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October 24: John G. Paton

24 October, 2014 in October 2014 by davidtmyers | No comments

Courage in the Cause of Mission
The young seminary graduate traveled with his bride to a two year foreign mission stint in Alberta, Canada. Settling in the apartment underneath the church sanctuary, the newly ordained minister on Reformation day in 1966 began his first pastorate to the small Canadian mission church. Sometime during the first few months, he discovered in a used book store the two volume set of John G Paton, missionary to the New Hebrides. That stirring mission account became the Lord’s Day reading for the  young couple all during their stay and ministry in the capital city of the province.
Yet the author of this post in Presbyterian history did not have to worry about his physical safety, or that of his bride during our time there. Being eaten by cannibals was never on our minds and hearts. But to the Rev. John G. Paton and his wife, this was a constant danger in a society utterly depraved in word and deed. Indeed the lives of some earlier missionaries to those islands did end in that terrible way, while attempting to minister the Word of Grace to these same inhabitants. Yet still these Presbyterian missionaries in the mid-eighteen hundreds went courageously to these islands with a firm belief in the sovereignty of God and a loving desire to see the natives converted to Christ.
Paton believed in the power of the gospel. Yes, there were difficulties. His first wife and child both perished in childbirth. He was subject to threats of life and limb on a day by day basis. More than once, he had to flee for his life to a tree limb or to a ship which came providentially off the coast. But with the provision of a second wife, he was blessed with a quiver full of children. In God’s timing, he was also blessed with a quiver full of spiritual children, as the entire island of Aniwa inhabitants came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And it was on this day October 24, 1869, that he was able to offer the Sacrament of Communion, in the Presbyterian manner, as he was apt at saying in his ministrations on that island.
He would go to be with the Lord on January 28, 1907, with his wife proceeding him by two years. Both are buried in Australia.
Words to Live By:
There is a notable quotation which was given to a Scotsman who, upon hearing of John Paton’s desire to minister in the islands of the South Pacific, said to him, “Cannibals! You will be eaten by cannibals.” Paton replied to the old saint, “You are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.” May you and I, dear Reader, have a similar desire to go and minister for the Savior, come what may, knowing . . . knowing that our lives are sure and firm in the Savior’s plan for our lives.

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October 23: Ulster and the Killing Times (1641)

23 October, 2014 in October 2014 by davidtmyers | 1 comment

Massacre in Ulster

Some of our readers may be acquainted with the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in France when Romanism decided to rid their nation of the Huguenots, or French Calvinists in the land. Well, did you know that a similar massacre occurred in Ulster, or Northern Ireland in the mid seventeen hundreds?

The atrocities were so horrible during this massacre that some historians try to downplay the whole scene. It was to them purely a nationalistic issue in that the Irish wished to reclaim their ancient lands from the Scotchmen who had occupied them. Yet Sir Phelim O’Neill, one of the leaders of this movement, stated that he would never leave off the work he had begun until Mass should be sung and said in every church in Ireland, and that a Protestant should not live in Ireland, be he of what nation he would. Certain elements of the Roman Catholic clergy recommended that a general massacre was the safest and most effectual method of putting down the Protestant ascendancy. Immediate entrance into heaven, without stopping in purgatory, was promised to the assailants. And so on this day, October 23, 1641, the initial outbreak of this cruel rebellion took place. It would not end fully until eleven years had passed.

This author does not wish to describe in detail the atrocities which transpired upon Protestant men, women, and children. After all, these posts are devotionals. Yet certainly the events of those days rival and even surpass the terrible times of the early church under persecution, as described in Hebrews 11:32-40. Thousands of Irish Presbyterians, along with their pastors, were slaughtered by their Roman Catholic neighbors.

The mass killings were stopped by the arrival of Major General Munro and ten thousand Scottish troops, who arrived in February of 1642. Partial order was restored, even though it was the beginnings of a decade of war in the land.

Words to Live By:
Incidents like this are hard to understand for God’s people, whether then or now. What purpose did God have in allowing His people to be removed from France or Ulster? It is a question which no one but God can fully answer. This is why theologians have spoken of “hard or dark providences” on earth. Moses answers under the Holy Spirit a biblical answer in Deuteronomy 29:29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.”

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October 21: Rev. Bruce Hunt – Imprisoned for the Faith

21 October, 2014 in October 2014 by davidtmyers | 2 comments

Though He was Bound, the Word of God was Not Bound

Bruce Hunt was not totally unprepared for the inevitable.  This Orthodox Presbyterian missionary had been ministering to the Korean Church in Manchuria since 1936.  With the imperial nation of Japan on the offensive, attempts had been made to control the church in lands under their control.  Specifically, the attempt was being made to force all people, including Christians, to engage in emperor worship.  To committed Christians, to those who confessed that Jesus is Lord alone with no other God beside Him, this was unthinkable.  Bruce Hunt not only believed this firmly, but he taught this truth to the church of Korea.  Twice he had been taken down to prison and warned that if he persisted in his teaching, judgment would be waiting.  On October 21, 1941, Bruce Hunt was arrested in Harbin, Manchuria.

For the next year, Rev. Hunt would be separated from his family,  his church family, and his freedom.  But he was not separated from his God and Savior.  In testimony of the gospel, like countless persecuted Christians before him, including the apostle Paul of New Testament times, he witnessed to his tormenting guards, evangelized his fellow inmates, and offered encouragement to others who were being tried for their Christian faith.

In one of the many cells into which he was thrown, he realized that a tiny metal tip on one of his shoe laces provided him with a writing tool.  In the darkness of his cell, he wrote in Korean on the soft walls of the cell the famous verse, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His own begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  You dear reader, surely recognize these words as coming from John 3:16.  It was just one of the many times that he left a witness to the next prisoner who would enter that cell.

Once, he decided to place all ten commandments of the Law of God upon the wall in Korean.  He made it to eight commandments, when a guard saw it and stopped him from completing it.

Another time, he found the time to write Romans 6:23 all the way through.  It said, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Finally, when all “tools” to write had been taken away, Scripture texts on  his lips provided divine opportunities to share his Christian faith with guards and fellow prisoners alike.  Quite clearly, while Rev. Hunt was imprisoned, the Word of God was not imprisoned.

Eventually he was exchanged and went back to the United States with his family.

Words to live by:  In our true story about Bruce Hunt writing Scripture texts on the wall of his cell, there is a very real presupposition which was necessary for him to witness in this way.  And it was this.  He had memorized certain portions of the Word of God so that he could write them without having his Bible as a guide.  Question?  If you did not have your Bible present with you to read and write verses of it, how many texts of Scripture have you memorized which could prove to be a comfort to you and a witness to others in prison with you?  Scripture memorization, even with a proliferation of Bible versions today, is a spiritual exercise of our parent’s generation.  Yet, we are closer than they are to difficult times.  Memorize the Word of God!  Begin today.  Start with the texts of salvation.  Ask your pastor what you should memorize.  Ask yourself the question, what verses would I want to know if I was arrested for the sake of the gospel?

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October 18: Death of Thomas Manton  (1677)

18 October, 2014 in October 2014 by davidtmyers | No comments

Ejected by Man but Not by God
Thomas Manton was yet another Presbyterian clergyman who was ejected by the Church of England in 1662, but who continued to “preach” through various opportunities given his way. Born in the early part of the seventeenth century, Thomas Manton was baptized on March 31, 1620 in the south west part of England. Attending typical schools of his day as well as formal education at Wadham College at Oxford,  he graduated in  1639. He was ordained a deacon, but refused orders as a priest in the Anglicanism of his day.
He began his ministry as a lecturer in 1640 and soon was ministering as a rector at Westminster Abby and St. Paul in London. He was one of three scribes who took down in writing the discussions of the divines at Westminster Abby in the assembly of the same name. He wrote the preface to the second edition of the Confession and Catechisms. A member on the Presbyterian side at the Savoy Conference, he sought and failed to get amendments to the Book of Common Prayer. Refusing to take re-ordination vows of the Anglican Church, he was ejected in 1662 along with 2000 other Puritans and Presbyterians. Taking opportunities to preach in various places to his leaderless congregation, he was caught and spent six months in prison. Like some others, he took the declaration of indulgence in 1672 from the king so that he could preach in his home. He died on this day, October 18, 1677.
Such are the bare facts of his life and ministry. However, no less than J. C. Ryle of a later century would commend his life and ministry from the books which he had written, all published after Manton’s death. Listen to Ryle’s commendation of Manton’s Calvinism. He says, “There is a curiously happy attention to the proportion of truth. He never exalts one doctrine at the expense of another. He gives to each doctrine that place and rank given to it in Scripture, neither more nor less, with a wisdom and felicity which I miss in some of the Puritan divines.”
Further writing of Manton, J.C. Ryle states that he “held strongly to the doctrine of election.” Manton believed in “the need of preventing and calling grace. But that did not hinder him from inviting all men to repent, believe, and be saved.” Another example of the proportion of truth is that Manton “held strongly that faith alone lays hold on Christ, and appropriates justification.” And then, “Manton held strongly the perseverance of God’s elect. But that did not hinder him from teaching that holiness is the grand distinguishing mark of God’s people, and that he who talks of ‘never perishing,’ while he continues in willful sin, is a hypocrite and a self-deceiver.”
We can be thankful that publishing companies like the Banner of Truth Trust have reprinted the Collected Works of Thomas Manton.
Words to Live By:
Thomas Manton was a Bible expositor. Happy is that Christian reader who attends a congregation where the man in the pulpit opens up the Scripture in an expositional way. Those in our Reformed pulpits are to “preach sound doctrine, diligently, in season and out of season; plainly, not in the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit, and of power; faithfully, making known the whole and fervent love of God and the souls of his people; sincerely, aiming at his glory, and their conversion, edification, and salvation.” (Larger Catechism No. 159 Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms)

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October 17: John Flavel ordained (1650)

17 October, 2014 in October 2014 by davidtmyers | 1 comment

You Could Not Sit Under His Ministry Unaffected

 

flavel_johnOur title characterizes John Flavel (sometimes spelled Flavell). Born in 1628 in Bromsgrove, Worchestershire, he was a pastor’s son. His father educated him in biblical truths which stood him in good stead when he studied at University College, Oxford.  Ordained on October 17, 1650 by the Presbytery of Salisbury, he accepted a call six years later to the seacoast town of Dartmouth, where through his reading and close meditation upon the text of the Scriptures, self-examination, and prayer, his pastorate began to have a spiritual effect upon the people.

One of this flock wrote of him, “I could say much, though not enough of the excellency of his preaching, of his seasonable, suitable, and spiritual matter; of his plain expositions of Scripture, his talking method; his genuine and natural deductions, his convincing arguments, his clear and powerful demonstrations, his heart-searching applications, and his comfortable supports to those that were afflicted in conscience.  In short, that person must have a very soft head, or a very hard heart, or both, that could sit under his ministry unaffected.” (Erasmus Middleton, Evangelical Biography, 4:50 – 51). What a remarkable commendation of a man of God in any age, and one to be emulated by those called to the ministry of the Word among our readers.

Flavel was one of the 2000 plus ministers ejected from Anglican pulpits and parishes in 1662, but he didn’t stop ministering to his people by that act. He met them in homes, in secret places in the forest, really anywhere to continue his ministry of the Word.  Constantly under threat of arrest and imprisonment, more than once soldiers of the realm would interrupt the precious hours of prayer, the Lord’s Supper, and the preaching of the Word. Once, the only place of worship was an island, which at a certain hour of the day, would be submerged by high tide. Congregants hungry for the Word of God as preached by Flavel would keep their boats handy so as to jump into them at the last moment!

Taking two indulgences offered by King Charles II and King James, Flavel would part company with the Covenanter Presbyterians by accepting these opportunities to proclaim the unsearchable riches of God’s grace further. He continued that spoken ministry accompanied by the writing of numerous books, works which continue to minister today in both print and electronic editions. This author has had in his ministerial library during his forty years in the pulpit, the six volume “Works of John Flavel,” which includes an exposition of the Westminster Shorter Catechisms. If you have not read any of Flavel’s works, you are missing a great treasure.

He departed this life in 1691. However, being dead, he continues to speak through his writing to countless churchmen and lay people today.

Words to Live By:
It was said of John Flavel that “He preached what he felt, and what he had handled, what he has seen and tasted of the Word of life, and they (his listeners) felt it also.”  Speaking to the readers of these posts, how faithful are you to pray for, encourage by your attendance and notes, those who minister to you the word of God?  Scripture says in Hebrews 13:7, “remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you, and considering the results of the conduct, imitate their faith.”

A few small samples of Flavel’s writing, first on the glories of Christ Jesus, then second on discerning divine providence:

“The whole world is not a theater large enough to display the glory of Christ upon or unfold even half of the unsearchable riches that lie hidden in Him. And such is the deliciousness of this subject, Christ, that were there ten thousand volumes written upon it, they would never become tiring to the heart. We used to say that any one thing can finally tire us and this is true, except about this one eminent thing, Christ, and then one can never tire, for such is the variety of sweetness in Christ.”

“Search backward into all the performances of Providence throughout your lives. So did Asaph: ‘I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old. I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings’ (Psalm 77:11, 12). He laboured to recover and revive the ancient providences of God’s mercies many years past, and suck a fresh sweetness out of them by new reviews of them. Ah, sirs, let me tell you, there is not such a pleasant history for you to read in all the world as the history of your own lives, if you would but sit down and record from the beginning hitherto what God has been to you, and done for you; what signal manifestations and outbreakings of His mercy, faithfulness and love there have been in all the conditions you have passed through. If your hearts do not melt before you have gone half through that history, they are hard hearts indeed. ‘My Father, thou art the guide of my youth’ (Jeremiah 3:4)”.—From The Mystery of Providence, chapter nine.

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