receiving more black-edged envelopes right now than I would care for. Dying daily has been less like Perpetua facing the beasts, and more like getting out of bed every morning to face the responsibilities of a calling that requires an unsavory dose of humility. This painful present, this everyday death is unnoticed by most, and as with the objects in a room when the lights are off, I can’t seem to find the outline of my old identity. And yet, the storm of today will not end in shipwreck. I’m not at the random mercy of the winds. The current rolling of thunder and high waves only assist me in getting home safe and sound. The presence of my Father and his continual invitation has repeatedly snapped me back from the past, allowing me to see the wonders in front of my face, like my children, the food on my plate, and the way the goats follow the voice of their shepherd down the valley with the sun dripping into the horizon.