Modern Heroes of the Christian Faith
The Bible is filled with biography – one character after another parade across the pages. God loves to teach lasting lessons through the lives of individuals. With that in mind, Stephen Davey has undertaken a special biographical series illustrating biblical truths through the lives of contemporary believers. These ordinary men and women provide a wonderful legacy. They are influenced and influential because of their faith in God. They are Modern Heroes of the Christian Faith.
Modern Heroes of the Christian Faith
The Unshakable Spirit: David and Svea Flood's Miraculous Journey
What if the most heartbreaking moments of your life were actually the catalyst for changing the lives of countless others? Discover the incredible story of David and Svea Flood, a missionary couple whose unwavering faith led them to make extraordinary sacrifices. This touching episode by Stephen Davey, will leave you in awe of the power of self-sacrifice, and the mysterious ways God works through our lives.
Join us as we explore the brief but impactful ministry of Robert Murray McShane, who touched the lives of 700 people despite pastoring for less than five years. We'll also delve into the profound emotions Jesus experienced throughout his life, highlighting both His humanity and divinity. And be prepared to be moved by the extraordinary tale of David Flood and his family, who faced unimaginable hardships as missionaries in Africa, only to witness God's promise of joy and redemption fulfilled in the most unexpected way. Don't miss this inspirational episode that will change the way you view life's challenges and the incredible power of faith.
This series is available as a book. Learn more: https://www.wisdomonline.org/heroes
Welcome to Modern Heroes of the Christian Faith. In this series, stephen Davie will introduce you to ordinary men and women whose lives and legacies were influenced by their faith in God. I'm your host, scott Wiley. This series is produced by Wisdom International. You can learn more and access all of our other resources at wisdomonlineorg. Today, stephen introduces you to David and Savea Flood. They have an amazing story. It's the story of Savea's endurance, david's despair and God's incredible mercy. You'll be encouraged as you meet this couple and hear their story.
Speaker 2:In the early 1800s, a Presbyterian minister by the name of Robert Murray McShane pastored any, any, any pastored really ever. So briefly, he served in what we would call a pastor teacher role for less than five years before dying, but he would see some 700 people come to faith in Jesus Christ. He used to tell other pastors to preach to your people, as on the brink of eternity, he had great passion. Mcshane died at the age of 29 from typhus And yet his ministry which is really not, is really just an introduction to our study here tonight, but it's so profoundly affected Scotland and remains an illustration of passionate ministry that decades later, years later in fact now, some 200 years later, he's still the subject of study. John Phillips, a British exposer, wrote in his commentary on the Psalms that several years after he died, another young pastor was concerned about the ineffectiveness of his own ministry. He seemed to be producing little spiritual fruit and he decided to visit the church where Robert Murray McShane pastored to try to learn some things. Maybe, of course, mcshane had been dead for a decade or so. He found a custodian, a busily cleaning in the church, and when he asked him, the custodian said yes, he had been there while McShane pastored And he asked this custodian did he in any way know the secret to the fruitful and effective ministry of Robert Murray McShane? And the old man said, yes, i do, follow me. And he led this pastor into McShane's study and now occupied by another pastor And he said to him sit down there at his desk. And so this pastor sat down at his desk. He said, yes, that's right Now put your elbows on the table. And he did so. He said, yes, that's the way McShane used to do it. Now put your face in your hands to visit a robe. Now let tears run down your cheeks. That was what McShane used to do.
Speaker 2:The Psalmist wrote in Psalm chapter 126 and verse 5, those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. A while of the immediate context of that Psalm is the return of Israel from exile. The concept of sowing and weeping and bearing precious seed and the fruit that comes from that was applied by our own Lord when he talked about the seed of the word of God in his parable of Matthew 13. Paul used the same analogy to the Corinthians when he talked about planting seed, that is, of the gospel, and watching God bring fruit from that. Paul would say effectively the same thing when he wrote to the Corinthians, and he added that his letters that he wrote them were bathed in tears. First Corinthians, chapter 2, verse 4. Paul also reminded the Ephesian elders that he had been among them, teaching and pastoring them with tears and through trials. Acts, chapter 20, verse 19.
Speaker 2:Now it's interesting. If you slip back into that century, you discover that the gods of the Greeks and the Romans were considered unmoved by human emotion and rather unmovable. They called this unmovable quality by the Greek word apothea, which gives us our word apathy. That was Godlike. The gods were apathetic. The gods were unmoved by human need and suffering. So why would there be the recommendation to bear seeds with tears to serve Christ, like Paul did with a heart of compassion? That isn't Godlike, at least in their culture.
Speaker 2:Have you ever thought about the fact that we'd have no record of Jesus Christ in the New Testament ever laughing, although you read his sermons and his offhand comments? and he had a wonderful sense of humor and I'm sure that he split the sides of his disciples often. In fact, his first miracle was at a wedding party, but we're never told that he laughed more than likely because we would assume that he would. But while we would assume that God the Son might laugh, we would never and certainly in the first century they would never assume that the Son of God would cry. And so we're told that he did, on more than one occasion.
Speaker 2:In fact, if you take John's Gospel and open there to chapter 11, jesus arrives at the tomb of Lazarus and he's been dead now for four days, according to verse 17. He stands nearby and we're told in verse 33 that when Jesus saw her that's Mary, lazarus' sister, weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. That is, jesus was moved deeply when he saw the grief and observed the emotion of these who'd lost their loved ones. He, god the Son, was not apathetic. In fact, the verb translated he was troubled in the Greek language was used of a working horse snorting as he strained and breathed heavily under the harness. You could also translate it to shudder. Philip's translates it wonderfully in his New Testament. He was deeply moved and visibly distressed. Look at verse 35. You might underline it. You probably memorized it. This wept Here's God crying. In fact, the tense of the verb could literally render this verse Jesus burst into tears. Imagine that He burst into tears. He's crying in a graveyard, all the more remarkable given the fact that he knows he's about to demonstrate his divine power over death and prophesy of the coming resurrection in himself and the glory to come. He still slips into the most common universal language, the language of suffering, and he breaks into sobbing. By the way, if God can cry, so can you.
Speaker 2:The rabbis taught the people in Jesus' day that the soul of the deceased hovered over the body for three days, hoping for an opportunity to re-enter After the third day. On the fourth it was to have departed to shield. That's obviously superstition. Jesus condescended to that superstition and you'll notice that he does not show up until the fourth day, even though he had already heard about it. He wants to leave. No doubt, no opportunity to deny this miracle. Lazarus will not resuscitate from nearly dying. He will be resurrected from the dead. So Jesus waits, allows for their superstition.
Speaker 2:In verse 43, jesus says we're told with a loud voice Lazarus, come forth. Literally Lazarus here outside. That's what he said Here outside. Augustine was the one who first said that if Jesus had not called Lazarus by name when Jesus commanded come forth, everyone buried in that cemetery would have immediately resurrected. So tears are followed with great joy. There is a harvest of resurrection power in that one man that will be seen in all of us one day.
Speaker 2:Jesus is weeping in a cemetery for a man. Let me show you something else. Jesus is also weeping in the garden of Gethsemane for a nation. You might turn to Matthew, chapter 23,. Matthew chapter 23 and verse 37. By the way and I won't have you turn, but back in Hebrews, chapter 5, verse 7, we're told that in the days of his flesh he offered up prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears. Now, not only does that text in Hebrews 5 inform us that there were numerous times that Jesus wept. More than likely included in that comment is this particular context here where he is weeping over a nation. Oh Jerusalem, jerusalem, he weeps. I would have gathered you, he says, like a hen would gather her chicks under her wings, but you refused me. I believe Hebrews 5.7 would be a reference to this particular moment where Jesus is standing just outside the city weeping for his rebellious nation. In the garden, jesus Christ effectively surrenders, of course, to the will of the Father. That's another incident where he will weep. Matthew's Gospel account in chapter 26, at verse 36, jesus comes with them to a place called Gethsemane and he said to his disciples sit here while I go over there and pray. Now you have to get into your mind this picture of the Lord. He's deeply troubled.
Speaker 2:In Jerusalem there were no gardens. The city was too crowded for that. In fact there was a law that the city soil couldn't be polluted with manure. People didn't have gardens. It was so cramped, and I'm sure people in general, because of the cramped, crowded conditions, appreciated that anti-manure law. We have a field behind our house and when that farmer spreads the manure he'll sort of. Well, you know. Anyhow, some of the richest residents own private gardens out on the Mount of Olives. So evidently Jesus had a wealthy friend who had evidently offered him his garden as a place to rest, and this is the third occasion where we see him weeping.
Speaker 2:In Matthew, chapter 26, at verse 37, we're told that Jesus took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, sorrowful and troubled. This particular text refers to being surrounded by sorrow. Jesus not only cries over the death of a loved one and the rebellion of a nation, but he's crying over the suffering that he will bear for the sake of a rebellious world, and what it will mean. He says to them in verse 38, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch with me.
Speaker 2:We don't have time to dig into this, but why would Jesus ask them to watch with him? Is he concerned about the fact that they're going to betray him? Is he troubled over their soon-coming desertion? Is this sort of an implicit warning to Peter that he ought to stop promising and start praying? Is he grieved over this rejection that he will endure? Is he grieved over the sin he will become for the whole world? Verse John 2. Is it already ringing in his ears that his people will shout We have no king but Caesar. Is he weeping over the coming loss of fellowship with the Father? Is it the pain of crucifixion? Was it the ugly truth that he would be saturated with the sin of all time, even though he had never known one single sin? I think all of the above are true, all of it.
Speaker 2:Jesus Christ is about to go out weeping, but what a different Sunday morning will make when he brings a harvest. He's the first fruits of that harvest, translating into a harvest of joy, the seed of self-sacrifice, similar to what we've seen demonstrated several times in the lives of believers. We've studied Believers who were surrounded by the sorrow of night. We've watched some of these, haven't we? We go through great, great trouble. Then the tables turned and there was a harvest of fruit, some of them only after they died, some of them while they were alive. But the sorrow of night was replaced with the joy of the morning. Sewing with tears brought in a harvest with great joy. In this last biographical study in our series, it remains to me one of the most touching demonstrations of self-sacrifice death and sorrow, and fruit.
Speaker 2:In 1921, a man by the name of David Flood and his young wife, sveya, and their little two-year-old son left Sweden for the interior of Africa. They traveled with another missionary couple from their church in Philadelphia. Both couples sang in the choir Sveya, in fact, was the leading soloist of the church But they committed their lives to the field and left for unreached villages in Africa. They were filled with this sense of enthusiasm and optimism, and courage and excitement. They literally hacked their way through the mountainous region of the Congo to begin their ministry at yet an undetermined at least at that point in time village, just totally on their own, going into the unreached arenas of that area. To their surprise and sadness, one village after another refused them entrance. They were told by villagers that they couldn't come in because the missionaries would anger their village gods and bring them trouble. So they wouldn't even let them.
Speaker 2:In Days of carrying their own supplies, they're hungry, they're weak, they're already stricken with the oncoming effects of malaria. They reach another village on the side of a hill, a small mountain, and they would finally settle there. But the chief. At least they hoped. But the chief was even more hostile than all of the others. He demanded that they leave. Their biography reads you can imagine four young adults and a two-year-old boy hacking their way through the jungle. They struggled to carry their supplies to the summit of that hill and putting up their tents. They knew they were too weary to set out again, so they decided to clear the brush and build mud huts, doing their best with these hostile neighbors.
Speaker 2:During the next agonizing weeks, which stretched into agonizing months, david and Savelia and the Erickson struggled to learn Swahili. They tried everything they could do to reach into the village, but they were turned away every time that the chief simply tightened his grip on his people. The villagers were even prohibited from visiting the missionaries. They were very curious about them, but one little boy was allowed to go up weekly and sell them eggs. David was amazed at his wife's insistence that they might never reach that village And probably it didn't look like it impacted Africa. But maybe she could win this child for Jesus Christ. So every time the boy would visit the camp, she, she showered him with love and attention and she would teach and learn from him as well. And sure enough, the other missionaries watched one afternoon as Savelia dealt with this little boy and led him in a prayer of repentance and faith. Now he had to keep his decision for Christ a secret in the village lest he not be allowed to return, or maybe worse, to the others. This mission was a failure. Eventually the Erickson's decided to leave David and Savelia and their little boy, and they returned to an established mission post several miles away.
Speaker 2:Blood family remained battling malaria, desperately crude conditions, no connection to the village. And then Savelia announced that she was expecting their second child. She was already weak. With the battle with malaria struggling, they feared the worst. It was too late to travel through the jungles of this is the Belgian Congo without risking her life in the life of their unborn child, the baby then they decided would be born in that mud hut on the mountain. That little native boy carried the news that she was to deliver very soon And the chief, surprisingly graciously allowed a midwife from the village to serve Savelia. So with Savelia weak with malaria, when the African midwife arrived, in fact, she was groaning in pain and suffering from high fever, and their little girl was born and Savelia whispered that she should be called Ayina, one of the classical Swedish names for girls. 17 days later, savelia flood died. The little girl lived.
Speaker 2:I was able to find that little girl's autobiography and read it last week to fill in some of the details. The little girl's autobiography was filled with rage and hopelessness. He dug a crude grave for his 27 year old wife and wondered how in the world was he going to care for a two year old boy and a newborn girl who was very sickly, without any assistance? Besides, it seemed in his mind that God had abandoned him. So he hired some young men from the village and, with others, took his children down the mountain and to that mission station, miles away. They finally made it there.
Speaker 2:He was finished with the ministry. He was finished with the gospel, he was finished with God. As far as he was concerned, god had taken the life of his faithful bride and their ministry had been nothing but total failure and a tragic waste. The problem still confronting him was that returning to Sweden was still this monumental trip. David knew that he had nobody to help care for or feed his daughter. The Ericsson's you remember them? They're back at that mission station. They had been unable to have children and David offered them the opportunity to adopt Aina, and they were thrilled with this opportunity, this chance to do so. They agreed With that. David took his little boy by the hand, left that mission station, never to return again. In fact, he never even looked back and he would never be back.
Speaker 2:Before Aina turned one year old, joel and Bertha Ericsson, her adopted parents, were poisoned by unbelieving natives and, within days of each other, died excretiating death. Aina was once again without parents. She would soon, however, be claimed by another missionary couple there at the station and raised as their own daughter, and when she turned three, this couple decided to return to the states and they came back and lived in Minneapolis, minnesota. Her Swedish name was changed to Aggie, so if you try to find her autobiography you'll have to look for Aggie Hearst.
Speaker 2:Iena would later write that even as a young girl growing up in Minnesota, she knew that she was different. She quickly became known as the daughter of a missionary who died on the mountain, rescued by missionaries who were poisoned, and as her biography title reads, she was effectively a girl without a country. She felt terribly alone, never fitting in To be watched. Stare that She did give her life to the Lord and eventually attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, in fact married a young godly man who entered the ministry and then the years just kind of traveled along. She had absolutely no information about her father. She knew very little of her past. She didn't know her parents' names, of course, and their homeland of Sweden and something about the mission station and her mother's death. She really had little time to think about it. Her husband, her own family, their busy ministry life. In fact, her husband, dewey Hearst, became the president of a Bible college in Seattle, washington, where they moved and lived.
Speaker 2:Then one day, unexpectedly it's just one of those things God does that you can't explain A Swedish religious magazine is deposited in her mailbox. She wasn't on the mailing list, she had no idea who sent it and she couldn't read it. She didn't know the native tongue of her parents. But as she turned the pages of that magazine, one photograph kind of grabbed her attention. It was a picture of a graveside and a small white cross planted in the earth. On the cross was written the name Sveja Flood.
Speaker 2:She jumped in her car and raced to the home of a college professor who knew Swedish. She translated as she read It's about two missionaries pushing through the African jungle, camping at night, traveling by day, came across a village in the Belgian Congo and they came across this burial plot. They took a picture. They began to inquire, found out that it was the missionary mother of a baby. The death of the mother, but not before leading one African boy to Christ. Then how the father left her in the hands of fellow missionaries, it's never been seen since The article continued.
Speaker 2:Sadly, sveja Flood didn't live long enough to learn that the little African boy they'd want to Christ on that mountaintop went on in time to gain permission from the village chief to start and build a school. Gradually. Now a young man, teacher, leader, he taught the gospel of Christ. All his students came to trust in Jesus as well. Then they evangelized their parents and even the chief became a Christian, and now that village has 600 believers and an active church professing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, all because of the sacrifice and the tears of David and primarily Sveja Flood. I mean I couldn't believe the news. She began to cry And thank God for letting her learn the truth and end of this harvest.
Speaker 2:For their 25th wedding anniversary, the Bible College gave Dewey and Aina a paid vacation to Sweden where, among other things, aina could search for her father. It wasn't difficult to find him. David Flood had remarried, had four children, but his wife, his second wife, had also died. Now, as an old man, he was wasting away as an alcoholic and a professed agnostic who dared anybody to mention God in his presence. After an emotional reunion that's a chapter.
Speaker 2:Along with her half brothers and sister, aina brings up the subject of seeing their father, and the other grown kids aren't too optimistic about the idea. He had become deeply bitter, of course, and had little to do with any of these children, and most of all, he hated God. So they told her look, if you do go and see him, we'll take you to his apartment. Don't talk about spiritual things Whenever he hears the name of God, they said he flies into a rage. Aina was determined to see him. Finally made it to his little apartment, dora was answered by a housekeeper. She writes inside his room there were liquor bottles on every windowsill, the table was covered with even more bottles And in the far corner was a small, wrinkled old man lying on a rumbled bed, his head turned away. Diabetes and a stroke had further crippled him And he had lived in this one room for the last three years.
Speaker 2:Aina writes in her own autobiography, and let me just read it. The housekeeper bent down and said Papa, aina's here. He turned toward me and I took his hand. Papa, i said, and he began to weep Aina, i never wanted to give you away. It was all right, papa, i said softly, holding him in my arms. God took care of me. He stiffened suddenly and the tears stopped. God forgot us all. He spat. Our lives have been like this because of him.
Speaker 2:I was in Africa all that time and only one little boy came to faith. And then I lost your mother. Papa, i've got a little story to tell you. You didn't go to Africa in vain. Mama didn't die in vain. The little boy you wanted. The Lord grew up to win that whole village to Jesus Christ. And today, 40 years later, there are now 600 people in that village serving the Lord because you followed the call of God in your life. He turned slowly around until his eyes met mine, hopeful eyes, longing to believe what I told him, longing for the turmoil of his life to be redeemed in some way. Papa, it's a well-known story. Now We have a great God. The tears returned and he began to talk. By the end of that afternoon the kindness of God had brought him back to repentance and forgiveness and restoration of fellowship.
Speaker 2:Aina and her husband eventually returned to America. A few weeks later, david Flood went home to heaven. Aina would learn that in the final hours of his life, in his delirium, he reverted back and began speaking in Swahili. Now, that would be a great place to put a period. But that isn't all to this harvest. Let me give you one addendum to this remarkable story.
Speaker 2:It would be a few years later that Aina and her husband would attend an evangelism conference in London. There were several leaders, in fact, along the line in this conference, representing denominations and associations of believing churches throughout Africa. They were there to give their reports, one after another. just very briefly, one report was given from the nation of Zaire by the superintendent of that National Church Association. He represented 110,000 baptized believers. He, in his brief time at the platform, spoke eloquently about the spread of the gospel in this country. He said we now have 32 mission stations. We have a 120-bed hospital. We have several large Christian schools. Our churches now have more than 100,000 believers.
Speaker 2:Of course, aina rushes up to him after that service. She has one question for him. I'll let her speak from her autobiography. Sir, could you have possibly met a young missionary couple by the name of David and Savelia Flood? They were on a mission station. All I know about it was that it was high on a hill. Yes, ma'am, he replied. I used to sell them chickens and eggs. It was Savelia Flood who led me to Jesus Christ. And who are you? I'm Savelia Flood's daughter and I was born on that mountaintop. Tears began to run down his cheeks. He embraced me and an African style held me and began swaying with me sobbing from the depths of his soul. I've so often wondered he cried whatever happened to that little girl whose mother died for us. He said to me you've got to travel back to our village. Your mother is the most famous person in the history of our church, aina agreed.
Speaker 2:After months of planning, she and her husband made the long journey back to the place of her birth. Can you imagine that They eventually arrived at the outpost where she had been given by her father to the Ericsons? She played as a toddler with the little African friends. She learned the Swahili language there. She visited the graves of her adopted parents, the Ericsons. Thank God for them. But eventually they drove several miles to the village her parents had so desperately prayed to reach. Only this time, when she arrived, there were hundreds of villagers waiting and cheering as she came into view. They built arches and covered with flowers for her reception. Aina writes.
Speaker 2:Eventually, the pastor of the village church led me up the hill, all the people following. At the top of the hill was a flat place beneath a grove of trees, and the pastor pointed to it and said that's where your parents mud house once stood. That's where you were born. He then turned and pointed without a word to a simple grave framed in cement. Over it stood a tall, beautiful palm tree overlooking the entire valley below, and marking the grave was that small white cross And on it, written survey a flood 1896 to 1923.
Speaker 2:Aina writes I was standing where my mother had stood declaring the gospel to one small boy.
Speaker 2:She writes and now I knew the harvest of the seed She had sown in tears. The pastor opened his Bible, crowding around with hundreds of believing villagers, and he read a single line from the songs They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Beloved, god knows what it means to weep. God knows what it means to suffer loss. Jesus Christ knows what it means to sow seed that doesn't seem to bear fruit. Right, but God knows the end. He knows the end That the tears of sorrow and frustration and pain and grief are going to be soon wiped away, replaced by indescribable joy and the fruit of the gospel seed, you and me and the fruit of your efforts, which you have no idea. You have no idea how they exist and where, along with thousands of villagers and David and Sveya flood and all the others we've been privileged to study. We, we the fruit of the seed of Christ sown in tears, the harvest that has come from our own lives will turn into this harvest of of great joy that we cannot even imagine.
Speaker 1:That was Stephen Davy, the president of Wisdom International. You're listening to his series called Modern Heroes of the Christian Faith. If you enjoyed hearing the story of David and Sveya flood, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening, And please subscribe so that you'll hear the next episode. Stephen has a website filled with resources to help you know what the Bible says, understand what it means and apply it to your life. Learn more at wisdomonlineorg. I'm Scott Wiley. Thanks for listening and join us again next time on Modern Heroes of the Christian Faith.
