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
Faith, Sacrifice, and Service: The Inspiring Story of Jim and Elizabeth Elliott.
Ready to challenge your understanding of faith, service, and sacrifice? Join Stephen Davey, President of Wisdom International, for an insightful journey through history, faith, and personal commitment. Mirroring the American Civil War, we delve into the war that rages within us as Christians, a war against a world at odds with God.
Now, imagine this battle playing out in the heart of the Ecuadorian rainforest. We take a deep dive into the compelling story of Jim and Elizabeth Elliott. Their relentless pursuit of a native tribe, their sacrificial commitment to bring the gospel to them, and the life-altering consequences of their determination. Their legacy is an inspiring testament of faith that resulted in the translation of the Gospel of Mark, the conversion of the Alcaz and a renewed understanding of what it means to be ambassadors for the Gospel. As we unravel this epic saga of courage, conviction, and ultimate sacrifice, let's consider the cost of being God's messengers and the wealth of resources we can use to understand and apply the Bible in our lives.
Welcome to Modern Heroes of the Christian Faith. With Stephen Davie, i'm your host, scott Wiley. In this series, stephen explores the lives and legacies of ordinary people whose faith had a profound impact. Stephen is the president of Wisdom International. You can learn more at wisdomonlineorg. In today's episode, you'll meet Jim and Elizabeth Elliott. His was a legacy of self-sacrifice, hers was a legacy of forgiveness. Together, they remind us that while the cost of discipleship is great, the reward is far greater.
Speaker 2:Wilmer McLean had retired from the Virginia militia and had become a rather successful wholesale grocer living there in his home state. He, however, was doing everything he could to stay out of the conflict that was brewing because, again, he was retired from the military. In this developing conflict he wanted to avoid known as the American Civil War. He wanted to stay out of harm's way, but harm's way seemed to follow him. In fact, the first major land battle of the Civil War that took place on July 1861 was called the First Battle of Bull Run. It took place on McLean's plantation in Manassas, virginia. Union artillery fired at McLean's house because it was being used by the Confederate general and his staff as their headquarters. In fact, a cannonball dropped down his fireplace, destroying most of his kitchen. Mclean never wanted to take sides, since he was retired, you remember, from military service. Wanting nothing to do with this outbreak of war, he sold his plantation after that battle and moved his family 120 miles south. To get out of harm's way, he bought another plantation in Appomattox, virginia. Poor guy. When General Robert E Lee knew that he was going to surrender, he sent one of his aides to Appomattox to find a location where they could meet. That aide knocked on the door of Wilmer McLean's plantation home. Later, mclean is supposed to have said the war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor. Indeed, it did.
Speaker 2:On April 9, 1865, the meeting took place in his parlor. It lasted two and a half hours, according to historians, when it was officially over, soldiers from both sides, officers and even citizens wanting mementos of this historic occasion. When the ceremony was over, they began to take articles from his home, essentially anything that wasn't tied down. They simply handed McLean money as he stood there in his parlor protesting. One general gave him $40 for the table that Robert E Lee had used to sign the surrender upon. Well, sheridan himself paid McLean $20 in gold coins for the writing table that General Ulysses S Grant had used to draft the terms of surrender. He had his assistant take the writing desk outside and tie it to the saddle of his horse. Soldiers and citizens alike kind of went through McLean's home like they were at a flea market. It took pictures from the walls. They took table settings, silverware, furniture and even the drapes. When it was over and all the people were gone, nearly everything from Wilmer McLean's home was gone as well. Here was a man who wanted to steer clear of the conflict, and yet it really did start in his front yard and end in his front parlor.
Speaker 2:One of the misconceptions of the Christian life is that we really ought to be left alone, that we ought to be able to avoid conflict with the world, that somehow we have a right to peacetime, conditions that we can avoid involvement in really the conflict of the ages that battles around us even today for the lives and hearts of the human race. According to God's design, though, every Christian has been drafted into service And, frankly, your front yard and your front parlor do not belong to you. They belong to the commander in chief, whom we follow. In fact, we've all been, according to the Bible, commissioned to occupy a singular role. It'll have a million applications and it'll have a million different assignments to this commission, depending on the will of God for our own particular lives, but we are to take the gospel to a world that is at war with God, and we put everything on the line as we desire, as we seek to see a peace treaty signed between man and God. The apostle Paul informs the Corinthians, in his second letter, of this special commissioning.
Speaker 2:Turn to 2 Corinthians, chapter 5. Second Corinthians, chapter 5. Look at verse 18. Paul writes if you want to back up verse 17,. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. What are some of those new things Now? all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Did you catch that? He reconciled us to Himself and then turned around and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. In other words, our lives effectively serve as front parlors where we effectively demonstrate to a world at war. We deliver the gospel of Christ to those engaged in civil war against their Creator.
Speaker 2:Paul goes on to reference not only the ministry of reconciliation but the message of reconciliation. Look at verse 19, namely that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. In other words, mankind has reconciled to God by means of Christ's death, burial and resurrection. The sin he references them as trespasses that are in the way or no longer in the way, that is, they have been paid for by Christ. They're no longer in the way of potential peace with God. There's nothing in the way of mankind signing the treaty. The gospel is the message of reconciliation, It's the word of reconciliation. Reconcilation really is nothing more than accepting the terms of surrender offered by God through the peace treaty drafted on a blood-soaked cross. And that's the treaty we offer as we engage our world and deliver to them the message.
Speaker 2:In case any of the Corinthian believers or believers living in Cary or in this vicinity get the idea that this ministry, this message of reconciliation, is for euclurgy, you paid people. He clarifies here that we're all involved. Look at verse 20. Therefore, in other words, based on what I've just said, we he includes the church we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us. We beg you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. We are ambassadors of Christ, begging the world to come to the parlor, so to speak, and sign the peace treaty, believe the gospel, surrender to the one who has already won the war. Part of our problem in misunderstanding our commission is in misunderstanding this idea of being an ambassador. You know, we're tempted to think in modern terms, whatever we may have and I'm sure we have misconceptions, but we tend to think of ambassadors as men and women who spend a lot of time attending banquets, wearing out tuxedas or formal dresses, you know, smiling at foreign dignitaries who really don't mean what they say. But that's okay, because we're going to try to put our best foot forward and the best face on our unsettled and rather uneasy peace. We need to understand it.
Speaker 2:When Paul wrote this, roman provinces were divided into two types. Provinces that were peaceful and had no need for station troops were called senatorial provinces. Those provinces that were turbulent, typically following a battle where the Roman Empire had succeeded in victory, they would have troops stationed in them and they would be called imperial provinces. Ambassadors assigned to imperial provinces and there were usually more than one were there to effectively deliver to the vanquished people the terms of surrender. It was actually a dangerous job. Ambassadors would show up and they would determine the boundaries of the provinces by order of the emperor. They would draw up a constitution telling the people this is now how you are to live. You can imagine how welcome that would be. They were literally responsible one historian called it for bringing these vanquished people into the family of the Roman Empire. But how great is that? The ambassador reveals the terms of peace from the conquering king. The ambassadors effectively assimilate people who have surrendered into the family of the victorious empire. That isn't the gospel. I don't know what it is. Listen. Listen to some of these additional characteristics I uncovered in my study.
Speaker 2:Ambassadors were to spend their lives among people who, of course, spoke a different language, with different traditions, a different way of life. Ambassadors were often to deliver their message, the message of the emperor, to these people. Ambassadors were to deliver a definitive message to carry out a definitive policy, but they were encouraged to be alert for opportunities to place before their hearers, in the most attractive form possible, the message of their emperor. Listen to this. One author wrote it was the great responsibility of the ambassador to commend his country to the people amongst whom he was placed. What a great analogy for the believer. Do we not do the same? We have a definite message We are to commend, on every opportunity, our home country to the people around us. You can imagine, then, how, throughout the history of the Roman Empire, ambassadors were unwelcomed, unappreciated, often viewed with disdain. You can imagine how, throughout history, ambassadors often lost their lives. Certainly, throughout the history of the Christian church, those who have gone to provinces far and wide on behalf of the kingdom of Christ have often lost their lives.
Speaker 2:Just read and you'll discover that martyrs for the gospel are not diminishing. They are being added exponentially. In fact, conservative estimates by mission agencies place the number of Christian martyrs right around 175,000 a year internationally. That's 482 a day. That's one every three minutes. In other words, while I'm delivering this message, at least 10 people somewhere in the world on average will have died by the time I finish for their public testimony as ambassadors for Christ. Most of these people will not make it into the news. Their deaths will be kept out of the spotlight. But make no mistake, they are received into heaven's glory with a unique crown, according to Revelation, chapter 2.
Speaker 2:For some reason, the deaths of five new tribes missionaries never made it into the headlines. They had attempted to reach a savage tribe in Bolivia in 1943 and all five of them were killed. Never really made it into the news. Thirteen years later, five missionary martyrs would indeed send shockwaves not only throughout the Christian community, but even our own culture took note. Life magazine would publish I've seen the article a 10 page article on the lives of these missionaries. God would choose to use the deaths of these ambassadors in a way that literally incentivized for decades the church to send hundreds, if not thousands, into service. Their names, some not so familiar as others, were Roger Euderian, peter Fleming, ed McCully, nate St and Jim Elliott No doubt the most well-known margar of the five, more than likely because of the fact that his story would be retold through his wife, elizabeth, who would write two books and eventually host an international radio program for many years called Gateway to Joy. Elizabeth, in fact, along with Nate St's sister, would make contact with and actually go to live with the Alkas, this vicious tribe who had cut down their beloved family by spearing them on a sandy riverbed deep in the jungles of Ecuador in 1956.
Speaker 2:Let me reintroduce you to Jim and Elizabeth. Let me back up a few minutes, though, and tell you how Jim and Elizabeth accepted their foreign commission. They met at Wheaton College, where they were both majoring in Greek. You can imagine it was a small class. They would eventually meet. They were actually majoring in Greek because they both felt the leading of the Lord into linguistic and Bible translation. Elizabeth would later write, and I quote her there was this student on campus whom I had been noticing more and more.
Speaker 2:In fact, my brother, dave, had been encouraging me to get acquainted with him. He and Dave were on the wrestling squad, so I went to a match, supposedly to watch my brother wrestle, but I found myself laughing along with the other fans that Jim Elliott nicknamed the India Rubberman because he could be tight in knots without being pinned to the mat. I noticed Jim and the Foreign Missionary Fellowship on campus, earnest, committed to missionary service, outspoken. I noticed him in dining hall lines with little white cards in his hand, memorizing Scripture verses or Greek verbs. Finally, my brother, dave, invited Jim to come to our home for Christmas break and we would end up having long talks after everyone else had retired for the night. When we returned back to college I began to hope that he would sit next to me in class once in a while, and he did often, even when at times he had to trip over other people to get to the seat next to mine.
Speaker 2:Eventually Jim shared his heart's desire to marry Elizabeth, but first believed that God wanted to settle him in Ecuador to learn the language, and Elizabeth would come a little later on to Ecuador as well to serve nearby him. But they agreed to put off their marriage until they both learned the language, so that marriage and homemaking and maybe even parenting duties would not interfere with their ability to speak the language. So, to accomplish their ultimate desire to reach these people, they put off their wedding for five years. Five years after initially proposing, jim and Elizabeth were married in Ecuador. Within two years, he would be dead.
Speaker 2:It wasn't long after their wedding that Jim and his four missionary teammates began to make contact with the Alcaz. In fact, what they did to pursue this brutal, primitive tribe that was still living in pre-stone age conditions was to fly their plane over the village and drop gifts. Roger, ed, pete and Nate, the pilot, along with Jim, spent months pouring over maps of the jungle of Ecuador. Now they were very aware, by the way, of the previous attempt of those five new tribes missionaries. They were well aware of the risk. They knew that they had been savagely killed. One author writes they knew what they were risking. Their dream was not pursued on a whim. They would risk their lives because they firmly believed this was their calling. They were to be ambassadors for Christ, even if it meant losing their lives. So they began to fly over this village and they rigged up a loudspeaker and they would shout as they would circle slowly around the village we are your friends, we are your friends. The team found a sandbar along a river nearby where they landed their plane and eventually contact was made with a couple of younger women in the tribe and everything was progressing wonderfully, even made contact with one of the men, and the missionary team was excited with the prospects.
Speaker 2:On January 8th 1956, they flew back to that same location after spotting nearly a dozen alcohol warriors on the trail leading to that river. Within minutes of making contact, the killing would begin, savagely and unexpectedly. Even though all of the missionaries were armed, they had decided not to fire on any of the warriors, even if they were being attacked. Magnate St had told his wife and son of that decision. He said we have decided that we cannot kill them. They are not ready for heaven. We are Steve St. You've been around here long enough, a number of years. We had him here to speak.
Speaker 2:Nate's son, years after this event, would be seated at a campfire with several of these warriors, now believers committed disciples of Christ For the first time ever. There at that campfire, they were counted to Steve the events of the afternoon. They remembered being mystified as to why the missionaries didn't fire their weapons at them but only into the air instead. Why one of the missionaries would simply wait for one of the warriors to wait out into the river to spear them when he was armed. Why another missionary would beg the warriors in their language we are not going to hurt you. Why are you killing us? We are not going to hurt you. One native said to Steve if he had run away he would have probably lived, but they all died, almost intentionally.
Speaker 2:Months later, elizabeth Elliott, her young daughter, 10 months old, and Rachel Saint, steve's sister, were able to establish a home among these Alkas, thanks to a young native girl who fled the village and come to faith in Christ and then led these women back. These women would live among them for years, adapting the hardships of incredibly primitive lifestyle in order to deliver to them the gospel. In fact, elizabeth would personally lead the Christ to of the warriors from that killing party. Elizabeth would remember and write later, and I quote her. When I stood by my shortwave radio in the jungle of Ecuador and heard the report that my husband was missing, god brought to my mind the words of Isaiah the prophet when you pass through the waters, i will be with you. Jim's absence thrust me, forced me, hurried me to God, my only refuge. I can say that suffering is an irreplaceable medium through which I learned an indispensable truth that he is the Lord.
Speaker 2:Nine years after the martyrdom of these five men, the Gospel of Mark was published in the Alka language. A church had already been established. In fact, the pastor of the church was one of the warriors who'd speared these missionaries. He, if you can believe it, would personally baptize Steve St in that river, adopting him as his grandson. No better way to illustrate the ministry of reconciliation than that. One author wrote God had used these martyrs, a wife and sister of the slain missionaries, to reconcile with the Alkas and bring them the ultimate reconciliation of Christ's salvation. Steve St, just as an addendum in his family, would later return to Ecuador in 1995 and they would build a hospital and an airport for the tribes of this region. In fact, just 15 years ago or so, steve published the conversation he had with these warriors there at the campfire.
Speaker 2:And let me fill you in on one incident. One of the now-aged Alka warriors who'd taken part in the killing of Jim Elliot and Steve's own father told a story that was confirmed by the other warriors who were still alive and the women who'd been there on that sandy riverbed that afternoon. They talked about hearing music, strange music, as the missionaries lay on that riverbed, dead or dying. These Indians began to hear music and looked above the tree line to see a multitude of Kalwodi the same word for missionary or foreigner hovering above the trees. One native described this singing, these people, as lights moving around and shining, a sky full of jungle beetles, similar to fireflies, with a light that was brighter and didn't blink on and off. One of the women who were there told Steve that she had hidden in the bush during the attack and, after it was over, saw the Kalwodi above the trees singing. She said we didn't know what this kind of music was until we later heard recordings played by Rachel St. When she came to live with us She brought a record player and she would play us recordings of Christian choirs singing. That was the music they'd heard, steve said all the participants there saw this bright multitude in the sky and knew they should be afraid because they knew it was something supernatural.
Speaker 2:Evidently there at that riverbank, an angelic host had arrived to testify of these ambassadors who are now heading home and I guess God determined to sing them along their way from their assigned posts to their home country of heaven. God rarely does something like that. That's on this occasion, to give tangible evidence that Christ has overcome the world, even when his ambassadors lay dying. Evidence that we also his ambassadors For you don't have to go to a field to be an ambassador That we have been given the honor of a lifetime to represent his everlasting, victorious kingdom, delivering to our world the terms of surrender and how they might have peace with with God. It might mean the loss of our comforts and the loss of our genders and the loss of our privacy and the loss of our desires, and maybe even the loss of our lives. This is our ministry, this is our message, where his messengers as ambassadors, delivering the message of how to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, who happens to be our conquering, already victorious Lord.
Speaker 1: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. Join us again next time on Modern Heroes of the Christian Faith you.
