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About the Book
"How to Bring Men to Christ" by R.A. Torrey is a practical guide on evangelism and sharing the Christian faith with others. Torrey provides helpful tips and strategies for effectively reaching out to men and leading them to salvation in Christ. The book emphasizes the importance of prayer, personal evangelism, and relying on the power of the Holy Spirit in bringing others to faith. It is a valuable resource for individuals looking to become more effective in their witness and ministry efforts.
David Livingstone
"[I am] serving Christ when shooting a buffalo for my men or taking an observation, [even if some] will consider it not sufficiently or even at all missionary."
With four theatrical words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"—words journalist Henry Morton Stanley rehearsed in advance—David Livingstone became immortal. Stanley stayed with Livingstone for five months and then went off to England to write his bestseller, How I Found Livingstone. Livingstone, in the meantime, got lost again—in a swamp literally up to his neck. Within a year and a half, he died in a mud hut, kneeling beside his cot in prayer.
Berlin Congress spurs African independent churches
The whole civilized world wept. They gave him a 21-gun salute and a hero's funeral among the saints in Westminster Abbey. "Brought by faithful hands over land and sea," his tombstone reads, "David Livingstone: missionary, traveler, philanthropist. For 30 years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelize the native races, to explore the undiscovered secrets, and to abolish the slave trade." He was Mother Teresa, Neil Armstrong, and Abraham Lincoln rolled into one.
Highway man
At age 25, after a childhood spent working 14 hours a day in a cotton mill, followed by learning in class and on his own, Livingstone was captivated by an appeal for medical missionaries to China. As he trained, however, the door to China was slammed shut by the Opium War. Within six months, he met Robert Moffat, a veteran missionary of southern Africa, who enchanted him with tales of his remote station, glowing in the morning sun with "the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary had been before."
For ten years, Livingstone tried to be a conventional missionary in southern Africa. He opened a string of stations in "the regions beyond," where he settled down to station life, teaching school and superintending the garden. After four years of bachelor life, he married his "boss's" daughter, Mary Moffat.
From the beginning, Livingstone showed signs of restlessness. After his only convert decided to return to polygamy, Livingstone felt more called than ever to explore. During his first term in South Africa, Livingstone made some of the most prodigious—and most dangerous—explorations of the nineteenth century. His object was to open a "Missionary Road"—"God's Highway," he also called it—1,500 miles north into the interior to bring "Christianity and civilization" to unreached peoples.
Explorer for Christ
On these early journeys, Livingstone's interpersonal quirks were already apparent. He had the singular inability to get along with other Westerners. He fought with missionaries, fellow explorers, assistants, and (later) his brother Charles. He held grudges for years. He had the temperament of a book-reading loner, emotionally inarticulate except when he exploded with Scottish rage. He held little patience for the attitudes of missionaries with "miserably contracted minds" who had absorbed "the colonial mentality" regarding the natives. When Livingstone spoke out against racial intolerance, white Afrikaners tried to drive him out, burning his station and stealing his animals.
He also had problems with the London Missionary Society, who felt that his explorations were distracting him from his missionary work. Throughout his life, however, Livingstone always thought of himself as primarily a missionary, "not a dumpy sort of person with a Bible under his arms, [but someone] serving Christ when shooting a buffalo for my men or taking an observation, [even if some] will consider it not sufficiently or even at all missionary."
Though alienated from the whites, the natives loved his common touch, his rough paternalism, and his curiosity. They also thought he might protect them or supply them with guns. More than most Europeans, Livingstone talked to them with respect, Scottish laird to African chief. Some explorers took as many as 150 porters when they traveled; Livingstone traveled with 30 or fewer.
On an epic, three-year trip from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean (reputedly the first by a European) Livingstone was introduced to the 1,700-mile-long Zambezi. The river was also home to Victoria Falls, Livingstone's most awe-inspiring discovery. The scene was "so lovely," he later wrote, that it "must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight."
Despite its beauty, the Zambezi was a river of human misery. It linked the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, the main suppliers of slaves for Brazil, who in turn sold to Cuba and the United States. Though Livingstone was partially driven by a desire to create a British colony, his primary ambition was to expose the slave trade and cut it off at the source. The strongest weapon in this task, he believed, was Christian commercial civilization. He hoped to replace the "inefficient" slave economy with a capitalist economy: buying and selling goods instead of people.
The ill-fated Zambezi expedition
After a brief heroic return to England, Livingstone returned to Africa, this time to navigate 1,000 miles up the Zambezi in a brass-and-mahogany steamboat to establish a mission near Victoria Falls. The boat was state-of-the-art technology but proved too frail for the expedition. It leaked horribly after repeatedly running aground on sandbars.
Livingstone pushed his men beyond human endurance. When they reached a 30-foot waterfall, he waved his hand, as if to wish it away, and said, "That's not supposed to be there." His wife, who had just given birth to her sixth child, died in 1862 beside the river, only one of several lives claimed on the voyage. Two years later, the British government, which had no interest in "forcing steamers up cataracts," recalled Livingstone and his mission party.
A year later, he was on his way back to Africa again, this time leading an expedition sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society and wealthy friends. "I would not consent to go simply as a geographer," he emphasized, but as biographer Tim Jeal wrote, "It would be hard to judge whether the search for the Nile's source or his desire to expose the slave trade was his dominant motive." The source of the Nile was the great geographical puzzle of the day. But more important to Livingstone was the possibility of proving that the Bible was true by tracing the African roots of Judaism and Christianity.
For two years he simply disappeared, without a letter or scrap of information. He reported later that he had been so ill he could not even lift a pen, but he was able to read the Bible straight through four times. Livingstone's disappearance fascinated the public as much as Amelia Earhart's a few generations later.
When American journalist Henry Stanley found Livingstone, the news exploded in England and America. Papers carried special editions devoted to the famous meeting. In August 1872, in precarious health, Livingstone shook Stanley's hand and set out on his final journey.
When Livingstone had arrived in Africa in 1841, it was as exotic as outer space, called the "Dark Continent" and the "White Man's Graveyard." although the Portuguese, Dutch, and English were pushing into the interior, African maps had blank unexplored areas—no roads, no countries, no landmarks. Livingstone helped redraw the maps, exploring what are now a dozen countries, including South Africa, Rwanda, Angola, and the Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). And he made the West aware of the continuing evil of African slavery, which led to its being eventually outlawed.
Faithfulness in Forgotten Places
When the Holy Spirit cultivates his fruit in our lives, he often works in ways we would never pray for (Galatians 5:22–23). To grow the fruit of love in us, he may give us an enemy; to grow the fruit of peace, he may allow conflict to come near. And to grow the fruit of faithfulness, he may send us to forgotten places. Forgotten places are those corners of the world where no one seems to be watching, where our efforts go unseen, unthanked. Perhaps we labor among diapers and dishes, cubicles and emails. Or maybe, more painfully, among unfruitful mission fields, rebellious children, or spouses whose love has cooled. All of us live in forgotten places sometimes; some live there all the time. Drudgery as a Disciple We should beware of underestimating the spiritual strain of such monotonous and seemingly unrewarded toil. The daily duties in forgotten places may be small, but pile them up over months, years, or decades, and you may start to sympathize with Oswald Chambers when he writes, We do not need the grace of God to stand crises, human nature and pride are sufficient, we can face the strain magnificently; but it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours in every day as a saint, to go through drudgery as a disciple, to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. “To grow the fruit of faithfulness, God may send us to forgotten places.” Chambers may overstate his case — but not by much. In truth, the forgotten places can feel like a wilderness, and many days come when we find ourselves searching for something to keep us going, some water from the rock to sustain us in this desert (Psalm 105:41). We will find it, not in the forgotten places themselves, but in the God who sent us here, who is with us here, and who promises to reward us here. God’s Providence At times, we may stare at the responsibilities in front of us and wonder how we landed here. How did we wander into this wilderness of drab days and hidden obedience? We have become familiar with the backward glance, wondering if we missed a turn somewhere. How clarifying, then, to remember that our life situation is not ultimately a matter of chance, nor of any mistakes we have made, nor even of the string of events leading up to the present, but of God’s providence. The tasks in front of us are, at least for today, God’s assignment to us. To be sure, God’s providence does not nullify the decisions — and perhaps the mistakes or sins — that led us to this station in life, nor does it discourage us from striving after better circumstances: we are more than twigs in the stream of God’s purposes. But God’s providence does teach us to see, as the Heidelberg Catechism puts it, that “leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand.” No matter how we got here, the forgotten places are ultimately from our Father’s hand. Over and again, God describes our own plans and efforts as significant, but his as decisive — even over the most personal matters of life. He determines when and where we live (Acts 17:26). He assigns to us a measure of faith (Romans 12:3). He apportions spiritual gifts as he wills (1 Corinthians 12:11). He entrusts to us a number of talents — whether five, two, or just one (Matthew 25:15). He gives us a specific ministry (Colossians 4:17). He even calls us to a particular life (1 Corinthians 7:17). In time, this forgotten place may give way to somewhere different — and depending on the circumstances, we may be wise to seek that change. But for now, we can look at the responsibilities in front of us and say with relief, “My Father’s hand has led me here.” God’s Pleasure God not only sends us to the forgotten places, however; he also meets us there. When we labor in obscurity, he is near (Psalm 139:5). When our work escapes the notice of every human eye, it does not escape his (Luke 12:7). He catches every whispered prayer, every Godward groan. He stands ready at every moment to mark the smallest tasks we perform in faith. The wise man tells us why: “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight” (Proverbs 12:22). God delights not mainly in the greatness of the work, but in the faithfulness of the worker. What else could explain the New Testament’s insistence that even the lowest, most invisible members of society are “serving the Lord Christ” when they walk faithfully in their callings (Colossians 3:24)? The smallest duties done in faith become duties done for Christ. “God delights not mainly in the greatness of the work, but in the faithfulness of the worker.” The missionary Hudson Taylor was fond of saying, “A little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in little things is a great thing.” Cooking a meal, filling a spreadsheet, buying groceries, wiping a child’s nose — these are little things. But if done faithfully for Christ’s sake, they become greater than all the triumphs and trophies of an unbelieving world. They become the delight of our watching Lord. God’s Promise Once we have traced God’s providence in the past and felt his pleasure in the present, he would have us consider the future, when all our obedience will be rewarded. When many Christians imagine judgment day, we assume the spotlight will fall on the grand acts of sin and righteousness. And surely it will — but not only. Remarkably, when Jesus and the apostles speak of that day, they often focus on life’s ordinary moments. “On the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak,” Jesus tells us (Matthew 12:36). On the other hand, God will reward his people for the smallest good works they do by his grace: for giving to the needy (Matthew 6:4), for praying in the closet (Matthew 6:6), for fasting in secret (Matthew 6:18), even for giving a cup of cold water to one of Christ’s disciples (Matthew 10:42). The apostle Paul similarly writes that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10). But then in Ephesians he clarifies the kind of good he has in mind: not just extravagant good, impressive good, or above-average good, but “whatever good” (Ephesians 6:8). Come judgment day, every scrap of unseen obedience will find its fitting reward. Living and dying in forgotten places, then, is no infallible index of our labor in God’s eyes. Many saints, in fact, will not know the true worth of what they’ve done for Christ until Christ himself tells them (Matthew 25:37–40). Exceptional in the Ordinary Chambers, after remarking on the grace required to endure drudgery as a disciple, goes on to write, “It is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God; but we have not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, and this is not learned in five minutes.” Again, Chambers may slightly overstate his case. God sometimes does call us to do exceptional things for him: to adopt children, to launch ministries, to plant churches, to move overseas. But the point still holds, because none of us will do anything exceptional unless we have first learned, through ten thousand steps of faithfulness, to be exceptional in the ordinary. We are not on our own here. Faithfulness, remember, is a fruit of the Spirit. And to bear that fruit in us, he would have us treasure up the providence, the pleasure, and the promises of God that hem us in behind and before, and follow us into every forgotten place. Article by Scott Hubbard
